Division That Never Was: The Failure at Prentiss’ Divisional Camps at Shiloh with Bjorn Skaptason

Shiloh National Military Park my name is Beorn SCAP dicin and I will be your I'm going to leave this program for this morning the program is called the division that never was and we are going to look at the experiences of the sixth division of the United States Army army the Tennessee six division under command of Brigadier General Benjamin Prentiss and try to untangle some of the story of what happened to these people here at the battle but also very important to it and this is why why the program is called what it's called I want to try to figure out try to demonstrate what a division is divisions not just a name of a thing and it's not just a place in a table of organization a division is a military unit a military organization that has a particular mission has a particular size has a particular scale something specific is expected of it versus a larger organization like a Corps or a smaller organization like a company so under a normal program that you might be able to get at a battlefield where our Ranger has maybe 30 minutes to talk to you the best you might get is it's going to be about 5,000 people commanded by a brigadier general let's talk about the battle we're gonna have more opportunity to pay today to talk about the table of organization to talk about what a division is what's expected of it but that long logistical tale is about and what's expected of that and then also how this division prentices division the six division is different and unique from other divisions that you're gonna meet on the Shiloh Baptist and therefore that should help us answer some of the questions about why they perform the way they do why they accomplish what they accomplish why they fail to accomplish some of the things that they fail to accomplish and then how they remember themselves after the battle that's going to be another important part of the of this definition of division that is not necessarily militarily military but social and cultural in its aspect before we're done here we will I'll give you a hint on what the final thesis is the sixth division and prentices division become different things they become different things before the end of this story at the beginning of the story they're the same thing apprentices division is the sixth division of grants army by the time the battle is over and people are remembering it what a division is and its definition becomes a little fuzzier and it makes it a little more fun to try to figure it out now all this social and organizational stuff is going to be fun but it's also going to happen within the context of a battlefield type so we're not just going to stand here and talk about tables of organization because oh to talk about tables of organization outside when you could be talking about the battle so we're going to make a perimeter of the sixth division camp and touch on the high points of their combat because that's the opportunity we have here since we're at Shiloh National Military Park on the day of the battle at the time the battle is going on so we are going to move we're gonna take a tour of their camp we're also going to take a a tour of the high points of the fighting try to explain how some of the fighting happen the way it did and we're going to try to answer some of the questions about what finally happens with the division after they retreated from this position about nine o'clock in the morning before we start our walking let's orient ourselves to who were talking about first of all Benjamin Mayberry Prentiss Benjamin Mayberry princess is the commander of this division born in 1819 his biography starts with a direct descendent of the Mayflower settlers which I I presume in his mind made him qualified to be a general in the army but he actually had plenty of military experience but most of it was in the civilian are the the citizen soldier and of the military experience a militiamen all his life born in the area that's now known as West Virginia Western Virginia at the time eventually moved to Illinois and spent most of his life in Illinois in 1846 he used his experience in the militia to get a commission in the 1st Illinois regiment and he led a company of the 1st Illinois regiment to the us-mexico war he served in general Taylor's army in his campaigns in the north in North Mexico veteran of the Battle of voinov astir probably also in the battle of saule till oh but I'm not gonna spend too much time on the us-mexico war nevertheless he is a combat veteran he was a combat veteran and he commanded a company under fire in one of the major battles of that war so and then he came back to Illinois as a hero of the war and that first Illinois regiment was a hero regiment as far as the people of Illinois were concerned by 1848 when those guys were back in Illinois that they had been in the first regiment they had fought at born Avista born Avista was general tailors great victory over Santa Anna and they brought the leg back I think from that one and the the wooden leg though Santa Anas wouldn't risk a fee they didn't bring would have been smelly but they came back heroes two members of that Regiment two members of that hero regiment the first Illinois regiment commanded Union divisions here at Shiloh captain Prentis commanded six division and the adjutant of that regiment Lieutenant William herby lamb Wallace commanded the second division of grants army so the first Illinois regiment from the us-mexico war contributed a lot to to the Union Army in terms of leadership Benjamin Prentiss by the time the Civil War started a leading member I believe in remember the community and I believe Quincy Illinois because of his reputation because of his past because of his experience he has chosen to command one of the first regiments of Illinois ret infantry that were raised for the war commission to command the 10th Illinois regimen lieutenant Wallace was commissioned to command the 11th Illinois regiment at the beginning of the Civil War so that memory of born Avista you can see is very very vivid to the people of Illinois Prentiss spent the summer of 1861 leading that regiment in Missouri campaigns in Missouri trying to fight against some irregular fighting some guerrilla combat protecting the railroad protecting the railroad from Hannibal to st. Joseph also doing a lot of operations in the southeastern part of Missouri where general prentices principal principal opponent was M Jeff Thompson Merriweather Jefferson Thompson the great guerrilla commander the Marion of South the Swamp Fox of southeastern Missouri that's what merit that was the name that Marion gave himself for EM Jeff Thompson gave himself I'm I am the swamp Hawks of southeastern Missouri during that campaign Prentiss had occasion to cooperate with brigadier general US Grant who was leading a different force this is after apprentice got his brigadier General's Commission promoted to Brigadier General there was some disagreement about the date of commission and who would be in charge when the two came together and cooperated question had to be referred back to st. Louis and word came back that General Grant would be the senior of the two and would call the shots and that was something that general Prentiss would always remember and you would remember when he would later be assigned to major general Grant's army general Prentiss was assigned to the army of the Tennessee General Grant brought that army up the Tennessee River in the February and March of 1862 won the battles at Fort Henry Fort Donelson and as he did that his army grew he started with a small army a smaller army that captured Fort Henry expanded out for about 27,000 men for the fight for Fort Donelson then after Fort Donelson was captured he was given some more new recruits and they became part of the army of the Tennessee as those new recruits came in as those new regiments joined the army grant organized new divisions now the idea of what a division is within this context imagine each of these regiments is 1,000 men 10 companies of 100 men joined Benjamin Prentiss to become the 10th Illinois Regiment two or three of those regiments are gathered together and placed under one commanding officer now you have about two to three thousand men and that is a brigade gather two or three brigades together put them under a brigadier general and that is a division and then further on up we're gonna go we're going to Army Corps and then an army General Grant started his campaign with two divisions McClelland and Smith he was joined with recruits under general Lew Wallace of Indiana and during the course of the Fort Donelson battle enough regiments joined Wallace that to create a third division so that's the third division that grant has after the Battle of Fort Donelson enough new troops joined the army to make a fourth division that was the division for a general Steven Hurlbut and then while just as the army begins moving up the Tennessee River eventually they're going to land here at Pittsburg Landing a fifth division was organized at Paducah and sent up the river that is the division commanded by General William T Sherman all this time more new recruits keep coming up the river they keep coming up the river it is April of 1862 the all of these training camps and all of the states are the last regiments are being sent to the field and those red it's as they become organized as they become trained as they muster in I'll sent straight up to the field and so even with the five divisions organized here at Pittsburg Landing new regiments continue to arrive and a new Brigadier General arrives Benjamin Prentiss and so Benjamin Prentiss is tasked with organizing a new division as the new regiments arrived so it's going to be one of the qualities of this division every regiment will be chronologically the most recently organized regiment and it goes to and-and-and it's safe to assume that these regiments will also have the characteristic of being green of being inexperienced and some of them will have the characteristic of being not in experienced being unexperienced having none at all we're gonna we're going to talk about that as we go around so it was the job of general Prentiss on the fly in the field to create a new division it was his job to create the new division out of troops that just showed up whenever they showed up he didn't they didn't he didn't show up with a plan saying these guys are gonna arrive on this day these guys are right out of these days and that you could expect all of these people and they're gonna go he just had to be here and wait for people to come on up the river they needed to find a place to camp to organize and train this regiment the best place to do that according to the landscape was an area that is well watered but also high and dry a good place for camping so here on this plateau is one of the highest areas of the Shiloh battlefield the area around Pittsburg Landing just to the east from here you have the headwaters of a couple of ravines that drain out into the Tennessee River one of them being the Spain branch which is an important one a good place to get water and then more than a mile this way you have some drainage that heads out into Owl Creek and that's where the 5th division is Kim so general Prentice is given the task of organizing a division from raw material on this place that is the best place to camp and to train as we shall see it is not the best place to defend if attack so we've spent enough time standing