50 Fun Facts About Battle of Shiloh

Which Confederate private captured at Shiloh later became the explorer who found David Livingstone?

Henry Morton Stanley fought with the 6th Arkansas Infantry at Shiloh, was taken prisoner, and briefly switched sides to join the Union Army.

Which best-selling novel did Lew Wallace write after being blamed for his late arrival at Shiloh?

Ben-Hur made Lew Wallace famous in 1880, but he spent decades defending the roundabout march that kept his fresh division out of Shiloh's first day.

Shiloh, the Hebrew name behind the Civil War battle, is usually translated as which phrase?

Place of peace is the usual translation, a grim irony for what was then the costliest battle in American history.

What kind of building was Shiloh, the humble landmark that gave the Civil War battle its name?

A log church called Shiloh Meeting House stood among the forward Union camps, which the Confederate dawn attack struck.

Which Confederate general bled to death at Shiloh, the highest-ranking officer killed in the war?

Albert Sidney Johnston was a full general, outranked in the Confederate army by only one man, and he fell while leading a charge on the first afternoon.

Which Union general, branded crazy by newspapers months earlier, revived his career at Shiloh?

William T. Sherman was wounded in the hand at Shiloh and later said the battle gave him new life after the press had written him off.

Which future US president arrived at Shiloh at the head of a brigade on the battle's second day?

James A. Garfield, an Ohio brigadier in the Army of the Ohio, reached the field on April 7 as the Confederates were being pushed back.

Which former US vice president commanded the Confederate reserve corps at the Battle of Shiloh?

John C. Breckinridge had served under James Buchanan until March 1861, barely a year before he led troops against the US Army.

Which Union captain lost an arm at Shiloh and later explored the Grand Canyon by boat?

John Wesley Powell, an artillery captain, was struck by a Minié ball while giving the order to fire, and ran the Colorado River one-armed in 1869.

How was Samuel Todd, a Confederate soldier killed at Shiloh, related to President Abraham Lincoln?

His brother-in-law: Samuel Todd was a sibling of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, and several of her half-brothers died in Confederate service.

By what other name, taken from a Tennessee River steamboat stop, is the Battle of Shiloh known?

Pittsburg Landing was where steamboats put Grant's army ashore, and Union soldiers named the battle after it.

What nickname did soldiers give the Union center at Shiloh, which withstood hours of charges?

The Hornet's Nest took the Confederates about six hours to overrun, time the Union used to build a final line of guns near the river.

Roughly how many soldiers were killed, wounded or missing in the two days of combat at Shiloh?

About 24,000 men became casualties, and the killed and wounded alone outnumbered those of the war's earlier major battles put together.

Which fruit trees filled the orchard on the Union left that became a Shiloh landmark?

Peach trees stood where a Union division formed its line on the first morning, and the orchard is now a stop on the battlefield's driving tour.

Who called the death of the Confederate commander at Shiloh the turning point of the South's fate?

Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president, was a friend and admirer of the fallen general and rated him the finest officer the South had.

Which federal agency took over the Shiloh battlefield from the War Department in 1933?

The National Park Service inherited a park dating to 1894; local farmers had pressed for federal action because their pigs kept rooting up soldiers' remains.

Which stronghold's capture, two months before Shiloh, earned Grant the nickname Unconditional Surrender?

Fort Donelson's garrison gave up in February 1862 after Grant refused to offer any terms, and the win made him a major general.

Shiloh was many recruits' first combat, an experience soldiers of the time called seeing which animal?

The elephant stood for hard-won experience of the world in 19th-century American slang, and soldiers borrowed it for a first taste of battle.

After Shiloh's casualty lists appeared, false rumors accused Grant of what during the battle?

Being drunk was a charge that had followed Grant since his 1854 resignation from the army, and critics revived it after Shiloh.

What quality is Abraham Lincoln said to have cited when refusing to dismiss Grant after Shiloh?

His willingness to fight: Lincoln is said to have answered that he could not spare such a man, after a politician called Grant incompetent and a political liability.

Which Confederate general took command at Shiloh after his chief fell, a year after firing on Fort Sumter?

P. G. T. Beauregard had been directing the army from the rear all morning, so some historians argue he was already its real commander.

Which Union general's Army of the Ohio arrived overnight to join Shiloh's second-day counterattack?

Don Carlos Buell brought nearly 18,000 fresh men and later insisted that his arrival, not Grant's leadership, had decided the battle.

The Union gunboats Tyler and Lexington, which shelled Confederates at Shiloh, were which kind of warship?

Timberclads were river gunboats armored with five inches of oak instead of iron, and the pair kept shelling Confederate lines all night.

What did the Confederate commander report in his telegram to Richmond after the first day at Shiloh?

A complete victory was premature: Union reinforcements arrived overnight, and a dawn counterattack drove the Confederates from the field.

Why did many Confederates stop advancing after overrunning the first Union camps at Shiloh?

To loot food and gear, thousands broke ranks among the captured tents, and one staff officer thought a third of the army was plundering.

Why was Ulysses S. Grant on crutches when the Confederate attack opened the Battle of Shiloh?

