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A Day at Shiloh
By
Don Hamilton
On the morning of April 6, 1862,
the sun rose over the Union encampment at Pittsburg Landing. Neither Ulysses S.
Grant, the Union commander, nor Albert
S. Johnston,
the Confederate commander, could possibly know what this day would hold. It
would bring advances in military tactics. It would bring innovations in the
medical field. It would change all preconceived notions that the Civil War
would be short-lived. For Johnston and thousands of
other brave soldiers on the Union and
Confederate sides, it would bring death.
On April 2, 1862, Johnston began his march from Corinth. Meanwhile, at the
Union camp at Shiloh, the Federals troops
spent a day drilling and merry-making. Hundreds went for a swim in Owl Creek.
Others rested.
Grant
wired his superior General H.W.Halleck. "I have scarcely the
faintest idea of attack." told Grant to "sit tight at
and wait for Buell to arrive”. William Sherman,
division commander, was quoted saying to reporters, "Take your regiment to
Ohio. No
enemy is nearer than Corinth."
 Little did he know that the night
of April 5, the huge and powerful Army of the Mississippi was poised to strike just out of
sight of the Union camp.
On the morning of April 6, Johnston told his fellow officers "Tonight
we will water our horses in the Tennessee."
When Johnston's
powerful Army of the Mississippi
hit the federal camps, they had achieved complete surprise. The attack pushed
most Union divisions back to reform elsewhere. Others fought doggedly to hold
their line.
 On the night of April 6, the
long-awaited arrival of Don
Carlos Buell's
reinforcements arrived. Through the cover of gunboat fire, his troops came in
on steamboats.
That morning the Confederates
were pushed back on the ground that they had fought so hard to win the day
before. With the fresh troops, the weary Rebels had little chance to win a
complete victory. The Southerners were forced to march back to Corinth.
The final number of dead or
missing was 13,000 on the Union side and 10,500 on the Confederate side.
Shiloh
was a decisive battle in the war. The South needed a win to make up for land
lost in Kentucky and Ohio. It also needed to save the Mississippi Valley. Memphis
and Vicksburg were now vulnerable to Union
attack, and after Corinth,
there is now doubt that those cities would be the next targets.
However, Grant
and his men had been rid of their over-confidence by the battle of Shiloh. They now knew that hopes for and easy victory
over the south were ill founded. Grant
knew then that this war was going to be, in the words of a Union Soldier,
"A very bloody affair”.
Shiloh
is a Hebrew word meaning place of peace.
PROGRAMS 2006
May 23: Cal Collier
3rd
Arkansas at Wilderness and Spotsylvania.
As
always, the Arkansans acquitted themselves with great galantry and bravery.
June 27: John C. Scott, NPS –
The Pea Ridge Story
including
Dr. Doug
Scott’s recent archeological
survey of the battlefield
July 25: Dr. Bobby Roberts
River War in Arkansas
August 22: Don Nall
The Little Drummer Boys
September 26: Michael B.
Dougan
Snarling cormorants of newspaper filth:
" The Civil War Press of Arkansas."
October 24: Fred Williams
Federal Occupation of Little Rock
November 28:
TBA
Election of Officers
December 2006 –
No meeting Scheduled in December
Visit
www.civilwarbuff.org
Check for Civil war events that you may want to attend
or
reenactments that you can watch.
AND
Register to receive your newsletter on-line.
LifeQuest
LifeQuest is hosting a Civil War
Vignettes class.
Here is a list of the speakers:
April 26 The Arkansas
Road to Secession, Ron
Kelley
May 3 Emma Edmonds: Union
Soldier & Spy,
Richard
A. Williams
May 10 Confederate Covert Operations, Richard A.
Williams
May 17 A Southern Family Goes to War, Ron Kelley
May 24 General Patrick
Cleburne - The
Man, Don Nall
For a complete listing of all of our classes go online www.lifequestofarkansas.org or
call 225-6073
CIVIL
WAR TRIVIA QUIZ
By David Gruenewald
Around the first of the year, our president Jan Sarna
requested suggestions for ways to improve and add interest to our meetings for
2006. I have thought for a long time
that it would interesting, educational and fun to have a trivia quiz as regular
part of our meetings on the events, battles and personalities that make our
favorite war such an endlessly fascinating subject.
I enjoy watching programs on TV such as Jeopardy while
trying to answer the questions. At the March meeting, when our scheduled
speaker canceled due to illness, I introduced the quiz idea. The members present at the meeting tried
their hand at the quiz that I had written on the subject of “Nicknames &
Sobriquets” associated with Civil War Generals.
Some of the members thought the quiz was hard but most did quite well.
Frankly, I wanted to write a quiz that would have a few questions that would be
challenging.
