“Sunday and Monday, April 6 & 7, 1862” wrote Union Major Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, “has been perhaps less understood, or, to state the case more accurately, more persistently misunderstood, than any other engagement between National and Confederate troops during the entire rebellion”. The battle of Shiloh or Pittsburg Landing was fought one hundred and fifty years ago. During the second year of the Civil War, Grant along with Major Gen. Don Carlos Buell, engaged the Army of the Tennessee and Army of the Ohio against Gen. Albert Sidney Johnson and Gen. Beauregard of the Army of the Mississippi. When it was done, about 24,000 men had died, including Gen. Johnson, with the Union forces emerging the victor. The battle was a resounding blow to the Confederacy. Today the site is a National Military Park set on about 4,000 acres on the banks of the Tennessee River one of America’s best preserved battlefields. Timothy Isbell’s book “Shiloh and Corinth” is filled with over 90 striking photographs and will bring the battlefield to life with the present-day landscapes. It also includes photographs of the site including the cemetery were the graves of six Wisconsin flag-bearers are buried together, as they were all killed keeping Old Glory aloft during the fighting. You can learn more about Wisconsin soldiers at the battle in our Local History Room with the book “Wisconsin at Shiloh”. This 1909 report tells the regiment’s role in the battle and the history of the beautiful Wisconsin Monument in the park. This month our lobby display case is featuring this battle as well as others during the 2nd year of the Civil War, 1862.
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