The staggering casualties of the Battle of Shiloh shocked both the North and South, marking a turning point in public perception of the Civil War's likely length and brutality. It also cemented a name in the public imagination - Ulysses S. Grant.Don's guest is Dr Timothy B. Smith, author of 'Shiloh: Conquer or Perish'.Editor Ayman Alolayan, Producer Sophie Gee, Senior Producer Charlotte Long.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast.
Chapter 1: What was the significance of the Battle of Shiloh?
Mount McGregor, New York, 1885. At a quiet, rustic cottage nestled among pine trees, the late afternoon sun slants across the porch, catching the silver in Ulysses S. Grant's beard. A blanket covers his legs, a knit cap warms his head. In his right hand, a knife-sharpened pencil moves steadily across a sheet of paper as he writes, carefully recounting events from 40 years earlier.
Chapter 2: How did Ulysses S. Grant’s view of the war change after Shiloh?
Grant's memoirs, begun the previous fall in New York City, would grow into a two-volume, 360,000-word work, an astonishing feat completed in just 11 months. It was intended not only to detail his role in the war, but to explain the broader moral purpose of the conflict. Shiloh would be the battle that shattered Grant's illusions about the war.
Like so many in the North, Grant had expected a swift Union victory. But in that wide clearing in western Tennessee, hemmed in by trees, he witnessed relentless close-quarters combat from dawn until dark, as Confederate troops hurled themselves against Union lines.
The End
Dear listeners, glad you could join us. This is American History Hit and I'm Don Wildman. Well, today we resume our march. We started with the episodes on Fort Sumter and Bull Run, undertaking a chronological campaign telling the histories of the major battles of the American Civil War. Ought to take just about as long as it took to fight the war.
But it's worth it, considering the grave consequences and supreme sacrifices made. The Civil War would recreate the United States of America, continuing our great experiment. The war and its aftermath, often called the nation's second founding, shifted the very ground the nation stood upon, so we think it's vital to understand the very grounds those battles were fought upon and why they happened.
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Chapter 3: What were the strategic objectives of the Union and Confederates in the Western Theater?
For now, we find ourselves in the early days, spring of 1862, out in the Western Theater, where the Tennessee River wends its way south past Hardin County, Tennessee, about 100 miles east of Memphis and 20 miles north of Mississippi. These Western regions, they were called in those days because that was the West,
were considered vital to both the Union and the Confederates, since occupying them meant controlling the vital water routes that ran through them, the Mississippi River, the Ohio, the Tennessee. So many supplies and troop movements would be delivered by these waterways. So, accordingly, a series of high-stakes battles would be fought at profound cost of men and treasure.
April 6th and 7th, 1862, was the Battle of Shiloh. And to help us understand this pivotal confrontation, we are joined by historian Dr. Timothy B. Smith, who teaches history at the University of Tennessee at Martin, author of a number of books, including Corinth 1862, Siege, Battle, Occupation, and Shiloh, Conquer or Perish, both from the University Press of Kansas. Hello, Professor Smith.
Timothy, nice of you to do this. Hello. Thank you for having me. Greetings. Let's start with the macro viewpoint of the war to this point. Back east, as I mentioned, there had been the Battle of Bull Run in Virginia, near the capital, a debacle for the Union. But since then, there's been improvements for them, most notably out west. Can you bring us up to date at this point in the war?
Sure. At the time of Shallow, we're only a year in. You know, if you compare that maybe with World War II or the Revolution or something like that, this is very, very early in their stages. So April 1862, there hasn't been a lot of Just what I would call huge battles, maybe Napoleonic style battles.
Yeah, you've got Bull Run and no offense to the Bull Run folks, Fort Donaldson, Wilson Creek, things like that. But these are fairly small revolutionary type battles, Revolutionary War type battles, Mexican War, you know, War of 1812 size battles. And as a result, when you reach shallow and you have this massive battle, This is kind of the beginning of the war a little bit.
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Chapter 4: How did weather impact the Confederate surprise attack on Grant?
It's when the thing is getting serious. It's starting to move past the early moves, the initial feeling each other out, the initial mobilization type stuff. And what leads to shallow, of course, is the Union forces are moving southward along the Tennessee River, trying to pierce this Confederate defensive line in the west that stretches all the way from
the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River across all the way to Indian territory, in fact. And as the Union forces move southward, the Confederates are trying to defend their port railroads, and some of those are near shallow, and that's what brings the armies to that battlefield.
It's really about transportation, isn't it? It's the rivers and the railways that are out there. When I call it the West, I should really clarify this for some of the audience. We're talking about as far as Western Kentucky and Western Tennessee. That is the West as defined by the Mississippi River, really, in those days. How is my description of the stakes out there at that time?
