find out where c-span's local content vehicles are going next. > the civil war battle of shiloh >> the civil war battle of shiloh took place april 6th and 7th, 1862 in hardin county, tennessee and resulted in a union victory over con federal forces servicing the strategically important mississippi valley region. nearly 110,000 troops took part in the fighting which produced almost 24 thousand casualties making it the bloodiest battle to that point in u.s. history. american history tv visited shiloh park where the ranger gave us a tour of the battlefield. >> if you had been standing here in april of 1862, take you back

another month, even march of 1862, this would have been a busy location. pittsburg landing in the tennessee river, hardin county. the area was being used as a base of operations by the united states army. the army that disembarked here was under the command of ulysses s. grant. the reason the army was in the area was western confederate railroads, princically the memphis charleston line that linked chattanooga eastward, extremely important railroad to the confederate states of america. it intersectioned with the north/south route known as the mobile-ohio, ran from kentucky, the ohio river basin to the gulf of mexico at mobile. secretary of war, leroy pope walker of the confederate states, called these two

railroads the vertebrae of the confederacy. and they intersected, they junctioned just 22 landward miles to the west of pittsburg landing. hence, the revival's military targets for the u.s. forces now attempting to put together a rebellion and we were less than a year into the war when union forces recovered the tennessee valley, the lower tennessee valley by seizing forts henry and donelson in the northern portion of the state. in february of 1862. that opened up the entire lower tennessee to union navigation, particularly gun boats and military forces who could penetrate into the heartland of the confederacy, reaching points in northern alabama, northeast mississippi, to threaten the railroad here in the western confederacy.

the confederates now reeling from the losses of fort henry and donnelson, having abandoned kentucky and middle tennessee and the forces pushed back into northern alabama and north mississippi and western tennessee concentrated to defend the railroads. the area that intersected was corinth, mississippi, where they junctioned. you can see the interplay of railroads and the river which in 1862 was a viable interstate highway. brings about the concentration of major military forces. armies of the united states, under the command of ulysses s. grant and don carlos buell, both moving to form a juncture here on the tennessee river, and the confederate state western forces under albert sidney johnston concentrating now in and around corinth to hold the railroads for the purpose of holding the valley, defending the valley. and that's what brings in all

this activity here at this location in the early spring of 1862. what you would have seen here was, in shifts, steamboats coming in, offloading personnel, as well as all of the elements of what it takes to wage war, all of their equipment, food, tents, you name it. so it would have been very noisy as this massive offloading of personnel, animals and equipment begin to come ashore and go up on top on the plateau which is known as shiloh hill and began to occupy and camp along the landscape here at shiloh. the plateau above pittsburg landing offered quite a bit of advantages to the united states forces under grant. initial reconnaissance by

sherman illustrated they could encamp up to 100,000 men. there was the road networks. it wasn't a lot of roads because it was an area of rural wilderness, landscape, small farms, subsistence farmers living on the plateau. but those roads afforded logistics and communications and what didn't exist the union army could improve upon and build more roads. but suitable encampment ground, naturally defensible, as sherman described it. it was cut up, the top graphical relief that will encompass the area the union forces occupy which becomes the battlefield of shiloh, has a maximum elevation relief of 230 feet. the average is 50 to 80 feet with sloping grades of 40 to 70% on creeks and tributaries that cut up the plateau. so it's a rugged landscape ,and

with only 625 acres on a cultivation, the area was covered in an old growth open forest, which would be a huge canopy. this was old growth forest. most americans have never encountered what was the old growth forest. but if you can imagine most of the trees being in excess of 100 years to 200 years old that covered the landscape. you would have the marshy zones and the creek valleys which would be choked with denser vegetation. in general, an old growth, open forest, high canopy. the average line of sight even under the canopy, was, say, maybe 100 to 200 yards. it was musket distance. if you want to use a military terminology. that's where they pitched their

tents, under the canopy. there was a limited amount of open space and what open space was available they're going to need for instruction training. half of the army had never been in combat before, so there was going to be a great deal of instruction necessary. for their opponent, for the con federal forces that the union forces understood were gathering before them to defend the railroads, as many as eight out of ten of those con federal soldiers, including their officers, had never been in com combat before. so what was shaping up here was an eventual clash at some point between pittsburg landing and corinth which was going to involve basically green armies. men who had never experienced a shot fired in anger. so a lot of people drive through shiloh today. we lay roads out where the ground is easier to negotiate.