around getting acquainted with the people we're going to meet what we're gonna do next is head straight down this road which is the road that marks the four encampments of the four infantry regiments of general prentices 1st division so as we head down that road we're going to stop briefly and I'll introduce you to each of the infantry regiments so that we can get to know something about the people that we're going to be studying today all right let's go [Applause] ten roses and those are the ten companies of direction where the tablet is is the parade right of the regimen so every morning at revelry then fall out of the tents and then they come up to the parade ground and they fall in here and and they they take the roll call in the back of the camp is the officers tents so the bosses live back there and behind the officers tent is where the animals live every Infantry Regiment has horses and mules every every Infantry Regiment early in the war but every Infantry Regiment was authorized 13 wagons one wagon for each of the ten companies and then three for field and staff all 30 all 13 of those wagons need a team to pull them so you've got a lot of animals living with an infantry regiment don't think that the infantry regiment is only men walking a lot of animals and they live all the way in the back a few steps beyond the animals is the officers sink and about a hundred steps in front of the color line is the enlisted men's sink so even in the 1860s officer poop is better than enlisted gotta be separations and everything being handled by soldiers or by hired good good question are the wagons being hired by soldiers or hired Teamsters in the Union Army there are Teamsters in the Red River but they also hire Teamsters so there are civilian Teamsters and there are military wagon masters at some point but yeah you also have civilians in the regiment and when there's a camp like this one the camp is filled with many civilians when the army stops for any length of time family members come down wives come down to visit officers they must have been don't really get necessarily get back but the why so there are women in the camp the wives come down here women that women that need to make some money by washing clothes you know doing something like that to support the the army you guys see those here in the Union camp and then hire hired servants for the officers officers in in both the Union and Confederate armies if they wish to spend their own money to do so had the right to hire a servant to help them out you know shine the boots or dusty coat or whatever and union officers tended to take advantage of men who had escaped from slavery african-american men who had escaped from slavery to get a job and the first job that a lot of these guys had was the servant a paid servant of a Union officer and again in this camp you know think of every regiment having about 40 commissioned officers that means every regiment might have a little cadre of about 40 freed freedmen who worked for those officers and when the battle occurs they have to do whatever they have to do get out of the way or help or help with the wounded or help something like that they play a part in this battle the 16th Wisconsin regiment was one of the earlier arrivals to prentices division and that simply meant that they were here around the last week of march they arrived here a bar on the last week of march and as close as all of for all of the regiment's that make up this division the 16th Wisconsin will come the closest to being what we would consider typical something normal or the organization and training of a regiment they were raised in 1861 they went into camp at Camp Randall Madison Wisconsin they their officers had a chance to train them they learned to March they got uniforms they got their boots they even got overcoats because it was wintertime in January of 1861 when a new governor for the state of Wisconsin was inaugurated Louis Harvey they purchased they were the escort for the parade and governor Harvey and his wife were in a very opulent sleigh and there was two horses you know pulling the sleigh and they went through the streets of Madison and then the 16th Wisconsin escorted them you know they paraded for that along with some other Wisconsin regiments so eventually the 16th Wisconsin under Colonel Benjamin Allen moved down here but this is as close of any of the regiments of what you would think you have a right to expect from the point of view of Benjamin Prentiss they were recruited they went into camp they trained they had a lot of time to train then when the time came that they felt they were already the government sent them to the field that's not going to be the case for almost any of the other regiments let's go meet some up [Applause] wanted to do a 21st Missouri program exam some really interesting guy commanded by Colonel David Moore Colonel David Moore and we're gonna talk about him at our next at one of our next stops so I'll give you the details on him later just suffice to say that if you were to make a movie about the 21st Missouri I would probably want John Wayne to play Colonel David Moore he was just that oversized of a person and a personality will talk more about him later but the 21st Missouri regiment is a typical atypical of a normal regiment that Prentiss would assume would come why they were raised in northeastern Missouri in the early part of the Civil War northeastern Missouri in the early part of the Civil War was in upheaval a lot of guerilla conflict a lot of paramilitary conflict between northern and southern sympathizing people the 21st Missouri was raised as the first Missouri first Northeast Missouri home guard raised by David more the idea in the summer of 1861 was that the Society of northeastern Missouri was so uprooted and upheaved and this upheaval that they needed to be there to protect their community the first Missouri home guard and so they were organized and they were there to fight in northeastern Missouri at their homes literally fighting you know to protect their families in their communities there they fought the Battle of Athens in August of 1861 there was a battle between paramilitary groups in northeastern Missouri at the count of Athens and Dave Moore and his group just called a group and his forces defeated Martin Greene who later became a drip Confederate General in the Battle of assets so the men that would make up the 21st Missouri have been involved in combat in fighting and in military activity for a long time since the very beginning of the war and they've even fought and they've won a battle the problem was they were not interested in becoming a regular volunteer regiment they were needed at home at least that was how they felt so when they got folded into the Union Army and sent to Tennessee that was not a popular move amongst especially amongst the enlisted men obviously they didn't have any choice in the matter they're gonna go where the army sends it but when they arrive here they are definitely a regiment that feels like they need to be somewhere else than here and they are definitely going to be people that have real concerns about what's going on in their homes nevertheless they are here they are under the leadership of David Moore and here you see a tablet where they do their fighting on later in the morning when they're driven back to their camp so we'll meet the 21st Missouri later but it again there this is an atypical regiment they have more combat experience but they also don't they also feel like they shouldn't have to be here quality that is unusual as far as what presence has a right to expect is the one that you would expect they are brand new they are brand new and they are untrained 12th Michigan is a Western Michigan regiment David were organized at the city of Niles and again commanded by Colonel Francis Quinn one thing that we did notice or that we discussed before is that in each of these camps there's a certain number of men that are available for duty certain a number of men that are available to be on the firing line in the case of a attack and some other men who are off duty for various reasons but since the Battle of Shiloh occurs in a camp there's all of these people that are not in the battle are in the battle they're on the battlefield so in the case of apprentices division I do have the figures for each regiment on how many men could be on the firing line how many were for duty and how many were were not available for duty and a good example is in the 12th Michigan Colonel Quinn had 832 men available for duty and 896 on his roster available in the camp that's pretty good that's a high percentage available for duty and I think it reflects the newness of the regiment the regiment has not yet had that chance to have all of the men get the measles and die or you know be the off duty or be disabled on a campaign or something like that you don't see that in some of the other regiments the 21st Missouri who we just visited or all - 617 men but 889 in the camp so they've had much more experience in the field therefore men are sick men are off duty men are on detached duty doing other things and so the fighting strength of the 21st regiment 21st Missouri is less than the fighting strength of the 12th Michigan but of course 21st Missouri is experienced 12th Michigan is utterly inexperienced 25th Missouri camp commander I said runner Brigade comes together one regiment and the next one is added the next one is branded now we have four regiments together that makes a brigade the senior-most colonel chosen to lead the brigade so everybody in that moment keeps his rank colonel but is elevated from commander of the 25th Missouri regiment to commander of the 1st Brigade of the 6th division now again thinking in terms of division what division by the time the first Brigade comes online there is no second Brigade because those regiments haven't arrived yet it is the last week of March so think in terms of what we know is going to happen who's going to happen in this first week of April and the most experienced brigade has two weeks together Colonel Peabody born in Massachusetts went to Harvard a civil engineer by profession he was tasked before the war with building the Hannibal and st. Joseph railroad so the new railroad the winch man about Missouri to st. Joseph largely he was the engineer in charge of that work in so doing he gained a lot of respect from the men who worked for him a lot of them were itinerant laborers people that came just to build that railroad a lot of those itinerant laborers were immigrants a lot of those immigrants were immigrants from Germany or the various states that in 1860 later became Germany when Germany became a nation in others German immigrants who built the railroad and were around the community of st. Joseph Missouri when the war started and Colonel and everybody started to organize a regiment and these guys naturally wanted to join it wanted to work for him and then other unionists people from around Northwest Missouri joined this regimen at the time it was a battalion meeting of the palliative the at the common term for a military organization that's larger than a company and smaller than originally so somewhere between two and ten ten companies the thirteenth Missouri battalion under Colonel Peabody went to Lexington Missouri and fought in the Battle of Lexington at the Battle of Lexington which is a siege in a battle they were captured by Missouri forces southern Missouri forces under General Sterling Price captured and