The Battle of Shiloh was an extraordinary event in the civil war timeline and would be a great deal as to when the war was fought at its hardest. The sources I have researched and collected will help me better understand this battle and many other facts I have yet to discover. The Battle of Shiloh is not the most well known battle during the Civil war, but it gives us an idea on how gruesome the fighting was during this time. I view this battle as a turning point for the Union and the continuing losses for the Confederate army as they try to gain back territory. Officers of each side had separate plans, where the Union needed to take the Memphis and Charleston Railroads, and the Confederates just wanted to stop the Union troops from advancing further south(CWPT).
The Union was commanded by Ulysses S. Grant and Don Carlos Buell. Grants six divisions of troops were led by Major General John A. McClernand and Lew Wallace, Brigadier General W.H.L. Wallace, Stephen A. Hurlbut, William T. Sherman, and Benjamin M. Prentiss. The whole point into going to Shiloh was to meet up with the other commander Don Carlos Buell and his men, then going to overtake the Memphis and Charleston Railroads (CWPT).
Buell’s army was led by Brigadier General Alexander M. McCook, William "Bull" Nelson, Thomas L. Crittenden, and Thomas J. Wood. These men led over 17,000 troops toward Shiloh and had every intention to kill as many confederate troops as possible in order to take their objective.
The Confederates States of America was commanded by Albert Sidney Johnston and Pierre Gustave Toutant (P.G.T.) Beauregard. Johnston assembled and commanded the Army of Mississippi; their objective was to stop the north from pushing back the Confederates into Missis...
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...ssance or even had a guard who stood look out (CWPT).
The ending of this battle is tragic and enlightening as well, the great idea of sneak attacks at dawn by the Confederates and the righteous timings of reinforcement by the Union, brought this story to my attention. Gathering this information brought me believe that this is a movie, a novel, but this was actual real life. Losing lives in a battle like this one bring only one thing to mind, that each side was fierce on fighting for what they believe in. No other battles before this have had this much bloodshed in less than a day, the planning done by Grant and Johnston was phenomenal. The steady mind of Johnston and the brave hearts that were under Grant is what brought this battle to what is today’s history. Working on this essay has been excellent in my learning process and I hope to be doing another one soon.
The novel, “Shiloh” by Shelby Foote is a fictional recreation of the bloody battle. The story begins with the soldiers of the Confederate Army heading towards Pittsburg Landing. The men are marching in terrible conditions. It is pouring down rain and they are dragging their tired legs through the mud. The troops come to a halt so the commanders can talk to General Johnston. General Johnston says the only way they might have a chance is if they plan a surprise attack. As the sergeants hand the men their guns, they are told to check the powder in case it got wet in the rain. A group of soldiers test their guns out on a deer running close by. At the same time the shots were fired, the sun came out and the soldiers started to scream and cheer. These noises combined were more than enough to alert the Union soldiers of the Confederates advance. Palmer remembers what his life was like before going to war. He attended the Louisiana State Military Academy when the Confederacy seceded from the Union. One of his professors predicted the south did not have a chance of winning the war. That night Palmer dreams of holding Sherman at gunpoint making him admit that he was wrong. Prior to the battle, the commanders create a battle plan. Palmer is assigned a part in this process. When the plan fails, Palmer learns that planning a battle is more difficult than it seems because the commanders on the ground face challenges that do not exist on paper.
At the end of his “March to the Sea”, MG William T. Sherman led Union forces from Georgia to the north through the Carolinas to unite with LTG Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia. By doing so, he believed he would be able to cut Confederate forces General Robert E. Lee’s supply lines. In February 1865, MG Sherman captured Columbia, the state capital of South Carolina. The commander of Confederate forces was LTG Wade Hampton who led the force under the command of General P.G.T Beauregard. MG Sherman succeeded in defeating Confederate on the basis of the principles of mission command.
The book begins with an in-depth explanation of what happened in the latter stages of the Civil War. Major battles like Sayler’s Creek, High Bridge and Richmond are described through detailed language. For instance, at High Bridge, “Each man wages his own individual battle with a ferocity only a life-and-death situation can bring. Bullets pierce eyes. Screams and curses fill the air. The grassy plain runs blood red.” (page 61). All of these iconic Civil War battles led up to the Confederate surrender at the Appomattox Courthouse and the inescapable rebuilding of a new nation Abraham Lincoln had to deal with. Next, John Wilkes Booth is introduced and his pro-Confederate motives are made clear. His conspiracy to kill the president is described and his co-conspirators like Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt who also attempted to kill Secretary of State Seward a...
The Confederate General Earl Van Dorn's objective was to "have St. Louis - then Huzza!" He hoped to accomplish this by going north from his headquarters at Pocahontas to the Boston Mountains, where the Union forces under command of General Samuel Curtis had taken up camp. After a nine-day march, Van Dorn finally made it to the mountains. There, he met up with McCulloch and Price, two of his officers. This Confederate Army of the West marched rapidly to Fayetteville on Telegraph Road and then went on to Bentonville in an attempt to overwhelm the Federal troops of Genera...