A fall from his horse had left Grant on crutches, yet he spent the day riding the battlefield and urging his men to keep firing.

Which cash crop grew in Fraley Field, where a Union patrol traded the first shots of Shiloh?

Cotton covered the 40-acre field where a pre-dawn patrol ran into Confederate skirmishers and partly spoiled the planned surprise.

What added to the misery of Shiloh's wounded around midnight after the first day?

A thunderstorm broke at midnight while Union gunboats shelled the Confederate lines, so few exhausted soldiers on either side slept.

Which Shiloh landmark is said to have drawn thirsty wounded men from both armies?

Bloody Pond owes its name to a single story told years later by a local resident; no account from 1862 mentions stained water.

In which Tennessee river town was Ulysses S. Grant at breakfast when he first heard the guns of Shiloh?

Savannah lay nine miles downriver, so Grant boarded his steamboat and reached the battlefield around 9 am.

Where did the bullet strike the Confederate commander who bled to death at Shiloh?

Behind the knee, the bullet cut an artery, and his boot filled with blood before anyone, the general included, realized how badly he was hurt.

Which item, found in the pocket of the Confederate commander killed at Shiloh, might have saved his life?

A tourniquet could have slowed the bleeding, but he had sent his own surgeon to treat other wounded men, Union prisoners among them.

Which Union general surrendered about 2,200 men after his division was surrounded in Shiloh's center?

Benjamin Prentiss spent six months as a prisoner and came home hailed as the hero of Shiloh, though most of the defenders belonged to another general.

Confederate General Daniel Ruggles massed more than 50 of which weapon against the Union center at Shiloh?

Field cannons in that line made up the largest artillery concentration North America had yet seen, remembered as Ruggles's Battery.

Who arrived at Shiloh for a surprise visit to General W. H. L. Wallace on the day he was mortally wounded?

His wife had come upriver unannounced; she helped nurse him for three days, and he died in her arms.

Which Confederate cavalry colonel was shot at close range while charging Union pursuers the day after Shiloh?

Nathan Bedford Forrest was covering the retreat at Fallen Timbers when he was hit, and he still got away.

Which Union soldier at Shiloh later wrote The Devil's Dictionary and a memoir of what he saw in the battle?

Ambrose Bierce drew on the terror of Shiloh for several short stories as well as his memoir of the battle.

Johnny Clem became a Shiloh legend in which army role, though historians doubt he was at the battle?

Drummer boy Johnny Clem was nicknamed Johnny Shiloh, yet his Michigan regiment was not formed until four months after the battle.

Which writer, later the star storyteller of Ken Burns's The Civil War, published the novel Shiloh in 1952?

Shelby Foote told the battle through the eyes of Union and Confederate soldiers, and the novel led a publisher to commission the history of the war that grew to three volumes.

Which American writer included the poem Shiloh: A Requiem in Battle-Pieces, his book of Civil War verse?

Herman Melville's elegy for the battle's dead appeared in a book that sold only 486 copies in its first two years.

Which Mississippi rail junction was the Confederate base before Shiloh and the Union's next target?

Corinth sat where two railroads crossed, about 20 miles from the battlefield, and the Confederates abandoned it to a slow Union advance at the end of May.

Which Union general nicknamed Old Brains took personal command after Shiloh and sidelined Ulysses S. Grant?

Henry Halleck made Grant his second-in-command, a post with almost no duties, then spent a month inching toward the Confederate base.

Which Confederate corps commander at Shiloh was also the Episcopal Bishop of Louisiana?

Leonidas Polk had trained at West Point before entering the clergy, and he was a second cousin of President James K. Polk.

Confederates at Shiloh reportedly compared the sunrise before their attack to the sun of which Napoleonic battle?

Austerlitz was one of Napoleon's greatest wins, and its bright morning sun had become part of his legend.

Which British-made rifles did Confederates gladly take from fallen and captured Union troops at Shiloh?

Enfield rifles were a big step up for an army that began the day partly armed with shotguns, flintlocks and squirrel rifles.

Which Tennessee governor, riding with the Confederate commander's staff at Shiloh, found him slumping in the saddle?

Isham G. Harris asked the pale general whether he was wounded, helped lift him down, and searched in vain for the injury.

Whose Confederate reinforcements from Arkansas did the army at Shiloh hope for in vain throughout the second morning?

Earl Van Dorn was still far away, as the Confederate commander eventually learned, so the retreat began that afternoon.

Which journalist, writing as Agate, published the account of Shiloh that turned opinion against Ulysses S. Grant?

Whitelaw Reid relied largely on deserters and stragglers, and wrongly claimed that Union soldiers had been bayoneted in their tents.

What nickname was given to the faint light that soldiers' wounds reportedly gave off after Shiloh?

Angel's Glow is credited to a luminous soil bacterium that makes antibiotics, though no account from the time mentions it and it may be a myth.

What postwar name was given to the farm lane that Union troops defended in the center at Shiloh?

The Sunken Road name first appeared in print in 1881, and historians doubt the farm track was ever worn below the ground around it.