Perrault paroled they went to st. Louis and there upon their exchange there when they became available again was he calling me I didn't see if he said something on it you heard it okay the but these men who had been raised into a battalion went and fought a battle lost the battle were captured were exchanged and sent to st. Louis became the core of a brand-new regiment the 25th Missouri regiment just turn that down but the 25th Missouri regiment the 25th Missouri regiment has a corps of combat hardened veterans they also know trust and love their commander Colonel Everett Peabody so they are going to be one of the most effective regiments in general prentices division and like I said almost all of the regiments are gonna be non-standard and in the case of the 25th Missouri they are non-standard for what Ben Prentice can expect by being better than the typical new recruit regiment so first Brigade commanded by Colonel Everett Peabody 25th Missouri 12th Michigan 21st Missouri and sick Dean Wisconsin we've we've met them on the morning on the morning of April 6 1962 as some of us who are here at 5:30 know Colonel Peabody sent his subordinate Major James Powell with three companies of this regiment two companies of the 12th Michigan out to find the Confederates find out if they were there they did find the Confederates they brought it on the battle and then they began retreating back toward this camp and that's the next chapter of our battle story we're not going to do so much introduction to people we're gonna start following the the operations of the battle you ready let's go whirring the on the morning of April 6 1862 we know at this point two programs and this stop that Major James Powell led five companies of Union soldiers down this road eventually in the Fraley field area they they uncovered the Confederate surprise they had the battle with major Hardcastle's pickets and they fell back we're going utilize this stop to first tell the story of what happened down the road and then we're going to head off in that direction so at some point if you want to see the places involved with the first part of this part of the story you can head down there there are a couple markers that are really interesting to see well I'll give you directions to them but the main part of our story is the defense is the division and the defense of prentices camps so our next move is going to be off in that direction but as major Powell started to fall back down this road he encountered five companies of the 21st Missouri under command of Colonel gave more coming right up this road when the skirmish started and friendly field general Prentiss decided he needed to send some reinforcements out he had not expected a reconnaissance to go out and find the enemy and start a fight but a fight the enemy had been found and a fight had been started so general Prentiss sent Colonel Moore up this road with five companies of the 21st Missouri again the 21st Missouri is that North Missouri home Guard unit that is now in the Union Army Colonel Moore Colonel Moore was a leading member of the Wrightsville Missouri community he was a merchant he was originally a Douglas Democrat by politics but as soon as the session occurred the Republicans won the presidency Abraham Lincoln became president the state started to secede the conservative Douglas Democrat gave more more than being a Democrat more than being a conservative was a super Patriot nationalist more than anything else Dave Moore was a unionist and he made sure everybody knew that by changing the sign over his dry goods store from Dave more dry goods to D more unionist which is you know which is a glove throw it on the ground to all of his customers who tend to be pretended to be more conservative more Pro southern northern Missouri a lot of pro-southern sentiment in northern Missouri and so this starts off it this is at the beginning of some of that local guerrilla conflict and Dave Moore make sure everybody knows who he is and where he stands in fact he changed his allegiance to Republican Party just for one more poke in the eye of his neighbors this eventually led to that battle at Athens against General Greene and his Confederate allied Missourians but then Dave Moore ends up down here with the 21st Missouri's leading the 21st Missouri and he still has that broad even overbearing character a lot of self-confidence that's why I think John Wayne would play in the favor a lot of self-confidence so when when general Prentiss tells Dave more take half of your regiment out to support major Powell and beat up those Confederates and send him away he says I'm out here I'm ready to go come on everybody and so he leads five companies of the 21st Missouri up this road at about this position he met major Powell coming back ordered Powell and the survivors of his reconnaissance to join the 21st Missouri got major Powell's report that the Confederates were coming and sent word to send out the rest of the 21st Missouri regimen Dave more now has ten companies with which to defeat four to 4,500 Confederates coming up the road ten companies plus what's left over from the reconnaissance patrol they marked straight out this road they meet some Wisconsin pickets company a of the 16th Wisconsin under Captain Edward Saks captain Sachs joins the column now more has a few extra people and they head up in the area that's known as C field some of us were there earlier this morning when we ended that first program they first became engaged with the Confederates were advancing from the southwest toward the Northeast across C field and they're the first line of battle engagement of the battle occurred meaning two large lines of battle facing each other of course more had 800 men and hearty had about nine thousand coming the other direction so it was an unequal contest but that didn't matter to Dave more he was going to fight it out right there in the C field within the first few minutes of that battle more was struck in the leg and carried to the rear wounded that leg was amputated before the end of the day Dave Moore was back on duty commanding the 21st Missouri regiment before the Battle of Corinth in the fall of 1862 and he kept he kept walking around through the south on that peg leg for the rest of the or that's the that's this guy but he's out of the battle by then the next officer in command Lieutenant Commander Lieutenant Colonel Humphrey Woodyard took over the force that Moore had been leading and then fell back in this direction fighting across the landscape there's a bridge up yonder you have a chance you can drive up there and see it and at that bridge there is a tablet such as this one that interprets the stand that Moore's force made at that Creek now the Confederates were moving slowly across the landscape they were moving ponderously across this landscape this surprise attack is not a lightning bolt out of the blue it is a ponderous advance unexpected to be sure and so when they encountered Woodyard x' defense Woodyard put up a strong defense and made sure that they knew he intended to fight for that position at that Creek and they fought for more than half an hour and the Confederates came up and they stopped and they exchanged fire and casualties were taken on both sides until finally so many Confederates came up that Woodyard had to withdraw from that position he withdrew from that position all the way back to his camp woodier took the 21st Missouri all the way back to their camp the 16th Wisconsin companies that were fighting with him they went all the way back to their camp they got breakfast they got breakfast they filled up their cartridge boxes and then they returned to the battle line that's how slow that the Confederates were moving in this ponderous advance toward the camp nevertheless is a steamroller advance it's going to get here and it's going to crush things when it arrived so at as this as established up tablet tells us by 7:30 in the morning the entire 1st Brigade advanced from their camps turn around and see where we came from back there through a line of battle in front of their camp this is the right end of the line of the battle and the routes are exactly the same as they are in their camps 25th Missouri 12th Michigan 21st Missouri 16th Wisconsin the right flank of the 25th Missouri should be across the road here about where the about where you start to go down into that drainage and then the left leg is off in that direction Confederates are coming from the southwest so the first Confederate hit this position are shavers brigade of our Kansans and they come up and when they hit this position they reorient in order to present a line of battle to this line of that which they think that way on the next line up there is where the first Confederate line of boundary get this area became engaged coming from this direction the brigade of Sterling would Sam woods Brigade still advancing to the north and to the east they would seem to be in a perfect position to take this line in flank because Peabody 's right flank is in the air Sherman's division does not connect with it in that direction it was what about two or three hundred meters yeah bout two or three hundred meters into into there and then a gap about an eighth of a mile gap between this right flank and the camp of the 53rd Ohio moving through that into that camp gap would be woods Brigade however this is where fog of war takes takes a hand they do not move directly under the flank of the 25th Missouri they move in an oblique manner into the contested ground the right flank of woods Brigade marks right marches right in between the two firing lines this results in the right flank of woods brigade being fired upon by their own people in the back which of course panics it and so the right flank of woods Brigade breaks and they retreat that carries the rest of woods Brigade back in a retreat when woods retreating soldiers shavers Brigade shavers Brigade is carried disorganized and carried to the rear and that is the ending of the first Confederate attempt to force this position even though they were in a perfect position had they known it to take it in the flank they didn't know where they were they were in the woods imagine the smoke imagine the roar of battle imagine the tearing role of volleys of musketry and then suddenly half of this Brigade marches right into the middle of the firefight they're getting shot at from both ends so rather than taking Peabody and flank the whole thing fell back they had to be reorganized and then they had to be reoriented to the north and then they launched another attack on this position that that attack by the time by about 8:30 in the morning that attack carried this position back toward the camps of the first Brigade numbers tell they still outnumbered the Federals they push them back and of course would now that he's reorganized can move into the vacuum beyond the right of the 25th how experienced with the Confederate troops are attacking the Arkansas regiments of shaver's Brigade had about a year of campaigning experience they've been in they joined very early in the war however they had not been in a battle so they had a lot of training but they didn't have the combat experience in twenty-fifty Missouri did let's head off down the line about how noisy what I mean just the rest of the Union troops nope this is the real deal at this point good question the rest of the Union Army know that it's the real deal at this point some do some don't we've got the 49th Illinois regiment encamped just half a mile this