so i think that misleads visitors today when they drive on to the battlefield, they don't get the sense of the topographical relief and the nature of the environment for which the battle is going to be fought on if they don't get out of their cars and step into the woods and start exploring what that forest hides, what it enshrines, because the woods of shiloh are a shrine of american history. we step into the forest, you get a little more perspective on what was the common view for a soldier participating in the battle. in the confusion and chaos of combat, now you've got tens of thousands of muskets, dozens of cannons going off, producing all that black powder smoke, that has a tendency to hang and hold in an area, and everything becomes shrouded, and everything becomes shadowy. so a combination of smoke, and

now you have the forest. the ability to see and understand what's going on, also to recognize friend from foe. and these particular illinois regiments here, the 45th and the 48th illinois to our west will find themselves at a critical point in their battle at around 10 to 10:30 not able to properly interpret a force they see in front of them as being an enemy force. they will see flags which are clearly red, white and blue, and they will misinterpret them as forces that have been in front of them retiring. in other words, friendly forces

in front of them retiring, and they allow that force to move up to within musket distance. and then there's a sudden awakening of the fact they're not friendly, they receive the first volley from what is clearly the enemy force, moving into close proximity to this union line and getting the first shot off. so that's one of the dynamics in the sense it is so covered in trees. that there will be numerous instances of units misidentifying friend from foe. the confederates, unfortunately for them, more of their instances of misidentification were firing into their own troops because of the rapid movements that were being made

in the opening phase of the battle and units co-mingling together as the successive confederate attack formation began to converge on one another. the forward line comes to a halt while it's engaging the union troops, so you have co-mingling of confederate forces. in that co-mingling of commands, they would misidentify one another. and in the chaos and confusion, fighting in the trees, fighting in the ravines, fighting in the shrouded smoke-covered landscape they would fire into one another. we have instances, what we term friendly fire, which officially is known in military language as fratricide. in one instance, elements of five con federal brigades. there's only 16 brigades participating in this battle. we have elements of five confederate brigades firing into one another at about 10:00.

and with devastating effect. in fact the one regiment caught basically in the center of this firestorm, the 4th louisiana infantry, allen said from that point on his men feared friend more than foe. and that was the most devastating fire they received the entire battle. and we're talking about a unit that between noon and 2:00 on the first day would fight at the hornets' nest in three successive charges and be cut to pieces. probably many visitors don't realize that when they enter this four acres where shiloh methodist church is located, it's still owned by the methodists. so they retained the four acres

here of the cemeteries. the church rests in the location where the historic church was in the civil war. it is of a different period of construction. the church that was here was a crude log cabin like this reconstruction. there was a population living here, maybe 200 people at any one time inhabiting the plateau in these farms that made up the shiloh community. and they had places of worship which is what shiloh meeting house represents. it also represents one of the missing components from the cultural landscape here on the battlefield. and that is there are over 70 structures like this cabin here. on the landscape, when the battle occurred. all of them for the most part fell victim to the battle.

we only have one structure on the battlefield that dates to the battle, on a different portion of the battlefield. and you can get a sense that the battle's footprint here on the church property, because artillery position here, stride the corinth road infantry regiments off to our left front, more markers up in the cemetery for second day battle action. ground zero for the battle of shiloh. like the older battlefields that were established before the veterans passed on, shiloh is heavily commemorated by that generation that fought the war. true positions are marked with cast iron markers. for many of the states, the most significant locations where a particular unit might have been engaged, the most significant point on the battlefield that they would determine that the organization was engaged, in this case, illinois, would mark with a regimental monument.

