"Shiloh" A beautiful sounding word, comes from the Hebrew bible, it was the name of a city that had been a gathering place of worship for the Jewish tribes of Judea before the building of Jerusalem. It is no wonder then that Shiloh has been given to other gathering places, towns in Ohio, Florida, Illinois, and Pennsylvania and groups and churches including a remote church in southern Tennessee near Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee river. On April 6; 7th in 1862, Shiloh Church in Tennessee was a gathering place for nearly 100,000 Union and Confederate troops that fought in one the bloodiest battles in the US Civil War.
The Shiloh National Military Park is located in far southern Tennessee, only 12 miles from the state of Mississippi and near the small Tennessee towns of Grump, Savannah, and Adamsville. The battle site was one of the first 5 civil war battlefields designated for preservation in the 1890's. The visitor's center is small but informative with a short film and civil war artifacts and a well maintained cemetery of mainly the Union dead now overlooks the Tennessee River.
The battlefield borders the Tennessee river which played a significant role in the battle. The river is 100 yards wide today; but with the TVA, it is probably a different looking river now than in 1862. The battle site park incompasses hundreds of acres, but is not the total original battlefield. When you think the engagement involved nearly 100 thousand men, the battle field is relatively small. I was immediately struck by the number of monuments erected near the park entrance and scattered throughout the park. Monuments erected by states and the federal government to honor the contributions of the soldiers from both sides that fought there. Just finding and reading all of the monuments would take a long time.
The park has done an excellent job of laying out the different phases and parts of the battle that essentially covered two days of attacks, retreats, and counterattacks by various elements of each of the armies. The geographic areas are labeled, regiments & battalions are identified, positions of artillery are given with actual cannons in place. You can easily visualize the movement of the troops over those two days.
You can drive through parts of the battlefield and see the highlights, although walking trails are also scattered throughout the park.
I was surprised by the number of mid-westerners (Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Missouri,) that made up Grant's Army of Tennessee. The Army of Ohio joined the battle on the second day; so even more mid-westerners fought there.
Because no major city or highway is located near the park, the area is quiet and peaceful. Areas of timber are interspersed with open fields. A variety of birds and squirrels now make the park their home and the solitude of the area makes it a bit hard to grasp the sound, confusion, and terror as the clash of two armies each numbering over 40,000 soldiers over two days that resulted in over 23,000 casualties, including over 3500 men killed and 16,000 wounded. The battle had political and military implications that rippled through the rest of the war and afterwards.
