This Great Battlefield of Shiloh

This Great Battlefield of Shiloh: History, Memory, and the Establishment of a Civil War National Military Park. By Timothy B. Smith. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, c. 2004).

The battle of Shiloh was fought on April 6^th and 7^th of 1862, and resulted in over 24,000 combined casualties between Confederate and Union forces. The fact that such a large battle occurred surprised many, including historian Timothy Smith, who is on the staff at the park in Shiloh. His book, This Great Battlefield of Shiloh: History, Memory, and the Establishment of a Civil War National Military Park, explains that Shiloh is an isolated place, and was even more isolated in 1862. Shiloh was such an isolated place, that Sherman believed that it was almost impossible that a large Confederate force was nearby on April 5^th,1862. As it turns out, Sherman was quite wrong, as around 44,000 Confederate troops were either at Shiloh, or quickly approaching the battlefield. The purpose of Smith’s book is to illustrate how the national military park at Shiloh came about, and how it developed or changed over time. The cemetery at Shiloh was founded in 1866, yet there was no national park for another 30 years. Following the war, veterans on both sides met at this location in order to reunite and discuss the battle as well as the war. Smith dedicates this book to the “Father of Shiloh Park,” David W. Reed, who was wounded at the battle of Shiloh. Reed, who is the book’s main protagonist served in the 12^th Iowa infantry, and saw combat primarily in the positions that became known as Sunken Road and the Hornet’s Nest. Shortly after the founding of the park in the 1890’s, Reed became the park’s first secretary and historian. Reed was also instrumental in positioning interpretive markers in the fields at Shiloh. Yet according to Smith, some of these informative markers all over the battlefield are either exaggerated or fallacious, as Reed was trying to create points of interests for the battlefields’ visitors. For example, Reed proclaimed that the Hornet’s Nest was the most important place of fighting during the battle of Shiloh, yet Smith depicts that it was an area of relatively little fighting. In addition to this, Reed commemorates the area known as the Bloody Pond, even though most accounts don’t even mention this area as a place where combat occurred. Despite Reed’s subjectivity, the national military park at Shiloh is still one of the most informative Civil War Parks. When it came time to erect monuments on the field, Smith became engaged in some bitter battles in exactly what happened at the battle. Yet Smith prevailed in almost all cases, and the battle of Shiloh as told by the park, is largely his version of it. The monuments at Shiloh were completed in 1908, and describe only those who participated in the battle. They are partial to both sides, and don’t refer to the larger war itself, or such issues as slavery and succession. These monuments look inward, and are strictly devoted to describing the heroes that partook in this bloody battle.

Perhaps the true value in Smith’s book is that he describes the enormous amount of effort that is required when creating a national military park. It was no easy task as many people had differing ideas on how the park should be formed, and what should be included in the park. Also, it was not always easy for the federal government to acquire the necessary land needed in creating the park, yet the government accomplished this task. Yet the area surrounding the Pittsburg landing did not hold the highest economic value to begin with anyway. Probably the most important factor in helping the development or founding of the park is its isolation, as there was no real threat to the park. Due to this isolation, such issues as development or the potential growth of a city, were not an issue to the park at Shiloh.

As this book illustrates, Shiloh was an isolated place, yet the sight of one of the Civil War’s largest battles. It was so isolated, that Sherman thought it was near impossible that a large Confederate force was present on April 5^th 1862, and it was one of the few times during the war that Sherman was dearly mistaken. Shiloh was the site of over 24,000 casualties, yet a national military park did not exist until the late 1890’s. The creation of this park is largely due to David Reed, who is commonly referred to as the “Father of Shiloh.” Although Reed was not always entirely objective in creating the park, his dedication to honoring those on both sides is unquestionable. If one goes to Shiloh Park, they will find a park that is dedicated to the valor of those who fought on both sides.

Albert Cox

Texas Christian University

This Great Battlefield of Shiloh: History, Memory, and the Establishment of a Civil War National Military Park, by Timothy B. Smith, Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2004.

In the 1890’s, the United States Congress appropriated significant funds for the acquisition of land in Tennessee, Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Mississippi. For the first time in American history, the United States government officially sought to commemorate the actions of military engagements on its soil with the dedication of five national military parks. The Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Chattanooga-Chickamauga, Antietam, and Shiloh were to be forever preserved so that future generations would be able to stole their grounds with relative assurance that it existed as it did at the time of the great conflict between North and South. In This Great Battlefield of Shiloh: History, Memory, and the Establishment of a Civil War National Military Park Timothy B. Smith explores the establishment of the Shiloh military park as a case study in examination of the movement as a whole. Through his examination he seeks to uncover what motivated congressional leaders, veterans organizations, and private citizens to establish the original “big 5” and why Civil War sites were chosen over earlier battlefields in greater need of preservation activities. By doing so Smith seeks to uncover American attitudes about the Civil War in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and what those attitudes say about the society that established them.