direction that they're still boiling coffee at 7:30 in the morning when somebody writes up to mortars and they're all still boiling coffee goes they've been fighting for an hour yeah so yeah they answer your question if some did okay [Applause] [Applause] you look back to where we came from he can still see the road on the day of the battle they would have been this regiment the 12th Michigan under Colonel Francis Quinn would have been linked right in with the left flank of the 25th Missouri now the 12th Michigan would have enjoyed the benefit of having someone on both their right flank and their left leg which gives Cote a moral support and a literal military support all they have to worry about is what's in front eventually the 25th Missouri of course had to deal with this flanking maneuver as woods brigade moved through the gap in the line but the 12th Michigan didn't have to deal with that as much a big regiment a new regiment in a green regiment Colonel Colonel Quinn brought them were only about just a few hundred yards ahead of the camp line we are as you saw probably noticed before we are on a ridge we're on a ridge that has a little bit of drainage before us and then the top of the next ridge is where shavers Brigade eventually was it's fairly long range especially if they were using some of these smoothbore older smoothbore weapons nevertheless two large lines of battle 800 some men in the 12th Michigan and then over 2,000 in the Arkansas Brigade are just hurling clouds of lead at each other there aren't aiming at individuals they're just tossing lead downrange and some of those clouds when they pass through the lines are gonna carry away casualties with them Colonel Quinn writes in his report what he can witness from this position is that for the first time he could see that the Confederates were attacking in force because he could see more and more Confederate formations on every hill behind so from here you imagine that was not nearly as much undergrowth he could definitely see the line of badly was fighting he could also say he could see other Confederate brigades coming up on the hills behind so imagine you can look to the right into the end to the other side of the road where the landscape goes up and down Quinn could have looked to the right and seeing Woods Brigade and then the brigades following that he probably could have seen off to the right of shaver's Brigade he might have seen the Alabama and Louisiana brigade of Adly gladdens moving in echelon to the right rear of them and so that was the first time Colonel Quinn understood this is for real they they mean to take us they mean to come and take every one of us but when he had to deal with immediately in front of them with the same line of battle it was in front of the 25th Missouri and for about 90 minutes they fought that battle again the Confederates fell back the first time because of the misfortune they had on their left but once they got reorganized they came back and again this scene this was the debated ground and this was a scene of very intense combat and the 12th Michigan suffered very heavy casualties at this position as far as you can guess to my boy hunt woods getting in here but I've been about where the road is visible over there probably all right yeah yeah and then where you can see the landscape starting to go up out of the drainage that you would imagine your targets would be there again those targets are going to disappear after a few rounds so after a few rounds firing in volley or even firing it will this landscape couldn't be covered in just that blue grey smoke kind of hanging over and in in time because one of the Confederates over there said in time all they would they were just aiming at the muzzle flashes that they could see across the way and so and a battle devolves into that kind of confusion very quickly after just few votes all right our next move is going to take us to the 21st Missouri tablet there is not a trail so once again you're gonna all benefit from my Boy Scout training all the way to Scout second class before I discovered I talk to young girls we're four to five eighty degrees on this compass and we follow it we could get where we're going the way mone is going right run right into it I think you're right I think it is 80 degrees from right the right flank of the 25th Missouri through the 12th Michigan to this there will be a difference in a minute when we go to the 16th Wisconsin because they are thrown forward about they said 40 rods further forward than the rest of the than the rest of the line we'll talk about that when we get there got a lot to eat to look he's already gotten he's cleaning it for volunteers that's right this is the position of the 20 foot first Missouri again 21st Missouri had been commanded by Colonel Dave Moore he's now gone to the rear with that leg wound that will cost him his leg under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Humphrey Woodyard the 21st Missouri had time to return to their camp rest refill their cartridge boxes form a line of battle and come out to this position linked in with the 12th Michigan regiment on their right their left would have been more or less in the air that's a story for another stop where because the 16th Wisconsin regiment moved further to the south but like this at this point it's the same story as the other regiments the Confederates --an in our front which were the are kept Arkansas troops of Colonel Bob shavers Brigade advanced to his in close range and they began a close-range firefight again it's the same time period as the other two 7:30 in the morning to about 8:30 in the morning a heavy line of battle firefight between these two regiments now what we have here is an example of one battlefield phenomenon that you hear a lot about in a general way but he for the first time we have somebody actually telling us that it happened and that it works and that is that that is the what is known as the rebel yell who's heard of the rebel yell ever we all have and the it was it was a yell that the Confederates would do in order to get themselves wound up for a charge for a fight and but it would both wind up themselves and it was meant to intimidate the people downrange and they would do it right before they meant to charge so here for about an hour we have this firefight and then a number of things happen the Confederates bring some artillery end of the line and the artillery starts to disorganize the the Union line because it's slow in canister shot into this line but then the Union soldiers are directing fire at the artillery crews and so now the Confederate artillery crews are going down and General Thomas Hyneman the Confederate General in charge of that part of the line said it's time to solve this problem right here right now before the Yankees shoot down more of valuable artillery crew nevermind the infantry but they can't be killing the artillery those guys actually practice so the shaver's Brigade got the order to charge the men of shaver's brigade all on their own raised up the rebel yell and they raised up the rebel yell and they hooted and they hollered and they did all of that stuff and they fixed their bayonets and when the time came to go General Hyman said charge they charge bayonets and then they just moved across the landscape at a trot and then later in a charge and at a run all those thousands of fix bayonets coming right across that plateau toward the 21st Missouri these guys have been old enough very well for a long time but now their line of battle is disorder disorganized by casualties disorganized by the loss of their charismatic leader and disorganized by the artillery that had been blowing through their ranks morale affected morale affected by the loss of the touch of your comrades elbow this is the value of close quarter fighting in the Civil War soldiers morale stays high when they know that their comrades are there next to them when the next regiment is next to them the regiment's morale rate remains high when your comrade is next to you you can actually feel his elbow you probably even know don't see him because you're looking downrange loading and firing that touch of elbow keeps the morale high and keeps the rifleman in at his post of duty when he loses that touch because of casualty because of disorganization because the loss of leadership then anything that pushes him psychologically over the edge can lead to the entire regiment giving way one thing that could push a disorganized regiment over the edge would be 2,000 are Kansans screaming the rebel yell and then running at you with fixed bayonets as fast as they can and that indeed is what happened here the attack was successful the Arkansas attack was successful it drove the 21st Missouri from the position at the same time they had orders to retreat and at the same time the 12th Michigan and the 25th Missouri retreated under orders with the orders to try to reform at the color line at the road where we started our program and that's gonna be a different part of the story when we talk about that but here we have one of those examples of where psychological warfare works and we actually have documentation that the Confederates raise the rebel yell and made the attack and drove the 21st Missouri from the student our next stop is according to my notes 140 degrees from this position but the good news is there is a prepared trail that goes from the right to the left there's also a fence at the southern end of the park so we can't get that lost yeah optimistically we're gonna take a reading on 140 degrees and try to hold it and if we succeed in our Boy Scout orienteering we will go directly to the 16th Wisconsin tablet we won't have to go down the trail site these federal Reggie's within a single line of battle yeah question was the federal regiments at a single line of battle single line of battle two ranks so front rank and you're right okay but not a supporting regimen alignment right right they were roughly shanira shoulder of the shoulder or the men where shoulder to shoulder in a shoulder to shoulder in two ranks rank-and-file so the front ranks always nibbling down not always kneeling no no sometimes they stand and your buddy fires right by your ear yeah they thrown up any walks at all briefly or does no work sudeer yeah no no just a straight wide open open field fight and no prepared works they had not dug in at all for these markers Rockland in the center of their regiments yes the markers are roughly in the center of the regiment so the colors would be here and half the regiment would go that way and half the regiment would be that way so a regiment like this 500 interval for duty imagine one yard per person two ranks - officers the 21st Missouri probably covered about 200 yards that's what's always heard the pictures whatever you know yeah how far do they go rebel artillery was one battery to do better too bad too bad for gun batteries huh so probably girly a gun a gun not problem yeah and this withdraw isn't a fight are they fighting well you're withdrawing under orders but the Confederate testimony is that they just get routed them yeah they just routed them and indeed the the fight at the camps the fight in front of the camps is much shorter the Federals are not able to organize and rally the same kind of bloody resistance that they give here this is the bloodiest episode of the fight for Prince's part the stand about they say forty rods so everybody forty times 16 quick but a few hundred yards yes don't worry they'd not been under