Original subtitles

In Hebrew, Shiloh is a word that can mean a tranquil or peaceful place,

which is a bitter irony considering that the Shiloh Church would witness the first great

bloodletting of the American Civil War. The Confederacy was reeling after losing

the Border States and Middle Tennessee in early 1862. However, its western armies were far from

beaten and launched a series of counteroffensives during 1862, successfully stalling the Union’s

advance. However, their gains were fleeting, and by the end of the year, the Union had fully

regained the initiative. In our latest video on the war that divided the American nation,

we will explore the dramatic confrontations at the Battles of Shiloh, Corinth and Stone’s River.

Johnston’s Dilemma General Albert Johnston

of the Confederate Department of Mississippi was under considerable pressure following the

loss of Forts Henry and Donelson from not only Union forces but also Confederate politicians.

Tasked with defending territory many times greater than Joseph Johnston’s Department of Virginia with

far fewer soldiers and resources, he’d made hard but unpopular decisions. Evacuating Kentucky and

Middle Tennessee was strategically necessary but economically and politically disastrous.

Nashville was a major rail hub, gunpowder factory, and food producer, and it was

also Tennessee’s capital. Its loss crippled the Confederacy’s logistics and economy while severely

undermining its legitimacy. Governor Isham Harris understood and agreed with Johnston’s decision,

and Jefferson Davis defended him, but many other politicians denounced him as a coward. Johnston

didn’t publicly respond. He knew only a victory would silence his critics, but his prospects were

dismal. He had about 30,000 troops available to defend Corinth, Mississippi. The crossroad of two

major rail lines , Corinth controlled all the supply lines to western Tennessee. If it fell,

Memphis would have to be abandoned. Worse, it would render all other rail lines west of

Chattanooga worthless and open Mississippi to invasion, and the Federals knew this.

Halleck’s Maneuvering Meanwhile, department of Missouri commander Major

General Henry Halleck was busy using Brigadier General Ulysses Grant’s victory at Fort Donelson.

He immediately recognized Grant as both an important asset and a threat to his own ambitions.

Grant had considerable field command skills but lacked political acumen or ambition. Halleck had

never actually led troops but had considerable political acumen and ambition. Knowing that

Lincoln only valued the former while Grant didn’t understand political maneuvering, Halleck moved to

advance his career while keeping Grant at heel. Halleck recommended Grant and several other

subordinates for promotion while arguing that he should command all western armies as the

most senior general outside Washington. However, Lincoln only promoted Grant. Shortly thereafter,

Grant went to Nashville to confer with Department of the Ohio commander Don Carlos Buell about

attacking Corinth. By the most technically narrow and strict definition, this was abandoning his

military district (a marginally court-martialiable offense at worst), so Halleck used the excuse

to suspend Grant’s command. Halleck was just asserting dominance and quickly restored Grant,

but he also protected Grant. Rivals had dredged up Grant’s past alcoholism and were accusing him of

misconduct, including drunkenness and looting. Halleck lied to the press that the suspension

was for an investigation, which turned up nothing, and the accusations went away.

Grant never learned Halleck’s real intentions, as expected, and actually thanked him for the help.

Meanwhile, Halleck’s department continued winning victories. Samuel Curtis secured southwestern

Missouri while John Pope cleared the southeast. Following Pope besieging New Madrid and Curtis’

triumph at Pea Ridge , Halleck again asked for western command. While his involvement

was only on the logistical and administrative side, Halleck’s department was the only one

actually doing anything. This ability to find fighting men and keep them fighting was enough for

Lincoln to agree to give Halleck command of all Federal troops from Kansas to Ohio on March 11th.