the battlefield is described as one of the best preserved and one of the best marked of the civil war sites. it is so because, like all of the first fields set aside in the late 1890s, it was done so at a time frame where we still had the physical human connection to the period in history for which it was meant to preserve and honor. so they moved slow, we might have had that preserved nature of people now saying, well, it's great, it's one of the best. you can really feel the war here. or, man, how we're able to pin point the locations where the troops fought. it's because the veterans themselves were still alive and if they tarried, it wouldn't

have happened in quite the same fashion. so we wouldn't have that linkage, that touch. you can reach out and touch a monument here, a marker here, and you're touching the generation that fought the war. period. we've reached a point where we're almost three miles to the south and west of pittsburg landing. we've traversed the corinth road which is the primary route linking the landing 22 miles down to the railroad crossover at corinth. the union high command, given that the war in the west sense january of 1862 had really played out to their advantage. everything was reeling in the west for the confederates. and the union high command had this feeling of impending victory.

that they were on the verge of perhaps ending the war in the west. the primary mission was to repossess the mississippi valley. that's the whole purpose. and command had now been organized under a central leader in the west, henry w. halleck, who commanded from saint louis. and he had four field armies maneuvering against the western confederate forces under the supreme western commander in the west for the confederacy, albert sidney johnston. johnston had the encamped now disembarked at pittsburg landing in close proximity to the railroads and corinth junction, but he had three additional union armies pressuring his defenses.

he had one in arkansas, he had pope on the river, had just taken new madrid, grant's force here and buell in the ohio and was maneuvering through tennessee. halleck had ordered a concentration of grant's force with buell. the plan would be once the two armies were within supporting distance, then halleck would come into the field from st. louis, take command of the whole and they would carry out the mission of cutting the vital railroads. to do that, they knew they would probably have to contest with the principle army for the confederates. they knew that the confederate forces were concentrating and that the concentration was occurring in front of grant here in proximity to the tennessee river in direct defense of the railroads. the key word is defense. the union high command believed the confederates were on their heels in a defensive posture and were not concentrating for offensive purposes. and, in that regard, it was a

total misread. one of the issues confronting albert sidney johnston, both militarily as well as politically and publicly. because you can imagine with having now lost foothold in kentucky, having lost middle tennessee, having to abandon middle tennessee with western tennessee threatened, with being forced out of missouri, with union forces now in arkansas, all of this was under johnston's department of control here in the west, that there was a great uproar in the south concerning his leadership and the results of that leadership which were all negative in the spring of 1862.

so he was under a tremendous pressure to right the results of the spring campaign. reverse the course of it. and bring the western confederate forces together for a counterstroke. and that's what the purpose of the concentration at corinth was for. confederates were bringing forces together so that they could carry out some type of counterstroke. and the confederates read that as being defensive in posture. johnston's forces had been scattered. he commanded a front when the spring actions began that extended for nearly a thousand miles, from the appalachian mountain ranges, and westward across the mississippi to the indian nations. it was a huge, huge geographical area of responsibility. and he had basically the same number of troops to carry out

that mission that were now manning a 100-mile front in virginia. so he had a big problem, and the problem was logistics. the other problem was all these western rivers had a tendency to run north to south. they were avenues of invasion by united states forces. as long as they had naval support and the steam power and the shippage to move their forces, they could utilize these rivers as the means of getting at the confederate defenses of entering the confederate heart land. and that's the example of just what you see at pittsburg landing.

so the confederates have been backed up, the confederates believe they're completely on the defensive but they're concentrating and the purpose of that on behalf of albert sidney johnston and beauregard is to bring forces together and strike back. and where they're going to strike back is ulysses s. grant's army encamped immediately to the north. because that's the number one threat on the runway, so to speak. it's the closest, it's the most immediate, at any given day they can march out against the railroads and receiver them. so they have to march against grant. they believe they have to strike grant before buell arrives because they knew that buell was marching overland. their intelligence kept them informed of his daily progress. so in the first week of april of 1862, although the concentration isn't fully complete, johnston doesn't have all the elements of the western confederate army that he believes he needs to successfully mount a counterstroke, he will be urged by subordinates that time is now

to go because of the near proximity of buell to the tennessee river. and he will decide on the night of april the 2nd to put the army into motion and attack grant. it's clear by looking at the confederate battle plan and timeline that they plan to march in one day, april the 3rd, and attack grant on april the 4th. and of course they're gaming for surprise. they're hoping to move fast, get up here, strike grant, catch him by surprise and defeat him in detail, taking him out of the picture and then figure out now how they're going to meet all these other threats. problem for johnston will be communications, won't be perfect on getting the orders issued for the march.

