Shiloh

Shiloh: Bloody April. By Wiley Sword. Dayton, OH: Morningside Bookshop, 1974.

The battle of Shiloh remains one of the most discussed and important engagements of the Civil War. The fight began April 6^th, 1862 and was one of the first battles in the Western Theater. Wiley Swords contends that much of the previous accounts of Shiloh relied too heavily on romantic or inaccurate accounts of the battle. His is the first complete account of the battle. For Sword, Shiloh represents a turning point in the war; Shiloh is a critical victory for the North. For Shiloh, Bloody April Sword relies on diaries, personal letters, and journal entries of participants written during or directly following the battle. In this way, he hopes to avoid producing another account of Shiloh distorted by failing memories or the inevitable self glorification of former soldiers. Sword is not a professional historian, and his manuscript reads as such. While heavily anecdotal, and at times interesting, it is difficult to discern a defiant interpretation from Sword’s excruciatingly detailed manuscript.

In 1862, the armies of the North and South began preparing for spring campaigns. The bases of operation had been established and recruits were actively training. Both armies convened around Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee. Major General Ulysses S. Grant led the Union forces, while General Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard led the Confederate forces. While Swords lays out the basics of the battle, any shred of strategy is lost in the overwhelming detail he provides. He fails to analyze the decisions made by both Grant and Johnston. Both made serious miscalculations during the battle, yet the analysis of these decisions is completely absent from the narrative. Johnston comes off better in the narrative than Grant; Sword believes the Confederate leader understood military strategy much better than his Union counterpart. Sword claims that the recent Union victories at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson created a situation in which the South desperately needed a victory. Their ultimate failure to launch a surprise attack and disarm the Union stronghold at Shiloh set a precedent for the Confederacy in the West. Sword explains that the battle at Shiloh foreshadowed the Confederacy’s loss of the Mississippi Valley. Johnston’s death on the battlefield was another blow to the Confederacy.

Sword does make a few important points worth noting. First, he notes that both Grant and William T. Sherman performed in less than spectacular ways. He is complimentary of Johnston, who performs well but dies at the conclusion of the battle. The Confederacy attempts a surprise attack, but fails in carrying it off. This raises questions as to whether this is Union superiority or simply a botched opportunity by the South. The various maps of Shiloh’s battlefield are also very helpful for those unfamiliar with the layout of the field.

Sword relies on the diaries, letters, and journal entries of the participants to the exclusion of other important documents. The participants are often so deeply entrenched in the battle that their descriptions are incorrect or inaccurate. For instance, the descriptions of Johnston’s death are confusing as many of the participants believe him to be at several different places at the time he is shot. The appendix which includes a more accurate account of Johnston’s death is well written and provides insight into what his death meant for the South. Swords various discussions of Johnston are the strongest portion of the narrative. One wishes his treatment of Grant and Sherman had produced similar results, but the main criticism of Shiloh, Bloody April lies in the overwhelming amount of detail within the narrative. Reading the entire work is essentially a minute by minute, hour by hour re-inaction of the battle. One would do better to witness an actual re-inaction than suffer through the inordinate amount of detail in Sword’s work. Rather than a direct play by play of the battle, Sword needs to take a step back from the front lines in order to fully appreciate the battle. Sword’s writing is choppy, creating disjunction in every chapter. He further fails to connect the various personal entries of the enlisted men to those of the high ranking commanders. This is a serious flaw in the work, as it could have shown the differing perceptions by rank during the battle. Sword’s book works best as a supplementary work. This should not be the only narrative one reads about Shiloh, at least for professional historians.

Misty Mehrtens

Texas Christian University

Writing in his memoirs decades after the end of Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant declared that “the battle of Shiloh . . . has been perhaps less understood, or to state the case more accurately, more persistently misunderstood than any other engagement between National and Confederate troops during the entire rebellion” (440). No other battle had such a decisive impact upon the course of the war in the West, and no other in that theater generated such controversy. However, by utilizing meticulous research and excellent storytelling, Wiley Sword’s Shiloh: Bloody April slashes through the confusing layers of legend to reveal the fascinating truth behind this infamous battle.

No other previous account of Shiloh incorporated more research than Bloody April, and Wiley Sword has accumulated an impressive array of primary and secondary sources including unit histories, firsthand reports, diaries, letters, and newspaper accounts. With remarkable insight, Sword is able to discover the hidden truths underneath various and occasionally conflicting records of events. Bloody April is a tactical military study of the battle, presenting the details of the campaign and battle in a concise and comprehensive narrative comprehendible by either scholar or student. The work is both suspenseful and entertaining, and conveys the enormous tragedy of Shiloh in an objective and accurate account that such a significant battle demands.

Bloody April answers many of the lingering questions of the battle and settles many of the later postwar disputes that arose immediately after the carnage ended, such as how the Confederate army was able to achieve complete tactical surprise and who was the blame for this near fatal mistake, the vital role played by the last minute arrival of the Union Army of the Ohio, the reality behind the legendary “lost” federal division of Major General Lew Wallace, the importance of Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard’s decision to end the first day’s assault, and perhaps most mythical incident of all related to the battle, an accurate account of the fatal wounding of Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston and the consequences of his fall. In Sword’s interpretation, the dramatic death of Johnston may have possibly been the result of a stray bullet fired by his own men, surprisingly similar to the fate that befell Stonewall Jackson slightly over a year later. Adorned with numerous detailed maps and illustrations, Bloody April condenses the ever changing circumstances of a complex and chaotic battle into a clear and vivid study.

No other battle in the Civil War, with the possible exception of Gettysburg, is as inundated with what-if questions as Shiloh. While he does not dwell in the mists of counter-factual history, Sword’s inquiry does recognize the real possibilities the South had to win at Shiloh, and when the consequences of this defeat are considered its true significance becomes readily apparent. Never again in the West did the Confederacy achieve the same level of tactical surprise, nor did it ever have a better chance to completely destroy an entire Union army. Only at Shiloh did U.S. Grant ever face the distinct likelihood of catastrophic defeat, and had his life or career ended there it is doubtful the North could have won the war. Certainly, it is obvious that the Confederacy never recovered from the loss of either Johnston or Shiloh, and the remainder of the war in this decisive theater would witness the South forever attempting and failing to reclaim what was lost on the banks of the Tennessee River in April 1862. Shiloh was the first of many horrendous slaughters that characterized Civil War combat, killing or wounding more men than had been lost in all previous American wars combined and shocking the populations of both the Union and Confederacy. Wiley Sword’s Shiloh: Bloody April is the best account of this critical struggle I have read, and I highly recommend its use by both Civil War scholars and enthusiasts.