The Importance of Corinth Halleck believed that Corinth was as vital to

the Confederacy as Richmond, and scouting reports indicated that Johnston’s army was underequipped,

understrength, and demoralized. Therefore, Grant and Buell would link up at Pittsburg

Landing. Halleck would then bring reinforcements and lead the combined, overwhelming force to

Corinth as quickly as possible. The reports were wrong about the last point. The retreat from

Kentucky had been demoralizing, but Johnston and his second-in-command, PGT Beauregard,

successfully restored morale while working on the other deficiencies. 15,000 men under Braxton

Bragg were pulled from the coastal defenses to bolster the Army of Mississippi. Earl van Dorn

and the Trans-Mississippi army were supposed to join them, but it was still reassembling

after Pea Ridge. By early April, it was clear to Johnston that even if van Dorn made it,

the Federals would greatly outnumber him, and his men still had outdated equipment.

Therefore, Beauregard advocated attacking first. According to Nathan Forest’s cavalry,

Buell still hadn’t reached Grant, and his camp wasn’t fortified. If they

marched their 45,000 men quickly, they could surprise and overwhelm the 40,000 Federals

at Pittsburg Landing before Buell arrived. In Beauregard’s romantically inclined mind,

a successful attack would let them drive the Federals all the way back

to Bowling Green. Johnston was skeptical, but it was better than the other options.

Battle of Shiloh Grant hadn’t fortified

his camps because he always focused on what he would do to the Confederates, not what

they could do to him. Grant's orders were to not let the men get comfortable in camp and maintain

offensive spirit through drill. Five divisions were sent to Pittsburg Landing on March 11th,

while the sixth guarded the supply depot at Crump’s Landing. The green divisions under

William Sherman and Benjamin Prentiss camped in rougher conditions around Shiloh Church to help

the raw recruits acclimate to army life. Grant himself headquartered in Savannah, Tennessee,

for its telegraph lines. Grant expected Buell to arrive by late March, but Buell didn’t even

begin marching from Nashville until then. Neither he nor Grant felt the need to hurry the march.

The Confederates marched out of Corinth on April 3rd, intending to attack on April 4th. The 20-mile

march would have been easy for experienced troops, but Johnston’s men and officers were

green. Consequently, the march was confused, inefficient, and slow. Consequently, it wasn’t

completed until dusk on April 5th. Beauregard lamented that Buell had to have arrived by then,

surprise was lost, and the attack should be called off. Johnston refused, stating that

he’d “fight if were they a million”. The reality was that retreating after such a march would cause

mass desertion and lead to all the general officers being dismissed at best. However,

the Federals weren’t aware of Johnston’s advance despite pickets reporting rebel activity. Forest’s

cavalry had raided the area recently, and Grant’s division commanders assumed he was back. Grant

only alerted Lew Wallace , believing that Forest would attack Crump’s Landing. In fairness, Forest

was back but was only scouting ahead of Johnston’s advance. That night, Grant wired Halleck that

he didn’t expect an attack, while Sherman and Prentiss told their men there was nothing to fear.

First Day However, Colonel Everett Peabody was worried.

The woods were too noisy yet also too quiet , and pickets were sighting rebel scouts. Something

wasn’t right. Thus, he sent out five companies to patrol the Shiloh woodland at 01:00 and put the

rest of his brigade on alert. At 05:00, Peabody’s patrol ran into Confederate pickets in Fraley’s

cotton field. The ensuing skirmish forced Johnston to order a general attack at 05:30. Fatefully,

Johnston ordered Beauregard to remain at headquarters to direct reinforcements and supplies

while he rode forward to direct the battle. By then, Peabody had raised the alarm. Prentiss

furiously thought Peabody had provoked a battle against orders until the rebel’s organization and

determination made him realize that Peabody had actually disrupted a major attack.

William Hardee’s corps reached Sherman’s camp at 07:00 while Bragg’s corps made

contact with Prentiss at 07:30, having taken two hours to get organized and fight through

Peabody’s brigade . Sherman didn’t believe he was under attack until bullets grazed him and killed

his orderly. Finally realizing the situation, he rapidly organized his division to resist.

The other three Union divisions shook themselves awake and moved to support Sherman and Prentiss.