Spot on. There are different debates over what constitutes the Western theater. Some include the Trans-Mississippi is the Western theater. A lot of historians prefer to call this area Western Kentucky, Western Tennessee, Middle Tennessee, Northern Mississippi is really the Confederate heartland, which kind of gets at the importance and the significance here. All these rivers, all these railroads.
I used to joke about the movie Trains, Planes and Automobiles. This is literally railroad, steamboat, wagons that connect the two. So the Industrial Revolution has had a huge impact on warfare. And you see this not just in America, the Crimean War before this, somewhat in the Mexican War as well in America.
But the Civil War, you know, you get into the debate of the first modern war, all that kind of stuff. I happen to believe every war is the most modern war at that point. There is no first modern war. But, you know, the Industrial Revolution absolutely has a significant effect on the Civil War. And we see that vividly at Shiloh.
Yeah. This will be the battle that gives rise to several people, but most notably Ulysses S. Grant. This is where he starts to really distinguish himself as a leader. He's under a man named General Henry Halleck. Can you talk about that man? Because he doesn't get much attention.
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Chapter 5: What tactics did Grant use during the Battle of Shiloh?
He doesn't get a lot of attention, and rightly so. He's not very good. He is America's military theorist. He takes the old Napoleonic Germany mindset and brings that to the fighting men of America. Wrote the book, for instance, you know, the elements of military art and science that a lot of American officers use. So
He is very set in his ways, very rigid in doing things the way Napoleon would have done it. And as a result, he doesn't turn out to be a very good general. Grant, you know, that relationship, you always talk about jealousy and all of that. I'm not so sure it's jealousy. Highlight biographer John Marslake basically says that the two spoke two different military languages.
Alec just didn't like Grant because he didn't do things by the book. He was kind of sloppy. He was not, you know, a rigid by the book kind of guy. Just tell you one interesting story real quick. When Alec shows up after shot, he gets all over Grant for fighting this battle and for not being prepared. You're not ready to fight another battle if we have to, all that kind of stuff.
And at one point he tells him, I'm getting letters from your officers and they are not folding their letters correctly. You have your officers fold your letters correctly by military style. And I'm sure Grant's thinking, how are we going to win this war if we don't fold our letters correctly? You know, so that illustrates the difference kind of between the mentalities of Halleck and Grant.
I said the same thing to my wife about the napkins last night at dinner. It's important to have discipline. So let's talk about Shiloh as a location. As I mentioned earlier, there's a push down from the north. Fort Donaldson, those battles in the days earlier are about the Union pushing down what will eventually become Vicksburg.
I mean, the idea here is to take control primarily of the Mississippi River, but many other places as well, and the railroads. What made Shiloh an important location or Pittsburgh Landing just north of it?
Well, as they say in real estate, location, location, location, of course. Yes, shallow is very much part of the Mississippi Valley campaign, starting up at Belmont, Fort Henry, Fort Donaldson, all the way through Vicksburg. Shallow, in fact, is the largest battle in the Mississippi Valley campaign. So it holds that importance. But what makes the ground at shallow itself important?
is basically the landing on the river itself. There's nothing really at Shallow that makes it important in terms of people saying, okay, we're going to fight a battle here. In fact, Shallow was never intended to be a battlefield. It was intended to be a staging area for further Union operations southward against Corinth, Mississippi, and those important railroads.
So the Union Army will camp there largely because in the spring of 1862, the Tennessee River has risen so much that most of the landings up and down the river are underwater. Pittsburgh Landing being the one or two, there are a couple others around, but the one good one that provides access not only to Corinth, but also good camping areas, good fields to drill the troops, all of that.
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Chapter 6: What role did William Tecumseh Sherman play in the Battle of Shiloh?
Grant relies on Sherman a great deal. A lot of historians talk about the friendship that is born at Shiloh. In fact, it goes back a little earlier than that. Sherman is supplying Grant during the Fort Donaldson campaign, sending him troops, sending him supplies. So they lean on each other then. I think it is, though, at Shiloh where this friendship is born in fire almost.
They really start to depend on each other. It may be overplayed a little bit. I think Sherman, if you know about Sherman, he's kind of a wily guy. I'm convinced that he, even as late as the summer of 1862 and maybe a little bit later when Grant is kind of under a cloud a little bit, Grant stays under a cloud a lot, He's still hedging his bets. He's very friendly with Halleck, right?
And Halleck gives glorious letters. He's very friendly with Grant. And so it's almost like Sherman is saying, okay, I'm going to bide my time, be friendly with both until I see which one I need to hook my wagon to, you know, to go farther. But very much developing a friendship here with Grant. And a lot of that comes out of Shallow.
Sherman does not get the attention he deserves, in my opinion. I mean, people do not talk enough. He's got a lot of statues, nice ones, and a tank that's named after him. But he is critical to all of this. It always surprises me he wasn't running for president one day.
Of course, he has that famous saying that if nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve. He doesn't want to get involved in the politics, and I can certainly understand that. And he probably is the kind that would have made a much better dictator than president. There you go.