artillery fire before they did what was staying at all yep that is a lot of troops broke six died as soon as arrow and artillery yes all right let's take a look here on where we're going we have reached our next stop and it is the position of the fourth of the regiments in the first Brigade of the 6th division in its Colonel Benjamin Allen's 16th Wisconsin regiment it's also the first regiment that we talked about when I introduced them to you they were the guard of honor for governor Lewis Harvey and his wife Cordelia at their inauguration and they're also the regiment that most closely whose experience most closely resembles what Ben Prentiss would have a right to expect from a newly deployed regiment coming into active duty they were organized 1861 they have a lot of training they're pretty well equipped they had good officers they didn't have experience in combat and that they were full they had over 800 men of their thousand total men available for the battle here now the position is a little out of organization and because what did we just do with our first three tablets in the line of battle I think Bruce even pointed out they were all on 80 degrees in in order those first three brigades first three regiments peabody x' brigade were all linked in with each other bennett this did not happen with the 16th Wisconsin this did not happen with Colonel Allen Colonel Allen was directed personally by General Prentiss and general Prentiss should have sent this order through Colonel Peabody but he didn't but of course the battle is on and he needs to make his decisions and he makes the right decision that he think is the best decision under the circumstances general Prentiss sent the 16th Wisconsin further ahead of the others and again this was 1862 so they measured their distance in terms of Raj and we are now 80 rods from the 16th Wisconsin camp whereas the rest of the line of battle was 40 rods in front of their Kent the reason why they're out here is almost certainly this now this is not something that they wrote in the report something that we can safely infer by the behavior of the Battle of the regiment's in battle the Confederates as we said at the beginning were attacking from the southwest to the Northeast the federal line of battle defending the six divisions camps was generally oriented 180 degrees just about due south now when we're at the 25th Missouri tablet we saw how this created an opportunity for the Confederates to hit that line obliquely and flank it but we also saw how that opportunity because of the fates of war the fog of war did not work out instead of hitting the flank they marched in between the lines they became part of a crossfire they fell back that created disorganization in the entire Confederate line and the first attack on this position failed they had to reorganize and do it again when they're reorganized of course they're reorganized to come right at the defending line so shaver's Brigade and woods Brigade have now redeployed to attack to the south but because the entire Confederate line is moving from Southwest to Northeast what does that mean to the next brigade in the Confederate attack when shaver turns and faces to the north it means that the next brigade Colonel glut general ad Lee gladdens Confederate Brigade lapsed behind they fell behind because they were connected like that and then the others turned her went that way and now they fall behind for that reason for that same reason general Prentiss seems to her perceived and opportunity to take the Confederate line in flank does it make sense yeah since gladden fell behind now shavers flank is open in the 16th Wisconsin was available to do that flanking maneuver and so general Prentiss it seems sent Colonel Allen forward to flank the Confederates that were attacking indeed the 16th Wisconsin came forward 800 some men in the line of battle came forward to this position originally under prentices directions redeployed to the southwest and fired into the flank of shaver's brigade which was already there which was already there and fighting however what neither Allen what Allen didn't know and what Prentiss didn't anticipate was that another Confederate Brigade was coming the gladden had fallen behind because of the redeployment because the change of the direction and so as soon as the 16th Wisconsin got into a position to fire into the flank of shaver gladden came up on their flank because they've now introduced their left flank to the Confederates so that gladdens Brigade now comes in on the left flank and so Colonel Allen has to redeploy the 16th Wisconsin again to face south and also he's facing south 40 rods in front of the rest of the brigade so he's out here alone and then likewise now that gladden has found the line of battle he knows he's moving in the wrong direction so he links into the left of shaver and now he has to deploy to the north none of this is easy none of this is easy moving 2,000 not very well trained or very well experienced men wheeling back and forth like the Ice Capades across the battlefield I mean that's the idea but they can't do it and let's say that as much training as the Ice Capades had is making the pinwheel so but the wisp so but the Wisconsin regiment does fine they do fine and again that's a credit to the fact that they arrived on the battlefield with the amount of training that one would expect of a regiment that was formed last year went to a regular training ground got regular training mustard in got their flags and then had seasoning before they were sent to the front the only Regiment in prentices division that has that characteristic again the tablet tells us how long that fighting went off seven to about 8:30 out here alone the Wisconsin 16th Wisconsin holds on and against the left flank of gladden and the right flank of shaver but then again as the rest of the brigade falls back to their Brigade line the 16th Wisconsin under orders fell back fighting first 40 rods just like that exactly the way they came out went halfway back made a stand the rest of the brigade did not stand with them at that point and then they fell back fighting to their color line atha color line was where Colonel Allen was wounded and Colonel or rather Lieutenant Colonel Fairchild was wounded Colonel Allen had his horse killed they brought him a backup force and he was just mounting it in that horse got swept away by a cloud of lead and dropped dead right at his feet and then they fell back to the camp line and what they did after that we will explain at another another statement all right Bjorn we've reached the just a minute seat we've reached the end of 1st Brigade there's another one but we can see at this halfway point of our program we can see that the brigade is not fully ready for battle they've only been together a short time there's not a lot that they have the ability to do but as Stan pointed out early in our programs early in this program the soldiers fought remarkably well the soldiers stood in line of battle and fired their weapons if it was just a matter of courage and the ability to apply those muskets the Union soldiers fought a remarkably good fight here in front 40 or 80 rods in front of their camps they didn't have the ability to do detailed tactical evolutions on the battlefield but they had the necessity a life-and-death necessity of standing in line and defending their positions according to their orders they did it and a lot of them were wounded and killed in the attempt on this area okay let's move on across the road the party [Music] let's bring the artillery into the discussion and Steve we've got another name for you with that then nobody knows how to pronounce so well just say it however we feel like at a given day it's either ml munch or maybe ml monk or maybe email emote you either way that is the cap the captain of the first Minnesota light artillery battery and the first Minnesota had been organized brought down from from Minneapolis and just a few weeks before they were assigned they arrived on this camp and there were assigned to the 5th division general WT Sherman and they had been reporting to General Sherman and they had been practicing with Sherman's troops and getting becoming part and parcel integral to the 5th division on the afternoon of the 5th of April 1862 more evidence that this was a surprise in case any General Grant didn't didn't want to admit it afterwards on the afternoon of the 5th of April 1862 orders came to totally reorganize the camps and the assignments mostly for the artillery in the cavalry of the army so on the night of April 5th these men packed up their camp pack left all the people that they've been training with and went and reported to general Benjamin Prentiss because they're going to now be part of the artillery Corps the organic artillery to the 6th division and in time of course they will practice with general Prentiss and get to know Colonel Peabody and get to know Colonel Madison Miller and fight with the 16th Wisconsin and so on and so forth eventually they will but what they don't know is they have about eight hours to figure all of that out they just get their tents set up they go to bed revelry is sounded it's time to fight and indeed this is what the the people are some of the members of the battle the battery that Chronicle this battle say we've just gotten up our first morning in camp or Beurling coffee the long roll sounded we hooked up the cannons to the limbers hooked up the caissons to with the reserve ammunition to their horses and headed straight out for the battle and lo and behold before we got a mile we're sitting there on our horses the guns facing the wrong direction with the Confederates coming down the way the Confederates coming the other way so immediately captain monk I'm gonna call it monk at least for this program captain monk orders action forward battery into action and so the Teamsters on on those lead teams bring the bring the cannons forward they have to turn around 180 so if the horses are now facing the back and the snouts are facing the enemy and drop trail and the the Teamsters take the horses back a few yards and with the Confederates within rifle range the 1st Minnesota battery comes into action for the first time the 1st remember the battery killed was one of the Teamsters trying to move trying to turn his cannon around so that it would face the enemy he was shot off his horse and killed the first casualty in the battery during the war immediately when the trails hit the ground they started loading these cannons with canister shot the the the ball bearings and the coffee can type of ordnance that were used at close range by artillery against infantry canister shot was used in emergencies the purpose of canister is not how do I say this it's not always according to plan it's there as a last-ditch effort there's no way to aim cannister it's a shotgun shell you just point it that way and you splatter downrange and that's the first shots that the first Minnesota fire in action down there down the road with the 16th Wisconsin just up here down the road comes the Alabamans of gladdens brigade and immediately we have an artillery versus infantry fight right here and it goes very badly for both sides a lot of casualties among the Alabama troops caused by those clouds of of cannister blowing downrange and then a lot of casualties among the Minnesotans trying to work their guns here also very importantly a lot of casualties among the animals the horses shot down in their traces the surviving Teamsters need to