In response, Beauregard ordered Leonidas Polk and John Breckinridge to the attack’s

flanks , widening the line to envelop the Union flanks. Back in Savannah, Grant was sitting down

for breakfast as Buell’s lead division arrived across the river when the sounds of battle drifted

downriver. On crutches after a riding accident, Grant limped into action, ordering Buell’s men

to keep marching along the east bank and cross at Pittsburg Landing. Grant then hobbled aboard

a southbound steamer, stopping at Crump’s Landing to order Wallace to get marching.

Pittsburg Landing was in chaos when Grant arrived around 09:00. While as a whole his

army was fighting fiercely, thousands of green recruits had panicked and run at the first sight

of the enemy. Even veteran units had fled after being overwhelmed or running out of ammunition.

Reorganizing the cowering men into new units, Grant began building a new line on the ridge

south of Pittsburg Landing. Sherman was leading the defense on the left flank but was gradually

pushed back past Shiloh Church and then Crossroads . Similarly, Prentiss fell back until he and 4500

troops reached an abandoned, sunken wagon road around 11:00 and resolved to make a stand.

Meanwhile, the Confederates had their share of chaos. The dense woods, brushfires,

and gunsmoke ruined unit cohesion, and thousands of green Confederates were fleeing, just like the

Federals. Johnston tirelessly rode up and down the line, encouraging faltering units while

Beauregard rounded up stragglers and sent them back into battle. The Federals on the left and

right were pushed back past Prentiss’ position, remembered as Hornet’s Nest. Grant ordered him to

hold at all costs, and Prentiss complied. Johnston spent two hours unsuccessfully

assaulting Hornet’s Nest as the Union flanks began collapsing. At 14:00, he was hit in the

thigh while riding ahead of Breckinridge’s troops. It appeared a minor wound until Johnston slumped

and nearly fell from his saddle. His popliteal artery had been severed, and Albert Johnston

bled to death at 14:30. Davis later lamented that this was the moment the Confederacy lost the west.

The Gunboats USS Tyler and Lexington arrived and bombarded the Confederates to cover retreating

Union troops. Only Prentiss held his ground, and Beauregard sent 18,000 soldiers to end

him. However, the attacks were uncoordinated and piecemeal, allowing Prentiss to hold out

until 62 cannons were concentrated against him, blowing apart the natural cover. A

final assault forced Prentiss and 2200 troops to surrender at 17:30 as the rest escaped. At 18:00,

Beauregard halted the attack. His troops were too exhausted and disorganized to make the final

push against Grant's breastworks on the ridge, though he expected to finish the job tomorrow.

Second Day During the night, Lew Wallace and two of Buell’s

divisions finally arrived. Wallace had gotten so lost on poorly marked roads that a two-hour march

took all day. Grant’s men rested and reorganized while Beauregard slept in Sherman’s tent,

though his troops didn’t as heavy rain arrived while the warships Tyler and Lexington fired

into their positions all night. Some officers advocated retreating, but Grant refused. The

army was reconcentrated and reinforced. They would attack at dawn. Forest discovered this during the

night but failed to find and warn Beauregard. Dismissed by other Confederate generals, Forest

disgustedly predicted, “We’ll be whipped like Hell.” He was right. At 05:00, Grant and Buell’s

45,000 troops attacked along the whole line. Beauregard only had 20,000 effectives left and

was steadily pushed back to his starting position. At 14:00, the Confederates began withdrawing and

abandoned the field by 15:30. Grant’s infantry was exhausted, and he didn’t have the cavalry

to pursue. However, Sherman unsuccessfully attacked Forest’s rearguard the next day.

Aftermath Both armies suffered

around 10,000 killed or wounded, with another 2885 Federals and 959 Confederates captured

or missing. Only 12,000 were killed or wounded across all major battles

during the first year combined. Both sides were shocked by the casualties,

and firestorms of criticism were leveled against Grant and Beauregard, though the upcoming year’s

battles would make such numbers mundane. Both generals ignored the press and focused

on the battles to come. Lincoln defended Grant, saying, “I cannot spare this man. He fights.”

