07 April 2006

Shiloh

It is the anniversary of the second day of the battle of Shiloh, the battle in Tennessee that demonstrated the resolve of General U.S. Grant, and just how awful things were going to be when the large formations of armed men collided.

Shiloh is the word is Hebrew for “place of peace.”

My great-great Uncle Michael Griffin was not there. I was looking for him the other morning, since I knew he had joined up with the 10th Tennessee Infantry (Irish) when the States began to mobilize for war.

He was working on the railroad in the west, and signed up to defend his adopted state. He and his comrades in the Bloody Tinth, as they were called, were in a Union jail.  They built Forts Henry and Donelson and then were captured and held in Camp Douglas Prison.

They were released with parole, which meant that they promised not to fight again. They cheerfully agreed and reconstituted, the 10th was deployed as sharpshooters through the tough campaigns at Chickamauga, Chattanooga and Atlanta.

But they missed the next fight at Shiloh, and that was the one that showed what that war was gong to be like. I will have to do some more research, but it is possible that my great-great grandfather made the second day of the fighting, since there were many Ohio units that arrived with Beull's re-enforcements on the night of the first day.

But I am getting a bit ahead of myself. Grant had been ordered to follow up his success in the capture of the critical river forts and take the Army of West Tennessee up the to Pittsburg Landing with the objective of securing the region, and to wait for additional forces before proceeding to cut the Memphis & Charleston Railroad.

That line was the only one in the South that ran east-to-west, and the loss of it would begin the systematic dismemberment of the Confederacy.

Rebel General Johnston was determined to not permit that to happen. He believed that with reinforcements, Grant would be unbeatable. So he rounded up 50,000 troops and caught the Federals napping on the morning of the 6th of April, when the winds were gentle and the buds were just getting full.

The fighting was hardest around the little Shiloh Church, and that is what the Union called the encounter. Throughout the day, Johnston's army hammered the Federal right. The Union troops stood their ground in seven hours of close fighting, and the survivors of he day repulsed the last Confederate charge just as the light was failing.

Buell landed the Ohio troops in the twlight, under the cover of the guns of the Federal Riverboats. With the fresh blood, the Rebels had to surrender the ground they had taken, and fell back.

Between the two forces, casualties were more than there were at the famous battle of Waterloo, which ended the fighting in Europe. But there were the equivalents of twenty more Waterloos to come in the civil conflict, and this one was just getting started.

Michael Griffin fought on until the end, and he lived. Great-Grandfather stayed for his full three year enlistment, and when it expired in 1864, he took the bonus to sign up again. There was a lot of pressure to keep the veteran troops in the service for the duration, and of course no one imagined at the beginning that the war would last more than three years.

They gave him half the bonus money up front, and a couple weeks of home leave.

He decided not to go back, and he wound up marrying Mike's sister, who was living in Stuebenville, in southern Ohio. I like to think great-Grandmother was looking out for him, and didn't want any more Federals than necessary hunting for him down in Georgia, where he ended the war on the staff of the crazy Texan John Bell Hood.

The holiday dinners after the fighting was over must have been pretty interesting. They had a lot to talk about.

Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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