At the same time, a good quiz shouldn’t have questions so
obscure that no one can answer them. We had a three-way tie for first place and
Don Nall was declared the winner in a
tiebreaker. He received a collection of
musket balls and shell fragments donated by Ron Kelly
for his efforts.
After the meeting, I wasn’t quite sure how the idea of the
quiz was received but, as time has passed, I have received nothing but positive
comments on the quiz. Jan and others want to try a quiz again and so I am
writing one now for the April
meeting. I think you will have fun with
it. The one concern that I have had in
doing a quiz as part of our meetings is that it not interfere or detract in any
way from the presentation of our guest speaker.
I feel that a way to eliminate this problem is to hand out
the quiz before the start of the meeting.
Each individual can work through the quiz before the start of the meeting. Then after the meeting starts but before the
presentation, we can go through the quiz with the answers and decide on the
winner.
I hope that that can be done in about five minutes. Of course, taking the quiz is optional and no
one should feel required to participate if they don’t want to.
The quiz is not meant to reveal what you know or don’t
know but, hopefully to be fun and educational.
If we decide to make the quiz a part of our meetings, then it will be
best to have a different member volunteer to write the quiz for the next
meeting.
Several members have approached me with ideas that they
have in mind. It will be helpful if
everyone who wants to try the quiz come to the meeting equipped with a pen or
pencil. I will bring some pencils from my
workshop but I have a limited number.
Let’s give the quiz another try and then decide if we want
to do it one an ongoing basis.
FROM THE
HOSPITAL WAGON
In
March our friend and Former State Historian, John L. Ferguson, died at his Little Rock home, he was 80. Ferguson
served as chair of Arkansas’
Bicentennial Celebration Committee in 1976 and was named a distinguished fellow
of the Arkansas Museum of Science and History in 1993. Ferguson retired as State Historian May 1,
2005. “There was controversy”, archival manager Russell P.
Baker said. “He didn’t want to
retire, but his health was bad. I think it was fitting that he retired on the
100th anniversary of the organization he led for so long.”
Under
Ferguson’s
leadership, the Arkansas History Commission formed the Arkansas Historic
Preservation Program in 1968, which registers historic places and structures
with the national registry. The program is now a part of the Arkansas
Department of Heritage.
Ferguson
organized the Southwest Arkansas Regional Archives, located at Old Washington,
and traveled extensively to help organize historical societies around the
state, Baker said.
The
Arkansas History Commission became part of the Department of Parks and Tourism
in 1971, where he served as director of the history division. The commission
moved into its present quarters in the One Capitol Mall building in 1979.
Ferguson wrote
several books on Arkansas history, including Arkansas and the Civil
War, Historic Arkansas, Arkansas Lives, The Church Called County Line. In 1966,
Ferguson co-wrote a textbook called Historic
Arkansas, which was used in Arkansas
high schools for nearly a decade.
“It had several good maps and charts in it,” Baker said. “We still use it as a resource today.” His long tenure at the commission was not
unusual. “There have only been three State Historians since the commission’s
founding in 1905. There is a tradition of longevity. I don’t think he could
imagine life without getting up and going into work.”
 A SPECIAL THANKS
A special thanks to Vice President Ron Kelly for filling in last month. His
program A SOUTHERN FAMILY GOES TO WAR was exactly what we needed. Superintendent John Scott fell ill at the last moment and
could not make the meeting. He will return to us in June.
Editorial Review
What they
should do is provide a swagger stick with each book,
because this is typical Ed Bearss.
You might as well be standing
just outside the tour bus looking across what is
now an empty field.
Ed continues to create the images of
those Yankees charging up
the field and you standing on the road cutting them
down.
---
Chasles Durnett
FIELDS OF HONOR
by
Edwin C. Bearss
Book Description
 Few historians have ever captured
the drama, excitement, and tragedy of the War Between the States quite like Edwin Bearss.
The acclaimed "Homer of the Civil
War," has won a huge, devoted following with his extraordinary battlefield
tours and eloquent soliloquies about the heroes, scoundrels, and little-known
moments of a conflict that still fascinates America. Antietam, Shiloh,
Chickamauga, Gettysburg: these hallowed battles and more than a dozen more come
alive as never before, rich with human interest and colorful detail culled from
a lifetime of study.
Illustrated with detailed maps
and archival images, this 448-page volume commemorates the 140th anniversary of
the war's end with a unique narrative of its most critical battles, translating
Bearss' inimitable delivery into print. As he guides readers from the first
shots at Fort Sumter to Gettysburg's bloody fields to the dignified surrender
at Appomattox, his engagingly plainspoken but expert account demonstrates why
he stands beside Shelby Foote, James McPherson, and Ken Burns in the front rank
of modern chroniclers of the Civil War, as the Pulitzer Prize-winning McPherson
himself points out in his admiring introduction.