Halleck arrived at Pittsburg Landing and took command of both armies on April 11th. Grant wanted

to move immediately, but Halleck demurred. The supply lines were too stretched for his liking,

and he wanted to bring Grant’s army back up to strength. Additionally,

he’d ordered Pope to join them after Island Number 10 fell on April 7th. While waiting,

Halleck removed Grant from army command to serve as his second-in-command, a meaningless position,

while George Thomas temporarily commanded the Army of the Tennessee. While primarily done

to prevent Grant from outshining him, Halleck also knew the press would stop attacking Grant

if they couldn’t see him. It worked, and by June, Grant was back in national good graces.

Siege of Corinth Beauregard fell back to Corinth and

linked up with van Dorn . A master siege engineer, Beauregard swiftly turned Corinth into a fortress.

However, he realized this was a mistake shortly thereafter. Corinth’s water supply was limited,

and what Beauregard’s 65,000 men weren’t drinking up was being fouled by waste.

Typhus and dysentery were rampant. Worse, the Federals refused to assault his fortifications,

rendering them worthless. Instead, Halleck’s 120,000 men crawled forward starting April

29th. Refusing to allow another Shiloh, each army advanced less than a mile per day before stopping

to fortify their position. Beauregard repeatedly probed the advancing juggernaut to either find a

weakness or provoke an actual attack, but nothing worked. Pope repeatedly tried to take the bait,

but Halleck had Grant restrain him. Instead, the Federals just fortified their way forward until

Corinth was in artillery range on May 29th. Beaurgard had to evacuate. His sick lists

were longer than the Shiloh casualty list, and there was no hope of relief. To prevent Halleck’s

attack, he issued rations to several units and ordered them to prepare to launch an assault. As

expected, deserters fled to Union lines with the news. As trains began taking sick troops

out of Corinth, bound for Tupelo , he had the men cheer as if reinforcements were arriving. The ruse

successfully convinced Halleck to halt earlier and build stronger fortifications than normal.

By morning, Beauregard had escaped Corinth, letting Halleck claim the pestilent thirst trap.

Halleck Goes East Grant wanted Halleck

to move against Vicksburg immediately, but it was impossible. A wet spring had turned into drought,

and there wasn’t enough drinking water for the army. River levels fell too low for steamships,

leaving only badly damaged railways for supply lines. Therefore, Halleck dispersed the army

to rebuild damaged rail lines, pacify the conquered territory, find enough water,

and just get out of disease-ridden Corinth. Additionally, Lincoln was hounding him to

send an army to eastern Tennessee. A Unionist hotbed under Confederate occupation, Lincoln had

romantic notions of using a reunified Tennessee to tempt other rebel states to rejoin the Union.

Halleck knew that wouldn’t work, but Chattanooga was an important strategic target. Therefore,

he ordered Buell to take the city while Grant was restored to army command to take Vicksburg. In

July, Halleck and Pope were called east. Grant and Buell were independent commanders again,

and William Rosecrans took over Pope’s command, which was now part of Grant’s army.

Heartland Campaign Buell spent June and July

crawling along the railines toward Chattanooga, barely marching 90 miles. Much of this was his

own fault. Like McClellan, he hated battles, believed in a limited war for limited ends,

and always moved with excessive caution. However, Forest was ruthlessly destroying the rail lines,

and he could only move as quickly as repair crews worked, which got worse

when John Morgan’s Kentucky cavalry began raiding the supply lines from Nashville.

Meanwhile, in Tupelo, Beauregard was relieved of command after leaving the army to recover from

Corinth. Davis replaced him with Bragg, who began planning a new offensive with van Dorn. Department

of East Tennessee commander Edmund Kirby Smith was constantly asking Bragg to reinforce him,

then invade Kentucky. Morgan and the Confederate shadow government claimed that Kentucky was eager

to join the Confederacy. More importantly, Smith and Bragg could loot Union supply dumps. After

much consideration, Bragg agreed and moved his army via a 776-mile railroad detour

to Chattanooga . Van Dorn would keep Grant pinned down and retake Corinth if possible.

