What advantages did the confederacy in the Shiloh battle?

Answer 1

What advantages did the confederacy have in the Shiloh battle?

1. The massive Union camp at Pittsburg Landing, around which the battle would commence, was on Confederate turf. The Union command set up the camp like a peacetime military base, with neat paths on a grid with tents placed like houses in a suburb. There were few security guards, and the camp hugged the banks of the Tennessee Rive in high water stage during spring rains that continued through the battle.

2. Week's prior to the Battle on April 6-7, 1862, a union telegrapher at Paducah sympathetic to the rebel cause, ran off with vital messages between U.S. Grant and his boss, General Halleck. That heightened Halleck's distrust of Grant. Already envious of his subordinates meteoric rise after triumphs at Forts Henry and Donelson, Halleck thereafter held his sub commander on too tight a leash.

4. The Union command was arrogantly overconfident. Grant himself was only present in the daytime hours during preparations at Pittsburg Landing; his HQ was at Savannah on farther north on the Tennessee River where he awaited supplies. Injured when his horse slipped in mud in a downpour on April 4th, Grant was at Savanna the next morning when a sub commander begged to deploy his men from that place against possible attack at Pittsburg Landing. Grant said to wait; he would send transport steamers to bring the troops past a swamp in a few days. He was certain that the fight would not be at Shiloh, but at Corinth where he thought the rebels were concentrated.

5. Eating breakfast when the mass of Confederate forces swept down on the unprepared Union camp like a tidal wave, Grant heard distant artillery but wasn't sure at first where it was coming from. General Wm. T. Sherman had agreed with Grant that all they would have to do was march down to Corinth, Mississippi, and "root the badger out of his hole," as he said in communications from his division's position in front of the Union line. He added on April 5, "All is quiet along my lines. I have no doubt that nothing will occur today." When he received a report of the rebel infantry massing in the woods, he ordered the officer reporting to " Take your damned regiment back to Ohio."

6. At that moment, Rebel pickets could hear Grant's regimental band playing "Home Sweet Home." Confederate General Johnston's Army of Mississippi was a scant two miles below the Union position, having marched quietly for three days from Corinth, a major Confederate rail head.

7. The Confederates under Johnston had the advantage until Grant arrived on the scene to find his troops cowering under the riverbank, running for the rear, completely routed by the swarm of Confederates. He coolly went about reorganizing, and bought the Union to final victory in what was the bloodiest battle to date. Later, newspapers castigated him for the massive loss of life. Envious rival generals accused him of drunkenness that resulted in that fall from his horse.

8. Some Confederate advantage continued even after the Battle. Halleck refused to allow Grant and Sherman to pursue the Confederates retreating to Corinth. Halleck, who wrote a book of strategy about to how avoid battle, began what Grant called "a siege on the March" that covered the 20 miles in almost two weeks. Hence, rebel forces melted back into the southern heartland by the time that Union forces might have won a second battle that never happened. This would have reduced Confederate manpower and perhaps shortened the war by forestalling the Confederates when the conflict was just heating up.

9. Halleck went further with actions that inadvertently aided the Southern cause when he marginalized Grant to the point that he was about to resign. He would have been lost for the remainder of the War that might have gone seriously South but for the encouragement of his friend Sherman who urged him to reconsider. Grant took his friend's advice, and history has written the results.