A must for every one of America's
countless Civil War and history buffs alike, this major work will stand as an
important reference and enduring legacy of a great historian for generations to
come.
About the Author
At 80, Edwin C.
Bearss is the America's
premier battlefield historian. The former Chief Historian of the National Park
Service and its current historian emeritus, Bearss leads tours of America's
battlefields more than 300 days per year.
During World War II Bearss was
wounded in the South Pacific. After attending Georgetown
University he began working for the
National Park Service at the Vicksburg
battlefield park, where he oversaw the discovery and excavation of the sunken
Civil War ironside S.S. Cairo. He was appointed Chief Historian of the
National Park Service in 1981. Bearss developed a unique and engaging tour
style that appeals to all interest levels and has inspired a legion of fans. In
1990 Bearss was one of the major experts employed by Ken Burns
for his award-winning series, The Civil War. Bearss has consulted on
numerous documentaries, books, and films including Gods and Generals and
is a frequent face on the History Channel's Civil War Journal. Bearss is
the author of 13 books, including the three-volume definitive history of the
Vicksburg Campaign.
Ed
is a tireless advocate for preservation of Civil War battlefield sites and has
testified before Congress on numerous occasions. He is on the board of
directors of the Civil War Preservation Trust and has been honored by nearly
every group in the United
States that supports Civil War education and
preservation.
According to James McPherson,
Pulitzer prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom, "Ed will deny this, but he has a photographic memory
containing an enormous range of information. I have learned a great deal from
him. He has an enormous amount of knowledge, not just on the Civil War, but in
every aspect of history¿" Shelby
Foote is another known fan; the
reclusive historian is known to show up on Ed's
tours unannounced. Ed
Bearss lives in Arlington, Virginia
with his wife Margie.
James McPherson
(Introduction) is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom
and more than a dozen other books about the Civil War. McPherson
is a professor of history at Princeton
University.
Brooks D. Simpson (editor) is a
history professor at Arizona
State University
and the author of Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, of which the
New York Times said, "Simpson has done a
masterly job. He has given us a detailed and exciting narrative of how one man
succeeded, where so many others had failed"...He is is an oft-published
authority on the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction and frequently leads
tours of Civil War battlefields with Ed Bearss.
The notion that “Union
strength” caused the South
to lose the war is primarily northern. Nevertheless,
here we have a gentleman from Wisconsin
writing
what most of us already knew. However, he does
put the scattered facts
together in a cognitive way.
His story reads more like a novel, complete with
verbal flashbacks. It is a quick read, even when
you say, “that’s not right”
and go look up his premise.
Worth checking out of the library for an afternoon
read.
--- Charles
Durnett
Dixie Betrayed:
How the South Really Lost the Civil War
by David
J. Eicher
 For more than a century, since the end of the
Civil War, the conventional wisdom has been that the South lost because of
overwhelming Union strength and bad luck. The politicians and generals on the
Confederate side have been lionized as noble warriors who bravely fought for an
honorable cause that had little chance of succeeding. But in Dixie Betrayed,
historian David J. Eicher reveals for the first time the real story, a calamity
of political conspiracy, discord, and dysfunction that cost the South the Civil
War.
Drawing on a
wide variety of previously unexplored sources, Eicher shows how President Jefferson Davis viciously fought with the
Confederate House and Senate, state governors, and his own cabinet. Confederate
senators threatened each other with physical violence; some were brutal drunks,
others, hopeless idealists who would not bend even when flexibility was the
difference between victory and defeat. Military commanders were assigned not by
skill but because of personal connections. Debates over such issues as whether
the Confederacy needed a Supreme Court stretched out for years, squandering
time that would have been better spent on making certain that troops were well
fed. Davis
frequently interfered with his generals in the field, micromanaging their
campaigns and playing favorites, ignoring the chain of command. He trusted a
number of men who were utterly incompetent.
Moreover,
Secession did not end with the breakaway of the Confederacy and Davis's
election as president; some states, led by their governors, wanted to set
themselves up as separate nations, further undermining efforts to conduct a
unified war effort. Tensions were so extreme that the vice president of the
Confederacy refused to live in the same state as Davis-and this
while they were trying to win a war.
One of the
most provocative and controversial books about the Civil War to be published in
decades, Dixie Betrayed blasts away previous myths with the force of a
cannonball and the grace of a gentleman. For Civil War buffs as well anyone
interested in how governments of any age can self-destruct during wartime, it
is essential reading.
VISIT
THE
BATTLEFIELDS
WHEN
YOU CAN...WHILE
YOU CAN
SEE YOU TUESDAY NIGHT
for Don
and Shiloh
GOD
BLESS AMERICA
Copyright ©1997 Civil War Round Table of Arkansas
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