jump off those horses grab out a sharp leather knife that they all carried with them and cut that dead animal out of the traces one dead horse and a team of six stops the entire cannon am i right sure and so that Teamsters job is to jump down off that dead horse and start carving it out of its harness eventually enough horses were killed that some of the batteries had to be hooked up to the caisson the caisson is a different wagon that carries the reserve ammunition a little bit of trivia just to give you the scope of a battery a union battery has six cannons each cannon is pulled by a team of six horses with a limber that has the ready ammunition each cannon has a case on which is to limbers attached together filled with the reserve ammunition and those are each pulled by six horses every sixth gun battery in this battle brings 72 horses under fire the horses need to be trained like the men and like the men the horses weren't trained at this point so imagine all of the confusion that happens when these horses start experiencing the the thunder of battle and the steam of getting shot or just getting killed and falling dead in their traces the response of other horses in the same team tied to another horse that just got killed you can imagine people who know something about the behavior of horses know how the horses would react untrained horses would react under this situation with panic and eventually when the position gets pushed back these cannons the first Minnesota is able to get their cannons away captain monk was wounded and went to the rear lieutenant sander took over you can tell munch fender Minnesota yeah yeah yeah yeah a lot of a lot of Norwegian you either immigrants or Norwegian or Scandinavian descendants work in this battery but eventually they escaped two of the six cannons were so badly damaged and lost so many horses that they went all the way to the landing and did not take part in the rest of the battle the other four would appear on the battlefield again and we might have a chance to talk about them as we go forward but that's the experience of the first Minnesota battery from the they moved here the night before at revelry they moved without their coffee they move forward less than a mile suddenly they're in their first battle and a couple of hours later they are shredded damaged heavy casualties heavy damage and headed for the rear with the Confederates chasing now these are six pound smooth that be recommend representative of what they were using yeah it's it it's not by calculation it's just by what's available so you get six pound smoothbores I cannot tell you right now what the six first Minnesota used sorry I might check it but I didn't but the park chose to put smooth for just founded here a very common six gun battery amongst the batteries that fought at Shiloh common combination was for six pounders to into house that didn't turn out to be a good plan having two types of ammunition for one battery but at the start of the war it seemed like a good idea dad to get the artillery battery or whatever was in the area you know yeah I know at least three Iowa batteries wear the same configuration yeah two types of wood they have been spread across the road yes yes six guns these two guns represent the center section of the battery a battery is divided six gun batteries divided into three two gun sections first section second section 30 second left section center section right so this would recommend this would these guns would represent the center section of the first Minnesota and there that in fact was the section that was so damaged they had to be taken out into the right and left sections for the ones that stand the other half of the camps of general prentices division or spain field and by half I mean two regiments instead of four so not half and if the plan for the brigade for the division is to eventually have three or four brigades then as far as the accumulation of general premises division it's not even half the strength that it might be in fact it's probably closer to three-quarters the strength that it probably would have ended up being but the regiments were still arriving what we just saw in the first Brigade was a fairly coherent Corie of a brigade fighting to defend its camp an advantage of about one week over the second Brigade which was also being created chronologically by the newest greenest troops that are coming up the Tennessee River from Paducah and then from there from st. Louis you know and in Paducah and this is one of those regiments they're going to the 18th Missouri Regiment and again I'm gonna give you just a little bit of background to the 18th Missouri so you know who we're dealing with so we know what Ben Prentiss was dealing with the 18th Missouri was organized in the summer of 1861 like the 21st Missouri like the 21st Missouri they were organized in northern Missouri although they their recruiting area was north-central Missouri they had a camp at the little town of Laclede Missouri in north-central Missouri and in fact as a matter of trivia the regimental sutler was named john fletcher Pershing and John Fletcher Pershing from Laclede Missouri had an infant son in Laclede Missouri that probably visited the camp of the 18th Missouri I'll let you I'll let you answer the question John J Black Jack Pershing was an infant in Laclede Missouri at the time that the 18th Missouri was organizing it again one quality at the 18th Missouri had with the 21st Missouri these are these are unionists living in a divided community so from the moment they came together to form companies it was not for the abstract purpose of going out and fighting for the Union going out and fighting for the flag it was for the very practical purpose of defending their homes against their neighbors and this is the story of the war in Missouri the story of the war in Missouri in 1861 so the 18th Missouri when it comes together rather than being fresh young naive recruits they're actually some pretty tough pair military hombres who've been fighting their neighbors for a while already and they already have some scores to settle with those neighbors they were organized by felon named Morgan W J Morgan they were going to be called Morgan's Rangers and fine whatever says the government you call them whatever you want and as long as we have fighting people from northern Missouri because we've got this problem and the guerrillas get on the Hannibal and st. Joseph's Railroad the same one that Peabody helped build and so they worked there but they don't get much training they just go straight to fighting their neighbors as they have been doing for some time the regiment was then moved to far western Missouri the town of Weston Missouri and the far western part of the state there immediately after they arrived some Confederate sympathizers burned down a railroad bridge so Colonel Morgan and the 18th Missouri grabbed a couple guys from local guys that they declared to be notorious rebels took them out to the ruins of the railroad bridge and shot them then a few days later Weston caught on fire who knows why it just did and so very soon the new commander in Missouri in st. Louis the brand new commander of Missouri General Henry W Halleck arrives to take over from general Fremont who had been sacked and Halleck came to take over and the first thing on his desk somebody burned down Weston you've got a problem regiment you've got a problem regiment a disorganized violent group of unionists out in western Missouri taking out their personal vendettas against pro-southern civilians and so the first order that Halleck gave with respect to the 18th Missouri get an auto western get them on train cars get them back to st. Louis and while you're doing it Colonel Morgan you're fired fired the colonel took care of a lot of other the elected officers that were in charge of the regiment and now he's got these hard cases stuck with him in st. Louis at the same time that General Grant needs reinforcements so as soon as they arrive in st. louis xviii Missouri has a couple of days to start doing some what you might call remedial training and then general Halleck needs to find somebody to take over this regiment so he goes to a well-respected artillery battery does an officer in that battery with a lot of experienced combat experience who's been in the Battle of Wilson's Creek with where general Lyon was killed and all that captain Madison Miller and he takes captain Miller and he says captain Miller congratulations you're promoted all the way to Colonel you're in charge of these guys Madison Miller took over the 18th Missouri was only a couple of days to get them organized and get them ready then get them onto the steamboat and straight up the Tennessee River arriving here just a few days before the battle I've forgotten exactly the day they arrived but by now we're talking about maybe the 29th of March the 30th of March maybe one week before we know that the Battle of Shiloh is gonna happen they march out here and they become the first regiment that is part of prentices 2nd Brigade a few days later the 61st Illinois would arrive Green is gourds from Eastern Illinois again like that 12th Michigan regiment no training at all they just organized raised up their hands sent the Pledge of Allegiance they gave him a flag and some weapons and sent them to grant so at the by the by the 5th of April 1862 this is the second brigade of prentices division and that's all he has as of that moment Colonel Madison Miller is in charge of both regiments he's had two or three days to get used to them now we're also going to talk about a third regiment that is going to join this brigade and fight with him in this battle we're going to talk about them when we get to their position during the battle the 18th Missouri again they're they're kind of hard cases but they're also like I said pretty tough guys who are used to fighting and have been fight fighting for a long time so when the Confederates began to come when gladdens Brigade came from Southwest to Northeast across that road they redeployed facing this direction and attacked the attack the cannons at monk's battery and then here that tablet down there is the 5th Ohio battery six more cannons firing down the road then the next regiment the line of battle is the 18th Missouri gladden had to redeploy from facing the north east facing the north and attack straight across this field originally you can see Prentiss sent these two regiments the 18th Missouri and the 61st was 61st Illinois through the far end of the field that placed them far in front of the 1st Brigade so after keeping them there for a while and engaging in some engaging in some skirmishing they fell back to this edge of the field which would give them the benefit of the Confederates would have to cross the field in order to engage them and this is where they became engaged in 8:30 to 9:00 and when gladdens Alabamans and this is the front here was probably I think probably the first Louisiana Regiment under Colonel Adams came up over came up out of that ravine across the field and for 30 minutes a very bloody stand-up fight occurred right here in the Spain field very bloody for the 18th Missouri casualties taken off to the rear right in front of their camp if you turn around you see the camp marker so they're just a few feet in front of their tent and the Confederates are attacking them from the front again the first attack was repelled just like they were in chambers brigade the second attack came through and much stronger