The Confederate Army of Mississippi launched a surprise attack on Ulysses S. Grant’s army from its base in Corinth, Mississippi. Union forces began an unexpected counterattack the next morning which reversed the Confederate gains of the previous day. Confederate forces were forced to retreat, ending their hopes of blocking the Union advance into northern Mississippi. The battle was the bloodiest engagement of the Civil War up to that point, with nearly twice as many casualties as the previous major battles.
About Battle of Shiloh in brief
The Battle of Shiloh was one of the first battles in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. It was fought April 6–7, 1862, in southwestern Tennessee. The Confederate Army of Mississippi launched a surprise attack on Ulysses S. Grant’s army from its base in Corinth, Mississippi. Union forces began an unexpected counterattack the next morning which reversed the Confederate gains of the previous day. Confederate forces were forced to retreat, ending their hopes of blocking the Union advance into northern Mississippi. The battle was the bloodiest engagement of the Civil War up to that point, with nearly twice as many casualties as the previous major battles of the war combined. The Union army had suffered heavier casualties than the Confederates, and Grant was heavily criticized in the media for being taken by surprise. The Battle was won by the Union by a margin of 63,000 to 32,000. The Confederates were forced into a retreat, and Johnston was forced to withdraw his forces into western Tennessee, northern Alabama, and Alabama to reorganize his forces. The Confederacy sought to defend the Mississippi River valley, the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, and the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, all of which provided invasion routes into the center of the Confederacy. In September 1861 General Leonidas Polk occupied Columbus, Kentucky, prompting the state to join the Union. This opened Kentucky to Union forces, prompting Confederate President Jefferson Davis to appoint General Albert Sidney Johnston, a respected antebellum army officer, to take charge of Confederate forces.
Under Johnston, Columbus was fortified to block the Mississippi, Forts Henry and Donelson were established on the Cumberlands and Tennessee, Bowling Green, and Cumberland Gap occupied. With numerical superiority, the Union could concentrate troops to break through the Confederate line at a single point and bypass Columbus. Major General Henry Halleck was given command of the Union forces in the Mississippi Valley and in late 1861 decided to focus on the Tennessee River as the major axis of advance. In early March 1862, Brig. Gen. C. F. Smith turned command over to a subordinate commander, then the commander of the Department of the Missouri, then Gen. Henry H. Buell. The fall of the twints allowed the Union to open the Tennessee and Tennessee rivers for invasion routes and opened the way for the outflanking of the Confederate forces in western Tennessee and northern Alabama. In February 1862, Grant’s troops captured FortsHenry and Don Nelson in February, with Grant’s insistence on the surrender of their surrender elevating him to national hero status. In March, Grant ordered the field of command to remain at Fort Henry, and on March 4, he turned the field over to Brig. General C.F. Smith. In April 1862, he ordered the expedition over to Fort Henry to take control of a subordinate field of field command over the Mississippi and Alabama departments. In May 1862, the expedition left the Mississippi but left the site of Fort Henry in the hands of the subordinate commander.
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This page is based on the article Battle of Shiloh published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 08, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