orders are issued verbally on the night of the 2nd. they're written down on april the 3rd. so if you date the message, it tells you to move the next morning, and it's dated april the 3rd, what's communicated to the commander that receives that communication? well, the implication would be i move on the 4th. and getting this huge mass of men that never have really operated together in a newly constituted organization of nearly 44,000 troops, to unwind and maneuver and they're not able to carry it out. units that were supposed to move on the morning of the 3rd don't move out until the afternoon of the 3rd. so they're barely under way before nightfall halts the movement. so now it's clear that they're not going to be able to tackle the morning of april the 4th but johnston hopes possibly to get

into place and attack before sundown on april the 4th. the problem is on april the 4th, mother nature throws in a wrinkle. it rains and it rains and it rains. all day long. on into the next day. so now these dry country roads -- and they really weren't dry. they're still wet from the winter rains, are now just ribbons of mud, where men are knee deep, animals can't budge and move artillery pieces and wagons, and so they bog down and that alters the timeline. so in meeting on the night of the 4th now they know they're not going to be able to attack until possibly the 5th and with the rain persisting through the afternoon on the 5th, you can imagine, they're still not able to get everybody assembled and at the the point of deployment and attack until sundown on the 5th. so now a battle that was planned

to be fought on april the 4th will be fought on the morning of the 6th. now, this is one of the big things that every visitor to shiloh who isn't, you know, civil war buffs, one of the things that really challenges them is, how did the union forces encamped here at pittsburg landing miss this assembly and deployment of a confederate army of roughly 44,000 men who came within one mile of grant's forward camps on the evening of april 5, 1862. and it's easy, i tell them, to reflect on how such surprises occur, when you just reflect on the surprises in your own life. and you understand that grant's orders were not to engage the enemy until buell arrived. and i go, well, you mean he's not defending himself? yeah, he is defending himself. but if your orders are not to engage the enemy until buell arrives and you've cautioned all your division commanders not to

do anything that would pry the enemy into a fight because enemy into a fight because your worry that your army will be drawn into a fight, your orders are defend themselves, but if pressed they're to fall back on the reserves. but by all means don't go chasing out after the enemy. because to do so would run the risk of drawing the enemy into a major engagement and we're not going to fight a major engagement until buell has formed his juncture and we all go at once. grant's division commanders and grant himself were hog-tied from being able to go push the confederates and gain information. so when these skirmishes occur, the union forces react defensively, they defend themselves, they lose some men, capture some troops and gain some intelligence, but they never understand what's behind that confederate force out there and they totally misread it.

they think it's reconnaissance. in the case of april 4th. they just think it's a mix up. they're just come up, trying to bite off pieces of our security screen and get information. had they had the ability to go out and push against it, they would have found out what was behind it. and what was behind it was this build-up of johnston's army. so it's easy to understand how the union forces find themselves surprised here, if you understand that if grant was to go and get viable intelligence, he was going to have to violate orders and attack the confederacy, period. and he's not willing to do that. because halleck was so adamant that they wait, they wait, they wait. so the federals totally misread the fact that johnston has roughly 44,000 men positioned to attack the union forces at

pittsburg landing. if the federal picket front had been pushed in slowly over the course of the last two days to where it was closer in proximity to the union front than where it began, the confederate buildup and the union forces were still lulled into a sense of safety, everything was all secure. at lease the high command. there were men in the ranks, there were officers in the ranks who were of different opinion. one of them was a brigade commander under benjamin prentice, colonel everett peabody. he violates orders and orders out a combat reconnaissance because he's fearful that there's something in front of them based on the way he's reading intelligence, and his brigade is not going to be caught unawares, and he sends out a combat reconnaissance. did peabody believe that the