Van Dorn’s Gambit To accomplish this,

van Dorn had about 30,000 troops from the Trans-Mississippi army and the now-abandoned

Memphis garrison. Defeating Grant’s 55,000 men in open battle was hopeless. Instead, he tried

to trick Grant into giving up Corinth through constant feints and simultaneous raids against

multiple targets. Grant wasn’t fooled and tried to flip the script on van Dorn by attacking isolated

units. Sterling Price would have been trapped and destroyed in Iuka by Rosecrans and Edward Howard’s

corps on September 19th but for acoustic shadows preventing Howard from engaging. Two weeks later,

van Dorn assaulted Rosecrans’ defenses around Corinth . While he successfully breached the outer

defenses over two days of fighting through sheer determination and gaps in the fortifications,

van Dorn never had the men to drive Rosecrans off and retreated to Vicksburg by November.

The Kentucky Gamble Bragg and Smith planned their

campaign on July 31st. Bragg’s Army of Mississippi was too exhausted to advance immediately. Smith

would move north alone to clear the Cumberland Gap before linking back up with an advancing Bragg,

who’d be in overall command as senior general. The two forces would then move into Kentucky,

severing Buell’s supply lines and forcing him into a decisive battle. Victory would deliver

Kentucky to the Confederacy. However, Smith had no intention of letting the senior Bragg take all

the glory. He isolated, pinned, and bypassed the Federal garrison in the Cumberland Gap on August

9th before informing Bragg the deal was off. Therefore, he moved his 20,000 troops to Knoxville

before marching towards Lexington August 14th. Bragg finally moved out of Chattanooga on August

27th with 34,000 troops. By pure coincidence, this and Van Dorn’s operations coincided with

Lee’s Maryland campaign, making this the largest Confederate offensive of the war.

Buell gladly gave up his plodding march east to move north and protect Louisville .

Smith moved rapidly, capturing 4000 raw recruits at Richmond on August 30th, before moving on to

Lexington and Frankfort, causing panic and spurring mass recruitment in Cincinnati and

Louisville. Bragg captured another 4000 men at Munfordville on September 17th. Buell arrived

at Louisville in early September. He was content to let Bragg take central Kentucky until Halleck

threatened him with a possibly-not-metaphorical guillotining if he didn’t engage and finally

advanced with 60,000 troops in early October. Bragg couldn’t fight Buell alone and asked

Smith to link up at Bardstown. Instead, Smith inaugurated a Confederate government in Frankfort

on October 4th, which Bragg attended, leaving his army under Polk’s command.

Polk moved the army to Perryville against orders, thinking that Buell was moving

right for him. It was actually a single division feinting toward Frankfort, and coincidentally,

Buell’s main body marched to Perryville too, looking for water. On October 8th,

the two armies clashed, but neither Buell nor Bragg knew what was happening until it was too

late and what should have been a decisive battle became a confused mess. Polk and Hardee’s corps

pushed back Buell’s left flank while the rest of both armies failed to engage. In the aftermath,

Bragg decided to retreat. His subordinates were insubordinate, Smith was uncooperative,

and Kentucky wasn’t as welcoming as he’d been assured. He’d brought 20,000 muskets

to arm new recruits and had given out less than 2,000. Outnumbered by Buell and another army

marshalling in Cincinnati , Bragg ordered Kentucky abandoned again, retreating to Murfreesboro .

Battle of Stones River

In the aftermath, Bragg and Smith’s armies merged and were renamed the Army of Tennessee

on November 20th. Initially 46,000 strong, Bragg was ordered to detach a division to help defend

Vicksburg on December 16th. Meanwhile, Bragg and the senior generals openly blamed each other for

the invasion's failure and quarrelled constantly, a problem Davis investigated personally but didn’t

resolve. Rosecrans replaced Buell for failing to pursue Bragg, and the army was renamed the Army

of the Cumberland. Moving to Nashville, Rosecrans was threatened with dismissal if he didn’t move

quickly to accomplish Lincoln’s cherished liberation of east Tennessee. After spending

a month organizing and training his troops, Rosecrans advanced on Bragg on December 26th.

