The Battle of Shiloh

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The Battle of Shiloh was an extraordinary event in the civil war timeline and would be a great deal as to when the war was fought at its hardest. The sources I have researched and collected will help me better understand this battle and many other facts I have yet to discover. The Battle of Shiloh is not the most well known battle during the Civil war, but it gives us an idea on how gruesome the fighting was during this time. I view this battle as a turning point for the Union and the continuing losses for the Confederate army as they try to gain back territory. Officers of each side had separate plans, where the Union needed to take the Memphis and Charleston Railroads, and the Confederates just wanted to stop the Union troops from advancing further south(CWPT).

The Union was commanded by Ulysses S. Grant and Don Carlos Buell. Grants six divisions of troops were led by Major General John A. McClernand and Lew Wallace, Brigadier General W.H.L. Wallace, Stephen A. Hurlbut, William T. Sherman, and Benjamin M. Prentiss. The whole point into going to Shiloh was to meet up with the other commander Don Carlos Buell and his men, then going to overtake the Memphis and Charleston Railroads (CWPT).

Buell’s army was led by Brigadier General Alexander M. McCook, William "Bull" Nelson, Thomas L. Crittenden, and Thomas J. Wood. These men led over 17,000 troops toward Shiloh and had every intention to kill as many confederate troops as possible in order to take their objective.

The Confederates States of America was commanded by Albert Sidney Johnston and Pierre Gustave Toutant (P.G.T.) Beauregard. Johnston assembled and commanded the Army of Mississippi; their objective was to stop the north from pushing back the Confederates into Missis...

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...ssance or even had a guard who stood look out (CWPT).

The ending of this battle is tragic and enlightening as well, the great idea of sneak attacks at dawn by the Confederates and the righteous timings of reinforcement by the Union, brought this story to my attention. Gathering this information brought me believe that this is a movie, a novel, but this was actual real life. Losing lives in a battle like this one bring only one thing to mind, that each side was fierce on fighting for what they believe in. No other battles before this have had this much bloodshed in less than a day, the planning done by Grant and Johnston was phenomenal. The steady mind of Johnston and the brave hearts that were under Grant is what brought this battle to what is today’s history. Working on this essay has been excellent in my learning process and I hope to be doing another one soon.

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