Sherman’s Folly at ShilohBy Winston Groom 2/10/2012
http://www.historynet.com/shermans-folly-at-shiloh.htmFrom the time of his arrival at Pittsburg Landing [General William T. Sherman] refused even to entertain the possibility of an attack by the large Rebel army known to be converging just 20 miles south at Corinth, Mississippi... By some amazing blunder, the most inexperienced divisions—those of Sherman and Brigadier General Benjamin M. Prentiss—were placed in the outer lines at the maw of the cornucopia, close to the Rebel army at Corinth... The various camps to the south along the cornucopia’s mouth were not even set in a continuous line but placed helter-skelter with huge, heavily forested gaps in between.
Even worse, neither Sherman nor Grant nor anyone else had made the slightest attempt to entrench or erect fortifications, which in all probability would have deterred a Confederate attack. Instead, they spent their days teaching the men drill formations in the farm fields and holding spit-and-polish dress parades... Since the position was protected on both flanks by water, if either Grant or Sherman had told the engineers that the mouth of the cornucopia must be strongly fortified with embrasures, protected batteries, headlogs, abatis, with cleared fields of fire and other expedient military architecture, the encampment would have been nearly impregnable. But this was not done, and great blame attaches to Grant, and to a lesser extent Sherman...
On April 4, 1862...a captain and two sergeants from the
77th Ohio [
the unit that included mitlin's GGGrandfather] strolled away from their camp to visit a cotton plantation about a quarter mile to the south. As they reached a line of trees, they beheld across a field “the enemy in force, and to all appearances they were getting breakfast. We saw infantry, cavalry, and artillery very plainly.” The captain sent one of the sergeants dashing to Sherman’s headquarters, but by this time Sherman was so annoyed that he ordered the sergeant arrested for sounding a false alarm!
Shortly after 7 a.m., Sherman and his staff rode out into an open field (now known as Rhea Field, after the farmer who owned it) in front of the 53rd Ohio, Colonel Appler’s bothersome regiment... the general halted to take out his spyglass and study what appeared to be a large body of enemy troops marching diagonally across the south end of the field half a mile away. Someone in Appler’s regiment suddenly glimpsed a line of Rebel skirmishers emerge from the brush close on Sherman’s right, opposite from the direction he was looking. They halted and raised their weapons to aim. A warning was shouted, but not in time. Sherman started and threw up his hands before his face, exclaiming, “My God, we are attacked!” An instant later the flash and crash of fire from the Rebel volley killed Sherman’s orderly next to him—blew him off his horse and onto the ground, where he lay on his back spouting blood. Sherman himself was struck in the hand, apparently by buckshot, then wheeled his horse with the rest of his staff, dashing away from the field, yelling to Appler as he passed, “Hold your position, I will support you.”
BECAUSE HE HAD consistently sneered at reports of an enemy attack, Sherman was forced to eat his words...Having watched his own orderly shot dead before his eyes (“the fatal bullet,” he said later, “which was meant for me”), Sherman galloped back to his headquarters at the Shiloh church, sounding the alarm to nearby commanders and sending warnings to divisions encamped in the rear, a mile or so north.
With Sherman on the run, Confederates capture the camp of Union general John McClernand on the first day of the battle. (Paul Fleury Mottelay and T. Campbell-Copeland, The Soldier in Our Civil War: A Pictorial History of the Conflict, 1861–1865, New York: S. Bradley Pub. Co, 1893) Fallen Timbers, April 8, 1862https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_ShilohOn April 8, 1862 Grant sent Sherman south along the Corinth Road on a reconnaissance in force to confirm that the Confederates had retreated, or to see if they were regrouping to resume their attacks... Skirmishers from the
77th Ohio Infantry approached a camp of 300 troopers of Confederate cavalry, commanded by Col. Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest was nearly captured and was seriously wounded.. The Union lost about 100 men, most of them captured during Forrest's charge
