Tour Stop 14: Johnston's Early Success at Shiloh, Capturing Federal Camps

chris mccoskey of emerging civil war for the american battlefield trust continuing our exploration of the shiloh battlefield and we talked earlier today about the long dark night of the soul that albert sidney johnson has in the wake of the fall of forts donaldson and fort henry the fall of nashville and how he really is trying to find himself as a leader and finally as parker hills told us on the morning of the battle or the evening of the battle he steps up and in the morning of the battle he exhibits important leadership characteristics on the battlefield itself and to tell us more about that evolution i'm going to ask parker to come back on because we're in the thick of the fighting on april 6th and it's up to johnson to really kind of guide this army and stand up as a leader to make things happen parker well chris so thank you we are right here on the battlefield at benjamin mayberry apprentice's headquarters and it's uh it's now midday as johnston is now swinging his troops around he realizes in my mind johnson understands what's happening over here that his troops are actually pushing the federals towards pittsburgh landing instead of wheeling and so he he goes off to the right flank to start directing the action remember he is trying to lead this army personally right now and the confusion of the uh the core commanders all getting getting intermingled through these terrain these woods it's very difficult for command and control so johnson himself is trying to command let's swivel that board i've got a big parker shadow there there's worse things in the world oh now it's a gary shadow there you go just like that good are you overshadowing the bark oh nice all right go ahead now if you will look off to the to uh to the front here you will see the terrain and that denotes that little small creek right down through here it looks like uh it's gray set a small blue line on the map but look at the train that is the watershed down to that creek right there so this is significant terrain okay give me a second i'm going to show them the terrain real quick this is this is a real deal what some would call a valley all right all right so johnston rides over to his troops here and we'll put the map down and let's just see apprentices headquarters where mark are here and this is a major headquarters camp tents are all around regimental headquarters are left and right of us we're mostly right because the terrain over there drops off and the troops the confederate troops they are finding in these tents wonderful things wonderful things foot lockers that have money in there and greenbacks and gold coins they're finding pictures of pretty ladies that uh that they haven't seen in a long time they're finding food they're finding all sorts of things so they start rifling uh and they're exuberant ecstatic over this looking obvious victory right now and they're just looting these tents and johnston runs in here trying to remind them that the mission has not been completed this is not the time to start counting counting loot a booty so he starts cajoling these men get back in line get moving and he looks down and he sees a lieutenant who's got his hand in a haversack rifling the contents and the lieutenant looks and there's a a full general chatting the troops in him and the lieutenant looks uh i think the word is crestfallen uh you know you don't use that very often but that's the way to say it crestfallen and jonathan realizes he's hurt this young officer's feelings so he he dismounts off of his horse fire eater and he picks up a little small silver cup uh oh just not a tin cup but a small silver cup and he takes it he swings it on his finger and he says this will be my booty for the day gentlemen uh so he says okay i in it with you lieutenant he says now let's get to work and he puts this back in his pocket and one thing critical uh he terry now he's trying to he's trying to also let these troops know we got a job to be done but all right i'll take a minute and enjoy it with you then he turns to his surgeon dr yandell and the ground is covered with federal wounded and he'll say stay here and take care of this wounded man doctor and this is general my place is with you he says your place is where i tell you to be take care of these wounded this will cost him his life but i think both of these incidents really demonstrate i think important personal leadership at a crucial moment it demonstrates compassion at a crucial moment so these are really some things that we can learn from um and and kind of help better understand who this character is and what we can take away as important lessons johnson has his detractors and i'm not one of them uh i'm not a detractor i think that johnston sensed exactly where he needed to be on the battlefield at this time and he's also showing the the compassion you mentioned chris uh he's also showing the elements of leadership he needs now he's got to get these men moving and he's going to we're just south of johnston's death site now we're only a few hundred yards away from where he's going to meet his maker so we will uh we'll this is this sets the stage really but what's going to happen to him next and parker mentioning this guy dragged me from behind the camera because you know he talked about full general the union doesn't even have that they only have two stars at this point eventually they'll have one three star general i think you know who that is the confederates though start the war early on with full generals that's not two star that's not three star that is above lieutenant general and there are five of them and there's one the ranking confederate general a guy named cooper samuel cooper he really is enrichment desk job so you don't hear about him he's the ranking general of the confederacy the number one ranking field commander in the confederacy is albert sidney johnston he's not only a full general he is the fullest or the the ranking field general of the entire confederacy okay behind him robert e lee behind him joe johnston who always thought he should be ahead of robert e lee behind him pgt beauregard they are the five ranking generals and albert sydney johnson is the highest ranking of all of them so what's about to happen with him as a result of sending his surgeon away as a result of a series of events is the loss of the highest ranking confederate general of the entire civil war um thanks for joining us thanks chris thanks parker thanks benjamin prentice who we've been showering a little bit of derision on so far today i don't think we're done yet either but thank you for watching go to battlefields.org learn more get involved and thank you for supporting battlefield preservation and education you

Channel: American Battlefield Trust

Views: 12,291

Keywords: American Battlefield Trust, Civil War Trust, shiloh video tour, shiloh battlefield tour, civil war tennessee tour

Id: 4Ok4ZWAxbME

Length: 7min 15sec (435 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 10 2021