force and after very bloody fighting drove the eighteenth back to their camp into the camp through the camp the camp broke up their organization and after that it was a rout heading straight to the rig let's head off before we go we did walk past the gladden mortuary monument right want to go ahead and pick up that piece of business and gladdens very first attack general ashley gladden the commander south carolinian commander of this brigade of Alabama and Louisiana troops led his troops straight up the road engaged the 16th Wisconsin straight across the road and then came up against these two batteries he was struck in the arm he was struck in the upper part of the arm tore it right out of the shoulder there's a mortal wound and he was carried to the rear and died later that day immediately the commander of the brigade this Confederate Brigade was taken over by Colonel Daniel Adams and Colonel Adams led the second attack across this position and the attack that captured the camp and I believe that is the attack where Colonel Adams was struck in the head and very badly wounded and then he was out of the battle fro who's out of the war for a little while and then the next commander of that brigade was a colonel from Alabama named Zechariah DS and we might we might talk about him a little bit later in the day because gladdens brigade continues to fight let's head to our next stop let's do questions while we move and way to the next stop right down here [Music] because we've already talked about 61st Illinois other other than use the same phrase I used before green is gourds straight from home and they've been here just a couple of days yet Colonel Jacob Frye led them to the front and like them in in the first Brigade here they stood and here they fought they didn't know much but of course they could stand in line and fire their weapons and indeed they knocked down a lot of Alabama troops on the other side of the field yet there wasn't much they could do to respond to a changing events on the battlefield they could not change their front in a disciplined manner they could not move from right to left they could not under fire change from you know line of battle to column of March and go someplace quickly and then redeploy again they just didn't have that they didn't have their chops yet and so after the fighting they were driven from this position driven into their camps driven through the camps and then retreated to the rear in route and they do not appear on the battlefield again until much later in the afternoon and then not as part of prentices division you know fight somewhere else we can talk more about the sixty-first illinois they have some very interesting chroniclers Landor stir well yeah yeah yeah so he writes some really cool stuff but the story is the same as the other ones there's a much more interesting story down the road let's go talk about the 18th Wisconsin here's where the story gets interesting as if a story about 5,000 about 5,500 half-trained untrained ill-disciplined unlit badly led well led perfectly led wonderfully led inspirational II led men did their best with very little preparation to fight the worst kind of battle under the worst kind of conditions that would be experienced in the Civil War close-range combat against an enemy in superior numbers attacking with the advantage of surprise intent on destroying you and everything you've brought with you to Tennessee the greenest men of the greenest division placed in the front of the line of battle we might discuss the wisdom of doing that under some other circumstances where we're talking about General Grant and General Sherman in their decisions but I want to talk about this division we're talk about president and indeed for the purposes of technicality we are no longer talking about general prentices division we are talking about the 18th Wisconsin regiment which was supposed to be part of General prentices division but legally speaking technically speaking in the table of organization was not on the day of battle what's the story of the 18th Wisconsin regiment well like their division they're really just a regiment in name on March 20th just about the time the first regiments 25th Missouri were reporting to general Prentiss to become part of this division the men of the 18th Wisconsin were standing in parade in Milwaukee Wisconsin in their camp taking their oaths as soldiers then without any training without any time on the drill field they put him on trains and move them with extraordinary efficiency to Shiloh Tennessee never a stop even a day for drilling for preparation on the evening of the 5th of April 1862 general J Colonel James Alvin in the 18th Wisconsin arrived at Pittsburg Landing over here and was supposed to have made his report to general Prentiss that he was here he didn't make that report but he did bring the regiment with its camp out to the place where they would camp and he made camp right here and certainly on the morning of the 6th of April Sunday the 6th of April James Alban would go ahead and report and give his report to general Prentiss and thus become part of the 6th division by example another regiment the 16th Iowa regiment also arrived at Pittsburg Landing on the evening of April 5th the commander of that regiment made camp at the landing but sent a report to general Prentiss thus the 16th Iowa regiment is part of prentices division in the battle during the battle the sixteenth Iowa was sent by General Grant to another part of the battlefield and fought an entirely different battle under different circumstances and never appeared on prentices order of battle that's the state that's almost lustrated of the state of disorganization not yet fully organized a state of prentices division he has he has xvi wisconsin that's supposed to be on his battle line and they never show up and he has the 18th Wisconsin in his camp but they don't actually belong to his brigade and into his division yes now that's the to some extent that's the administrative problem of the 6th division of princes division but administrative problems are real problems they result in their apprentice having expectations of being able to perform a certain type of battle a certain type of military mission with a certain amount of force he's got it on paper it ought to be on the field it's not the 18th Wisconsin regiment they come out on the 9th on the night of April 5th they set up their tents they make coffee they go to bed without any training since the day they put up their hand and said the oath of allegiance on the morning of April 6th here come the Confederates they form on their color line they've got 800 men they've got over 800 men so they're all here but they are literally civilians and blue suits with who've been handed muscles downrange red tablet there that's the Canucks the position of a Mississippi Brigade general James Chalmers Mississippi Brigade quite possibly the best trained best Experion Brigade in either army on the battlefield very fine soldiers armed with Enfield rifle muster good rifle muscle in a position that ravine down there and they can stand on the edge of the ravine and just shoot down the Wisconsin soldiers who are standing here in front of their camp like targets off to the left another regiment that was supposed to be in the brigade but it's not yet officially reported the 15th Michigan moved up on the left flank of the 18th Wisconsin there they stood when their colonel learned that they had no ammunition they come they marched all the way to the front taking a position in the line of battle no ammunition Colonel John Oliver or in that turn that Regiment around march through the rear leaving the left flank of the 18th Wisconsin in the air to the extent it mattered because there's nothing that these poor guys would be capable of doing to protect themselves from what's happening Confederates Mississippians did in fact move around the left flank they also came around the right flank and the rest of the brigade as the rest of princes division collapsed and moved to the south and here the 18th Wisconsin regiment was overwhelmed by Confederates and well-aimed volleys of Enfield rifle muskets cutting right through this right these ranks of men that like I said are little a little more value at this point in their career than targets and many of them were cut down at this position right in front of their camp they fell back through the camp and the route began and then they fell back in a state of rout more than a mile about a mile to where they finally were now we've arrived at the last position of any of the infantry regiments of apprentices division we're about to head back to our cars but we're going to take an alternate route so that we don't have to read go back through our to retrace our steps from here we're going to go to follow the imagine we're following the route of these survivors of this virtual massacre here on the in front of the 18th Wisconsin camp and follow them back until we get to the headquarters of princes division than that we're gonna finish our program all right it does mean if anybody isn't here in their best Footwear we're going down same direction the water's going so probably we're at the Mont or water will meet us when we meet get the bottom of the hole what compelled you sign up for the army I don't get that Ambrose Bierce ya writes a nice little bit in his when I saw a shiloh essing where he talks about the geographical or the yeah the phenomenon of burning battlefields like this one and the idea is the the burning at Shiloh is a smolder yeah lots of smoke and some fire and it's because of the layers and layers and layers of accretions of leaves and so on and so forth that down at the bottom it's still dry enough it's a smoke to catch fire and then at the top when it gets wet things the fire is already started so it's a smoldering so the burning in the hornet's nest or what the burning that fierce described in the 9th Illinois ravine is a smoldering lots of smoke and then very slowly creeping smoldering fire which does indicate in both the 44th in the Emerson and burned yeah and it was the helpless you know shot down unable to move but I thought about that I was like wait a minute everything something with yeah that's a good thought yeah it's a it's a good thought but yeah it's the the understory when the understory is dry it can burn and then and then smolders yeah at this point this is the headquarters of prentices division which i think is a great place to end a program called the division that never was of course it was a division of course it existed it had more than one brigade if that's the definition of a division then it existed it was commanded by a brigadier general general Prentice if that's the definition indeed the division existed however it's the definition of a division an entity in a table organization of an army whose job is to go out and do army things maneuver across the landscape fight the enemy tank objectives defend caps then a division is a component of that army that the division commander and the army commander ought to be able to expect a certain amount of force from a division in its operational capacity has a long well organized logistical trail bullets come from somewhere food comes from somewhere there's a quartermaster there's a commissary divisions have liaison between the units meaning that the commanding officers of the units have worked together when we looked at the first Brigade and they had three of their regiments in a straight line of battle