The answer to the question of why Civil War battlefields were preserved rather than earlier ones is somewhat simplistic. By the 1890’s only survivors of the Civil War remained, as opposed to veterans of the Revolution or the War of 1812 who had long since passed away. As it was though, Civil War veterans were starting to pass away at an increasing rate. This created impetuosity both to honor them before their passing, and for them to get their stories out why they still could. Indeed, Veterans organizations played a significant role in both lobbying for the parks themselves and raising funds for their construction and the construction of the many monuments erected on the sites.

Another reason for the time and place of the military parks was the growing feeling of nationalism in the United States. Events like the Spanish American war in 1898 made considerable headway in breaking down the attitude of sectionalism that had pervaded much of the United States in the latter nineteenth century. The national military parks would be an outstanding way to finally bury the hatchet on sectionalism. By highlighting the honor and bravery of all civil war soldiers, the military parks could leave out discussions of the causes and political differences that had lead to the war in the first place. As parks like Shiloh, northern and southern whites could bask in the bravery of their country together.

For African-Americans however, the parks had a much more ominous implication. In reducing the battles to nothing more than displays of masculine martial glory, the interpretive programs left out the issue of slavery and any possible discussion on if the war aims of the Union had ever actually been achieved. Indeed the military parks represent a microcosm of American society at the turn of the twentieth century. In order to “unify” the country, a significant minority was left to fend for itself in an increasingly hostile environment not just in the south, but across the whole of the United States.

This Great Battlefield of Shiloh is an excellent contribution to not only the historiography of the American Civil War, but also the national dialogue on history and memory. Historians like Timothy B. Smith show just how useful studying a society’s remembrances of events in the past can tell you about their reactions to events in their present.

This Great Battlefield of Shiloh: History, Memory, and the Establishment of a Civil War National Military Park. By Timothy B. Smith. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2004.

In 1894, Congress created Shiloh National Military Park, the last of the original five Civil War battlefield parks established in the 1890s. Isolated in rural areas of West Tennessee, the park was symbolic of the larger reconciliation movement then occurring between the North and South. As America began emerging as a world power at the end of the nineteenth century, the dividing racial and constitutional issues that caused the war were intentionally neglected in a collective compromise memory of the war that honored the bravery and sacrifice of both the Union and the Confederacy. In This Great Battlefield of Shiloh: History, Memory, and the Establishment of a Civil War National Military Park, noted Civil War historian Timothy B. Smith examines how this larger reconciliation movement affected the creation and original interpretation of Shiloh National Military Park. Smith, who has written extensively on Shiloh and served there with the National Park Service, declares that “the deliberate creation of memory by the Shiloh Park Commission on a local level and by national leaders on a broader level played a critical role in America’s memory of the Civil War and the nation’s self identity” (130).

Smith writes that the purpose of his study was “to show how and why the veterans of Shiloh lobbied for, established, and built Shiloh National Military Park in the closing years of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries” (xx). The book details the years from directly after the battle in 1862 to 1933, when the park was transferred from the War Department to the National Park Service. Smith’s research is extensive, and the firsthand correspondence of the original administrators of the park provides enlightening information regarding the debates and controversies that occurred in developing the official memory of the battle. The book also contains seven appendices that contain the enabling legislation for the park and analyze certain subjects related to the battlefield, such as the construction of monuments at the park and the evolution of Shiloh historiography.

While the park was legally established in 1894, many years would pass before the park assumed the modern appearance of monuments and interpretive trails. During the early years of the century, the park’s original historian and secretary, David W. Reed, created the traditional interpretation of Shiloh. Reed, who had served at Shiloh as a member of the 12th Iowa infantry, worked diligently to determine the locations of regiments during the battle and locate the actual route use by Union General Lew Wallace’s division to reach the battlefield at the end of the first day. Reed developed the original interpretation of the battle which emphasized the importance of the Hornet’s Nest and created such prominent Shiloh landmarks as the “Sunken Road” and the “Bloody Pond,” which did not appear in official reports. Recent scholarship has questioned many aspects of Reed’s thesis, such as the intensity of the fighting in the Hornet’s Nest, but its impact still resonates in Shiloh historiography. Also, many controversies that erupted in the aftermath of the battle were settled by Reed’s discretion, such as how important the arrival of General Buell’s Army of the Ohio on the outcome of the first day’s fighting, which was a contention between survivors of the Army of the Tennessee and the Army of the Ohio.

Due to its remoteness, Shiloh has escaped many of the ravages of development that have engulfed the battlefields in more populated areas, which has allowed it to retain an almost pristine appearance. In the end, Smith concludes that “Shiloh National Military Park stands as a testament not only to the soldiers of 1862 but also to the veterans of 1894 who actively sought to honor their colleagues and, in the process, helped heal a nation of its sectional strife” (130).