Wednesday, 27 November 2019
During the night we had some powerful rain. I woke up during the night and thought the rain was having a contest with itself to show how strongly it could come down. And I thought about the couple who were camping near me in a tent, wondering if they'd drown in this rain. And I thought about how thankful I am that we have a dry comfortable home to weather the storm in.
When the dogs and I were walking this morning, a squirrel dropped from high in a pine tree to the ground, and almost before we could realize what had happened, it picked itself up and ran up another tree. Answering the question whether squirrels ever fall out of trees.
I discovered I can get a signal on my hotspot here, and since my campsite is nearly level I've decided we'll spend the rest of the month here. It's only about 25 miles to Shiloh Battlefield, which is where I want to go today, and it's about 30 miles to Savannah in case I want to do errands. What's more, it's almost on the Alabama border, which is where I go on Sunday. A winning combination. So I stopped at the campground office on our way out to pay for a few more nights.
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| today's route |
We passed a company labeled Packaging Corporation of America where there was a terrible smell in the air. I'd smelled it even inside the RV this morning and couldn't figure out where it was coming from. So now I've found it, and am very thankful the plant is likely to be closed tomorrow on Thanksgiving. Bad smell.
I passed a handmade sign in someone's yard advertising cracked pecans for sale. I'm sure in the South now.
And I passed Pickwick Catfish Farm. Maybe the source of some of the catfish they eat during Savannah's annual catfish festival?
As I got closer to Shiloh, I started seeing large memorials along the side of the road. I remember when Momma and I went to Vicksburg we saw monuments like these and assumed these were part of the area where the battle was fought.
Shiloh National Battlefield
I read all the signs here, and viewed all the museum exhibits, and watched most of a video they showed (I came in late), and talked at length with one of the rangers. And I've spent several hours today reviewing these materials and reading Wikipedia accounts and thinking hard about the 2-day battle, and I'm only now thinking I have a general idea of what happened here.
For one thing, a staggering number of soldiers met in this fairly small area - 65,085 for the Union; 44,699 for the South. Of those, the number of casualties (killed wounded, missing) over the two-day battle totaled 13,047 for the Union, 10,699 for the South. Or so. This was, at the time, the highest number of casualties ever experienced by the US in a single battle. Sadly, Shiloh didn't hold this record even through the war.
The point
Just over 20 miles south of here is Corinth, MS, which at the time was the hub of Southern railroad lines. The east-west Memphis & Charleston RR connected the Mississippi River to the Atlantic coast; the north-south Mobile & Ohio RR linked Columbus (KY) to Mobile. If the South lost Corinth, it would lose vital communication and transportation connections. Because it was so strategically important to the South to keep Corinth, it was strategically important to the North to take Corinth away.
USA Gen. Halleck had ordered Gen. Grant to gather his troops at Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River and wait for Gen. Buell to bring his troops to join them. All the Northern commanders thought the Southern troops were down in Corinth. They thought wrong.
CSA Gen. Johnston had troops stationed in the vicinity of Corinth. He had information that the North was coming his way and decided to stop them before they got too close. He and his troops surprised the North early in the morning of April 6, 1862.
The various accounts make it sound like these 2 days were a combination of occasional brilliant military tactics, often stupid moves, unfounded assumptions, and a complete lack of adequate communication. On both sides.
By the end of the first day, Grant's men had lost two miles of land they'd occupied, Johnston was dead, and Gen. Beauregard (now in charge of Southern forces) thought he had Grant on the run. He sent a victory telegram to his superior.
By the next morning, however, Grant had reformed his forces with stragglers and partly demolished units, plus reinforcements from Gen. Buell, who had finally arrived. Beauregard was ready to do a mop-up campaign and was stunned by an early morning assault by Grant's men. The fighting lasted most of the day, but Beauregard finally pulled his men back to Corinth.
Since Corinth was what the South was defending and the North was wanting, the armies all moved south. For the month of May, Halleck set up a siege of Corinth, leading it to run out of food and supplies. Also, the water supply in town became contaminated resulting in typhus and dysentery. Beauregard decided discretion was the better part of valor and gave up Corinth to the Union.
There was a battle in October where the South tried to retake it, but they lost. The North used Corinth to stage attacks on such Southern strongholds as Vicksburg, and it really was a key win for the Union.
Okay, that's what I think happened. Here're other resources if you want to explore this further. https://en.wikipedia.org/Battle-of-Shiloh https://en.wikipedia.org/Siege-of-Corinth
The following information was in the brochure they hand out at the Shiloh Visitor Center.
There's also this information I got from displays at the Visitor Center.
The starting lineup
The setting
The plot (briefly)
It all seems so sad and futile to me. Fighting your family, your countrymen, being wounded and maybe dying, beggaring your family and your community - all to preserve a way of life that depended on enslaving other human beings.
But on a slightly more positive note, the sheer number of casualties led medical personnel to be innovative. Instead of just carting wounded soldiers off to distant centralized hospitals (or taking over someone's farmhouse), they established the predecessors to MASH units. Speed of capable medical aid is an important element of recovery.Back on the road
I drove on into Savannah to run a couple of errands and then south to the campground.
On the radio I heard the pun of the day: If a judge loves the sound of his voice, expect a long sentence.
Route 128 crosses Pickwick Dam near the campground. It's a TVA facility, much like that vast electrical set-up I saw near Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky.
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