at 80 degrees that means there are men officers at each right and left flank whose jobs were to know what the other was up to and keep contact we're not just regiments running around willy-nilly now we are three four regiments together working as a brigade if a division is defined by these aspects of the amount of military force that an army commander ought to be able to expect from it then what happened with prentices division cannot necessarily qualify it at the fully formed fully functioning division in Grant's army yet here they work camped in the front of the army the closest soldiers along with General Sherman's 5th division to the enemy at court and here we will bring in some of the decisions that General Grant General Sherman general Halleck made on the strategic level and the mistakes that were made in the union leadership moving into this battle they did not expect the Confederates to attack so overconfidence was the union leadership that the next step of this campaign would be forward to Corinth where the Confederates would have to defend their town against our army that they put the greenest soldiers in the very front of their camp sometimes we talk about well they evidence that they were surprises that they didn't build fortifications sure better evidence they were surprised meant that they put a group of soldiers called a division but still very much in the embryonic stage of organization and training at the front of their camp and when the Confederates attacked those green troops inexperienced leaders and an organization without any experience working together was asked to perform the job of a division defending the crucial center of the campus I want to reflect back on something that Stan said near the beginning of our program given all of these drawbacks given the disadvantage of surprise the disadvantage of lack of experience the disadvantage of lack of organization the private soldiers noncommissioned officers and junior line officers and indeed a lot of the field officers of the regiment's marched forth and gave the Confederates battle gave battle to an overwhelming force of better organized better trained enemies coming in large force with the intent of destroying them and stood in front of their camps and fought and died and delivered very heavy casualties upon the attacking organizations general gladdens brigade is just one example of one of the Confederate brigades that was shredded in their very first encounter and that an encounter with green Union troops so to say that prentices division is the division that never was is not to say that they were not glad is not to say that they did not sacrifice their lives for their country and their cause it is to say that they were ill served by their leadership in placing them in a position where they could not possibly fulfill the mission that was given to the organization for the name division now there's more to the story but that story does not happen here so we're not in this they're gonna pick it up but very quickly routed 18th Wisconsin passes over this area so does the 61st Illinois so does the rest of the decision and they route to the rear along with general Prentice and his headquarters they rally at a farm lane less than a mile north of here known as the sunken Road which will become the center of the Union line and they're less than a thousand more about a thousand of the men that it started out as 5,500 in the morning took position in the center of the center of the Union line defended the sunken road and a lot of them were captured at the end of the day captured with their commander General Benjamin Prentiss those men were captured in the hornet's nest the next chapter in their story his prison camp prison camps throughout throughout Dixie going here going there six months later general Prentiss was paroled in exchange shortly after that the other men who were captured were paroled in exchange the general Prentiss never returned to the command of the 6th division so when I say the division that never was another aspect of it is prentices divisions only exists on the 6th of April 1862 and the weeks before that and even on the day it fought its battle it was not a full division the 6th division of the army of the Tennessee and renew commander General Thomas McKean eventually came together did some very good work together organized went to Corinth and in October of 1862 played a key role in defending that town against the Confederates Mississippi so the sixth division exists I'm not saying that the six division does not is the division that never was prentices division is the division that never was and ice as I said before it's because these were green unorganized men ill-served by their military leadership who nevertheless we nevertheless gave an enormous Lee impressive and inspiring feat of arms in trying to defend their camp against an overwhelming attack yes is it correct not only not well set up but that also General Grant had been given orders that he was not to engage until general caught up with him General Grant and I also ready shelby foote Charlotte but the Mississippians and Alabamans it's on gave full credit to apprentices men standing here and at the sunken Road they said they were the finest men they ever saw well of course Shelby is writing a novel he is facing at his Mesa job yeah he is basing it on the attitude that the Confederates charge and yes what you said about the overall strategic aim is the General Grant was under strict orders from general Halleck not to bring on a battle that when general Buell got here general Halleck would take over the whole the two armies together and that they would go down to Corinth where they would attack the Confederates if it is General Johnston who refused to play that game by coming out of Corinth and attacking here but again the overconfidence and myopia if you will of the Union commanders from Halleck to Graham Sherman is that why defend we're not going to defend we're at so with Johnson the constant by surprise by coming up here with that were they at all is possible they were unaware as to the full extent of the Confederate forces like were they unaware of the number of men in Corinth for an absolutely absolutely hey Mike well you yeah you say wear the underwear the number of men in Corinth they knew a major Confederate Army was in court they knew absolutely that that reinforcements were being sent from the four corners of the Confederacy to Corinth and that the Confederates considered Corinth a strategic do-or-die defense thus let's not attack them until we get everybody together yeah so they knew Corinth was dangerous they knew there's a big army there they simply refused to acknowledge that the Confederates would leave chorus yeah gotcha all right well thank you very much for coming out to Shiloh there's a lot more going on today and I have I have a schedule here somewhere check check with me after we're done I can't tell you what's what's the next program that when his division was driven from their camps they were driven back to the color line they attempt to make a stand at the collar line they were driven back into the camps once they were driven into the standing tents the formations were broken up and the men continued to route to the rear general Prentiss said he gave an order and other people quote this order that they were to fall back and fight on their own accord from whatever cover they could foil so that as they fell back they would search out a tree they would search out a piece of terrain someplace to take cover and resist as much as they could until they reached a point where they can rally now I think that is I think it's like as I intimated that seems convincing evidence that even though Prentiss wrote his report after he was released from from captivity in November that she gave that order and since it was repeated in other reports it seems to me that the men were treating got the order and that therefore many of them would have tried to comply right so as we can still see white up light flash from the base of prentices headquarters monument back there the Hamburg pretty roads on top of the next right here so this is an aspect of this moment of change between chapters of the battle they're not standing and fighting their retreat but they're not just for treating many of them under orders are going to try to resist furthermore we know that the Confederates stopped in the camps to loot them nevertheless many Confederates the most motivated soldiers and the most dedicated officers would have gotten together anybody they could even if it's just twenty-five or fifty men under a lieutenant to keep going keep going keep going that's what Johnston was talking about when he was scolding his men we did not come here to do this he's trying to tell him go go go go go if we're gonna win this battle we have to go and we can assume that many lower officers the better quality of lower echelon officers we're already taking men forward to try to pursue the retreating Yankees therefore we are on a battlefield even though there are not tablets here even though there are not large formations that we can say put an X on the ground and say they were here and they did this we know that this was a site of conflict that during the course of the retreat there would have been members of the 18th Wisconsin Regt or the 61st Illinois regiment stopping here under a sergeant under a corporal under a lieutenant to take cover behind a tree to find a folder crown to get down where this drainage creates a bit of a trench and fight fought fire 1 2 3 shots as long as many as they could and we know that there would have been Confederates pursuing them in small numbers it would have been a skirmish kind of fighting what at the time what they called Indian fighting you know running around through the woods everybody taking cover taking a shot at whoever they could see and then falling back to the next type of cover and that's that's a battle it doesn't appear in the official reports and therefore it's in the narrative that historians create later that's the kind of battle that doesn't get into the histories because there's no primary source evidence there's not much primary source evidence telling the story of that battle the skirmish fighting the Indian fighting Indians don't fight yet we do know from the reports that the men were ordered to do it and certainly some of them so there's no tablets here to tell that story but that's what happened here at 9:15 9:30 on the morning of April 6 1862 but beyond probably some of the survivors told that kind of story didn't they did they did the survivors tell that kind of story the survivors would not have that said that we I I hid behind this tree and fought for 15 minutes so these are tablet there they would say and you probably will find this in reminiscences or letters or something like that we fell back fighting yes we fell back I stopped behind a tree and took two shots and then continued to the rear sergeant Johnson organized 8 men here and we fought and then after firing two shots we fell back go find stuff like that these are not words but it's not big stuff that goes in everything right right [Music]

Channel: Tony Willoughby Civil War Tours

Views: 2,843

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Shiloh, battle, ravine, civil war, tour, battlefield, hike, walking, 150th, reenactment, Prentiss, camp, discover, bjorn skaptason

Id: g2m7PEiL4MA

Length: 130min 20sec (7820 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 11 2018