The Battle of Gettysburg lead by Robert E. Lee was a three-day battle and was an immense turning point in the war for the Confederate army. Lee had designed brilliant plans for battle, but they were not always fully thought out and executed. Furthermore at Gettysburg Lee’s battle plans seemed to be a big guess or gamble and not really certain at all. Having well thought out
The famous Battle of Gettysburg was a major part of the Civil War. Before the Battle of Gettysburg, the Confederate army had the advantage. Although the casualty tolls of both armies were relatively close in numbers, the North and the South’s attitudes towards the war completely differed after the Battle of Gettysburg. The events occurring in the months following the historic battle were what gave the Union Troops the greatest advantage leading to their victory at the end of the Civil War.
The novel The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara depicts the story behind one of the bloodiest, and highly significant, battles of the American Civil War, the battle of Gettysburg. The battle consisted of 51,000-casualties between the Union and Confederate army forces. Mainly focused on letters, journal entries, and memoirs, Shaara tells the story of Gettysburg by using characters from both sides of the war. The characters chosen grasp the divergent views regarding the impending days of the war, and countless numbers of those views develop throughout the novel. Such views come from the Confederates own General Lee and General Longstreet, and the Unions own Colonel Chamberlain and soldiers from both sides. From those depicted
Bobbie Ann Mason’s “Shiloh” follows Leroy and Norma Jean Moffitt, a husband and wife, and their struggling marriage. In the beginning they had a typical marriage, and then as bother her and her husband evolve, Norma Jean questions her marriage and who her husband is. Norma Jean finds herself struggling to make sense of her marriage, and Leroy struggles to move beyond his accident. Through plot structure and third person dramatic point of view, Mason explores the issues of evolving and changing gender roles within a marriage.
Henry Steele Commager’s essay “The Defeat of the Confederacy: An Overview” is more summary than argument. Commager is more concerned with highlighting the complex causality of the war’s end rather than attempting to give a definitive answer. Commager briefly muses over both the South’s strengths
Boom, Bang, Crack! The sounds of muskets being fired, its ammunition ricocheting off rocks and splintering trees are heard all around. The pungent smell of gun powder stings the nose, and its taste makes the mouth dry and sticky. The battle is still young, but blood soaked uniforms and dead or dying men can already be seen, causing the fear of death to enter many of the soldiers' minds. It is remembered that freedom is what the fight is for, so we must continue to gain independence. The battle has been going on for a short time now, although vision is already obscured from all the smoke and dust in the air. It is becoming increasingly difficult to breathe, with all of these air borne substances entering my lungs. People are still being struck by musket balls for the cries of agony rise above the many guns' explosions. This is how the battle to be known as Bunker Hill began.
“All up and down the lines the men blinked at one another, unable to realize that the hour they had waited for so long was actually at hand. There was a truce…” Bruce Catton’s Pulitzer prize winning book A Stillness at Appomattox chronicles the final year of the American Civil War. This book taught me a lot more about the Civil War than I ever learned through the public school system. Bruce Catton brought to life the real day to day life of the soldiers and the generals who led them into battle.
In the short story "Shiloh" written by Bobbie Ann Mason, she expresses a theme stating that taking life for granted causes individuals to lose sight of what is important and how people become blinded by everyone and everything around them. Emotions take a big toll on the way a person handles a situation and people do not necessarily compartmentalize in order to make the right decision with ease. There are various characters represented throughout the story ranging from dynamic to round characters. Norma Jean and Leroy Moffitt are the antagonist and protagonist, both of them are at war with each other. Situational irony occurs when Leroy arrives home and continues to stay home after being involved in a truck accident at work. Norma Jean is not used to her husband being home now and would rather have him on the road again. He is excited to settle down with his wife but she wants him gone. She was comfortable with staying at home alone and now that he is there all the time, her freedom is disturbed. The tone the author entails is complicated, harsh, selfish, and straightforward simply for the matter that their marriage lacks communication which makes any relationship complicated. Straightforward is another tone being described because at the end Norma Jean bluntly tells Leroy that she is leaving him. It is very crucial to his ears and harsh coming from her after sixteen years of marriage. The story takes place in the couple's home, super plaza, and the battleground of Shiloh. In the story the reader is able to foreshadow the outcome as a result of Norma Jean's behavior. Symbolism induces the battleground, Star Trek pillow, Wonder Woman, craft kits, and color of the ruffle. The narrator tells the story from a third person limited om...
The Civil War is one of the defining wars in the history of this great nation. The Battle of Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle in American history, and a turning point in the four year war. At the time, Gettysburg was a small, quiet town generally unaffected by the war. General Robert E. Lee of the Confederate States of America and General George Meade of the Union converged in Gettysburg, and a conflict quickly arose. After three long days of battle the Union pulled away with a victory, though not an easy one. This essay will outline the six themes of history; in essence the who, what, when, where, why, and who cares of this infamous battle.
Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam by James M. McPherson discusses the impact the battle had on the Union’s morale, the cause for fighting the war and Lincoln’s actions. When the Union won the battle it increased their morale and chances of winning the war. The Confederacy’s hope for European intervention was crushed and so was their morale. Moreover, The purpose of the war became not just uniting the states but also to abolish slavery. Therefore, Abraham Lincoln decided to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. All of these outcomes following the Union’s success in the battle led to their winning of the Civil War and reunited the states.
Confederate Army of Northern Virginia led by General Robert E Lee. The battle of Antietam is