I hope we've established that the stakes are high here. There's no out plan for Grant. That's key here. You know, he's backed up by the rivers, the Snake Creek to the north and the Tennessee to the east. This has to work out. Or he spent a lot of his army on this thing. So let's talk about this battle. It happens over a period of two days, primarily, as we say, April 6th and 7th, 1862.
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Chapter 7: How did the geography of Shiloh influence the battle?
Sidney Johnson has brought his troops within four miles southwest of Pittsburgh landing on the Tennessee, but his idea of a surprise has been delayed by the weather. There's been a lot of rain, slogging the roads. Still, he launches an attack on April 6th. How much of a surprise was this, or is that a myth?
Well, depends on your definition of surprise. Yes, the Confederate Army is delayed. We talk about the Industrial Revolution and the steamboats and the railroads. All of those work fine during the rainy, wet weather, muddy and all that.
It breaks down, of course, in between the two where you have to go back to the old fashioned wagons and horses, you know, moving the same way Julius Caesar did 1862 years before kind of thing, you know. So, it does delay the Confederate advance. Beauregard, the Confederate second in command, is absolutely convinced that the enemy will know they're there.
Says, let's turn around and go back to Corinth. Johnson says, no, we're going to do this. We came. This is the great gamble. We have to fight Grant before Buell arrives. So, they launch the attack, and miraculously, it is more of a surprise than Beauregard predicted. Right. But again, their definitions of surprise strategically or operationally, it is very much a surprise.
No federal woke up the morning of April the 6th thinking that they were going to fight the largest battle in American history that morning, that it was that much of a surprise. Now, you get down to tactical level on the battlefield itself.
The Federals are, of course, not expecting to fight the battle, but there is a patrol that's sent out to, you know, a skittish Union brigade commander sends a patrol out. That uncovers the Confederate advance about a mile out from the camp. And as a result, they have warning and they are in line of battle, ready to meet the enemy as they're coming toward their camps.
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And they meet them where they were camped, which, as we say, was the Shiloh. Shiloh is a name of a church. I want to make people understand it translates in Hebrew as a place of peace. So much for that. But the real key strategic point to make at this beginning is that it's not where the Federals plan to stage this. And so they are catching up on this thing real fast. Tell me about the first day.
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Chapter 8: What were the outcomes and consequences of the Battle of Shiloh?
That's the key point here, isn't it? Taking note of the fact that you have now a general who's not only willing to stand and fight, which famously comes out of this, out of Lincoln's mouth, but also has the strategic mind to have chosen a field of battle. Well, it wasn't supposed to be a field of battle, but he's always looking at how to defend And so he's really playing chess as he falls back.
I mean, you watch the materials online and it looks like it's a terrible day. It's like, oh, my God, the Union line is just collapsing. But indeed, he was really playing a game of chess, wasn't he? He was waiting for those reinforcements to arrive.
Absolutely. He knows what he's doing. He lets his generals fight the tactical action while he gives the overall direction. And he'll trade space for time. And you get that very famous incident, of course, when Sherman and a lot of others are counseling retreat during the night. Let's put the river between us and them. We're beaten.
And so Sherman comes to Grant's headquarters and Sherman, of course, enters a room mouth first kind of thing. He just blurts out, well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day today. And Grant responds, yeah, lick them tomorrow, though. And so he chooses to stay and fight.
And this kind of brings out for the first major time, Fort Donaldson notwithstanding, this Grant under pressure that he's not going to give up. He's not going to give in like so many other Union generals did and hightail it northward. He's going to stay and fight it out.
You chomp enough cigars, you can get through anything. Sidney Johnson is a key casualty on the Confederate side. That general is shot in the knee, bleeds out and dies. Major loss for the Confederacy. They never replace him. He was one of those famous Mexican-American war generals, as was Grant. So many of them came out of that time, didn't they?
Lots of them came out of the Mexican War and will learn a lot from the mix. This is the only experience really that they have in the field. And, you know, the field experience, this is this is why we send, you know, education majors out to do student teaching to get some experience. And this is their student teaching in the Mexican War.
And Francis Grant learns, he watches Zachary Taylor and he watches Winfield Scott. And he takes the best of both. He takes Zachary Taylor and kind of his nonchalance and, you know, don't worry about pomp and circumstance and all that. But out of Winfield Scott, who's very much pomp and circumstance, he takes kind of the manner of fighting, flanking out, maneuvering the enemy, that type stuff.
So Grant learns a lot. Sidney Johnson does fight in the Mexican War, particularly at Monterey. Fortunately, Johnston doesn't learn from Mexican war experience and proves to be, I think, a lesser general. He's just not really fitted to be a good general. You have to have a little bark and a little bite to make people do things that you need them to do. I like Albert Sidney Johnson.
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