Bragg’s 38,000 troops were positioned along Stones River west of Murfreesboro when Rosecrans’ 45,000

arrived on December 29th. After spending December 30th sizing each other up, both generals decided

to attack the opposing right flank with their left on December 31st. Rosecrans set the attack

for 07:00 to let his men eat a hot breakfast, but Bragg would attack at dawn. During the night, the

armies’ bands fought a musical battle that ended in a simultaneous rendition of “Home! Sweet Home!”

December 31st At 06:00, Hardee’s corps attacked

Alexander McCook’s underprepared right wing, which briefly held before crumbling. At 07:00,

Thomas Crittenden’s left wing crossed the river for its attack, only to be recalled

as Rosecrans responded to McCook’s collapse, personally racing around the battlefield to

direct troops where they were needed while growing increasingly blood-spattered as men

died around him. Polk launched the second wave of attacks at 07:00, driving toward the Union center.

Fortunately for Rosecrans, Philip Sheridan had anticipated an attack. His division had been

ready and in line since 04:00. As the attack rolled forward, his men resisted fiercely in

a cedar forest remembered as The Slaughter Pen. By 10:00, the Union’s right had been pushed back

nearly three miles and Sheridan was under attack from three sides, finally withdrawing at 11:00.

Hardee pressed forward, but the rest of George Thomas’ divisions were in place and the attack

broke against what locals called Round Forest but history remembers as Hell’s Half-Acre.

Two blunders saved Rosecrans. On the rebel right, Breckinridge had seen Crittenden’s men cross the

river to attack him, but not their retreat. As such, he was prepared to receive the aborted

attack rather than advance himself. At 11:30, he refused an order from Bragg to send reinforcements

to Hardee, before accepting one to attack to his front, only to embarrassingly discover the

Federals were gone. Shortly afterward, he was ordered to halt and turn to meet a different

attack. Bragg had received false intelligence about a Federal force moving to turn his flank

down Lebanon Turnpike. By the time he learned the truth, the Federal line had stabilized.

Breckinridge finally launched a limited attack on the Federal left at 16:00, but it went nowhere and

fighting ended at 16:30. Bragg was certain he’d won and that in the morning, Rosecrans would be

gone. However, in the Federal camp, Thomas argued correctly that Bragg’s attack had actually forced

them into a better defensive position than they’d started in. With his lines of communication and

supply as secure as they could be with Confederate cavalry roaming around, Rosecrans dug in.

January 1-3 News Year's Day of 1863 was a

miserable one as freezing rain fell all day. Union wounded being evacuated to Nashville reinforced

Bragg’s belief that Rosecrans would retreat, so he did nothing. Rosecrans sent a division back across

the river to protect two crossings and occupy the heights. Finally realizing that Rosecrans wasn’t

retreating, Bragg ordered Breckinridge to attack the isolated division at 16:00 on January 2nd to

“encourage” a Federal retreat. It was a trap. The front line fell back across McFadden Ford,

luring the Confederates into a 57-gun artillery trap, routing them. The standoff continued into

January 3rd, when Federal reinforcements arrived and Thomas pushed Confederate

sharpshooters out of their forward trenches. Bragg finally accepted that Rosecrans wouldn’t

retreat. He only had 20,000 effectives left and was warned that Rosecrans could be reinforced up

to 70,000 soon. Seeing no viable alternative, Bragg retreated to Tullahoma at 22:00, having

inflicted 13,906 casualties and taking 11,739. The Confederacy’s great western offensives were over.

Lincoln thanked Rosecrans for delivering a sorely needed victory following the Fredericksburg

disaster. Join us next time as Grant launches his legendary Vicksburg campaign. To ensure you don’t

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