Shiloh, Battle of

SHILOH, BATTLE OF

SHILOH, BATTLE OF. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's capture of Fort Henry on 6 February 1862 and Fort Do-nelson on 15–16 February in northwestern Tennessee opened the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers to Union water traffic and pierced the center of the Confederate defensive line, so that Columbus, Kentucky, had to be evacuated. Union Gen. Don Carlos Buell occupied Nashville with the Army of the Ohio, and Gen. Henry W. Halleck on 1 March ordered Gen. Charles F. Smith, with thirty thousand troops of the Army of the Tennessee, to concentrate at Shiloh (or Pittsburg Landing), twenty-five miles north of the Confederates under the command of Gen. Albert S. Johnston at Corinth, Mississippi. Buell's twenty-five thousand troops were to join by marching overland from Nashville.

On 3 April Johnston moved out of Corinth, fifty thousand strong, to strike Grant's force before the junction with Buell could be effected. Early on 6 April Johnston made a surprise attack against the unfortified Union position. Vigorous Confederate attacks drove in Grant's outlying units, shattered the hastily formed lines, and pushed the Union troops against the river.

Buell arrived that night. In the morning Grant launched his reorganized army into the Confederate lines. Grant's strike, with the fresh troops of Buell and Gen. Lew Wallace and aided by portions of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's and Gen. John A. McClernand's commands, killed Johnston and swept the Confederates from the field toward Corinth.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bannister, Donald. Long Day at Shiloh. New York: Knopf, 1981.

Daniel, Larry J. Shiloh: The Battle that Changed the Civil War. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.

Sword, Wiley. Shiloh: Bloody April. New York: Morrow, 1974.

Elbridge Colby / a. r.

See also Civil War ; Cumberland, Army of the ; Donelson, Fort, Capture of ; Henry, Fort ; Tennessee, Army of .