Essay About General Ulysses S. Grant And Sound Of Bullets

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After Shiloh the South would never smile again. Known originally as the
Battle of Pittsburg Landing, The Battle of Shiloh was the bloodiest battle
fought in North America up to that time. Pittsburg Landing was an area from
where the Yankees planned to attack the Confederates who had moved from
Fort Donelson to Corinth, Mississippi. The North was commanded by
General Ulysses S. Grant and the South by General Albert Sydney Johnston.
The Union army was taken by surprise the first day when the Confederate
Army unexpectedly attacked, but after Union reinforcements arrived the
fighting virtually ended in a tie. Lasting for two days, April 6 and 7 of 1862,
casualties for both sides exceeded 20,000. The Battle of Shiloh was a
message to both the North and South that the Civil War was for real. General
Grant was anxious to maintain the momentum of his victory at Fort Donelson.
His army had moved up to a port on the Tennessee River called Pittsburg
Landing in preparation for an attack on Corinth, Mississippi, where the
Confederate troops were located. General Halleck, Western U.S. Army
commander, had ordered Grant to stay put and wait for reinforcements.
Grant had given command of the Pittsburg Landing encampment to General
William T. Sherman while he waited at his camp in Savannah, Tennessee. (1)
At Corinth, Confederate Generals Albert Sydney Johnston and P.G.T.
Beauregard worked feverishly to ready the 40,000 plus troops there for an
attack on the Union Army at Pittsburg Landing before U.S. Army General
Buell and reinforcements could arrive from Nashville. The officers appointed
as corps commanders for the South were Major General John Breckinridge,
Major General William J. Hardee, Major General Braxton Bragg, and Major
General Leonidas Polk. The South headed for Pittsburg Landing on April 4,
1862 but because of several delays the attack was postponed until April 6.
The Battle of Shiloh began early the morning of April 6. Johnstons men burst
out of the woods so early that Union soldiers came out of their tents to fight.
The Confederate army drove the Yankees back eight miles that day. One
area that was especially troublesome for the South was nicknamed the
Hornets Nest and was commanded by Union General Prentiss. The area
was a sunken road that Federal troops rallied behind and mowed down wave
after wave of Rebel attackers until General Prentiss finally surrendered. The
Hornets Nest got its name from Southern soldiers who reported that the
sound of bullets and mini-balls flying through the air sounded like hornets.
Prentiss fought, as he states, until “half-past five P.M., when finding that
further resistance must result in the slaughter of every man in the command, I
(2) had to yield
the fight. The enemy succeeded in capturing myself and two
thousand two hundred rank and file, many of them being wounded” (The
Rebellion Record, 1865 p 258). Prentiss was captured along with 2200
Union troops. In an interview with General Beauregard after being captured,
General Prentiss stated concerning the Union Army at Pittsburg “I am afraid
that all of our men will be taken” (New Orleans, Times-Picayune, 1862).
When a bystander asked him about General Buell he stated “Buell is not
coming here, and if any forces are on the way they must be very small. I
know nothing of them” (New Orleans, Times-Picayune, 1862). Both sides
had suffered devastating losses and injuries. That evening soldiers from both
armies wash their wounds in a small lake. The pond took on a red tint from
the troops blood loss. From then on, it was known as Bloody Pond. The
South suffered a terrible loss at 2:30 in the afternoon of April 6, 1862.