Shiloh Battlefield

Beyond impressive.  We went back today cuz it got dark on us Friday.  Saturday was snowing so I did some retail therapy in Tupelo, a town with every known franchise. At the liquor store the kid said he's seen snow 3 times in MS.  Lucky us.  It was nothing that stuck on the ground but ironic that it was 50 in Glendive.

Politically correct has run amuck. 150 years after the war Memphis city council renamed Forrest Park last week  cuz General Nathan Bedford Forrest was a brilliant tactical Confederate Calvary leader but too cruel in his killing and later associated with the Klu Klux Klan.  He and his wife were reburied in the park in the 1910s by people that thought he should be more honored.  Old Miss had to give up their plantation owner college mascot cuz he seems too racist.  I said we could relate cuz UND faced sanctions by NCAA if didn't change Fighting Sioux name.  The historian at Shiloh told me Memphis also changed the name of Confederate Park and Davis Park ( Confederate Pres, Jefferson Davis lived in Memphis after being released from prison. )

April 6, 1862 each side had around 40,000 with the Confederates surprising Grant who was waiting for more troops.  They battled from sun up to sundown and by the color coded and shaped signs you can see where the confederates pushed them back and at what time and day,  General Buell arrived with 20,000 fresh troops that night via the Tennessee River and by land.   Confederates retreated to Corinth to protect the RR Monday afternoon.  23,726 died- shocking the world.  To know what to do you listened to the drums - 100 different drum rolls for charge, retreat, lunch, etc.  To hear over the din took 10 drummers.  After 1865, the military changed to buglers cuz the different pitch could be heard easier and the other 9 could be fighting soldiers.

The military terms boggled me so here's the lesson from the ranger:  Company -100 soldiers from the same area named letters (not J), led by captain.  Regiment -10 companies so 1000 men named numbers based on when commissioned, led by Colonel.  Battery 3-4 regiments, led by Brigadier General.  Divisions - 2-3 batteries or 10,000 soldiers, led by major general. At Shiloh may be 6000-8000 cuz of previous loses, on sick leave, etc.  The union names their divisions after Rivers - Tennessee and the Ohio.   The south named them after regions -the Mississippi (Valley).


Shiloh has many monuments honoring those who served.  Illinois monuments dominated the battlefield but they had the most soldiers.  Statues had to be approved and paid for by the state, shipped down by boat, pulled to the sight by oxen and placed at the appropriate site.  Union outnumber the south's statues 50 to 1. I liked one by Arkansas Daughters of the Confederates in 1910. The south was broke and had more pressing issues than statues after the war,  This park allows no statues honoring individuals as it was so chaotic, it was the soldiers, not the generals who were the heroes here.  One statue for Alabama's General "Fighting Joe:Wheeler snuck in during the 30s when a weak supt. bowed to wealthy influential southern ladies.