Photo: K. Blessing 6/5/07


GENERAL ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSON
ARMY OF THE MISSISSIPPI MEMORIAL MONUMENT
Memorial Style: Utilizes Symbols of Death - a Vertical Gun Tube
with Cannonballs

The Shield on the Vertical Cannon Reads:
" C. S.
GENERAL ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON,
Commanding
the
Confederate Army.
Was mortally wounded here
at 2:30 p.m., April 6, 1862
Died in ravine, 50 yards
south-east at 2:45 p.m."

General Johnston died mid-way through the first day of battle.
He is buried in the Texas State Cemetery (Austin, TX).

During the 1890s older Civil War veterans who had fought in the Battle of Shiloh came back to the area and tried to identify where things had occurred. Monuments, including Johnson's, were placed in suggested spots based on recollection.
 

                                       Photo: K. Blessing 6/5/07

GENERAL W.H.L. WALLACE'S TROOP HEADQUARTERS
ARMY OF THE MISSISSIPPI MEMORIAL MONUMENT
Memorial Style: Stacked Cannonballs

                                Photos: K. Blessing 6/5/07

MISSISSIPPI: MAGNOLIA STATE

Photo: K. Blessing 6/5/07

CONFEDERATE BURIAL TRENCH MEMORIAL
WITH CONFEDERATE FLAG
Memorial Style: Trench is Framed in Cannonballs Spaced at
Regular Intervals Around the Site's Perimeter.
                                                   

     
Photos: K. Blessing 6/5/07

CLOSE-UP: CONFEDERATE BURIAL GROUND
MEMORIAL MARKERS

THE RED CONFEDERATE MARKER IS LOCATED IN BACKGROUND NEAR THE FLAGPOLE. THE FEDERAL/UNION MARKER IS LOCATED IN THE FOREGROUND. THESE ARE TYPICAL U.S. PARK SERVICE BATTLEFIELD MARKERS.

Traditionally the Victorious Always Bury Their Own Dead First. Enemy Bodies are Buried Later. The Battle of Shiloh Took Place During an Unusually Hot Period. The Temperature Reached into the 90s and Decomposition Occurred More Rapidly. Confederate Soldiers Were Quickly Buried in Nameless Trenches. Today the Confederate Flag Flies All the Time in One of These Locations. The Daughters of the Confederacy Who Constructed the Park's Large, Horizontal Monument Also Constructed the Trench Monument Found at This Location.

                                                                     Photo: K. Blessing 6/5/07

      CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS' MEMORIAL MONUMENT (DATED MAY 17, 1917)
 Memorial Style: Utilizes Symbolism of Defeat - Horizontally Oriented with
Carved Soldiers' Heads Cast Down. The Eleven Southern Soldiers' Heads Carved on
the Right End of the Monument are Upright and Facing North. The Soldiers
are Entering Battle in the Morning. The Ten Southern Soldiers' Heads Carved on
the Left End of Structure are Downcast as They Return From Battle at the End of
the Day (Shown Above). The Confederate Lives Lost in Battle is Symbolized by One Less Soldier's Head on the Left End. This Monument Includes a Portrait of Confederate General Johnson. The Structure Contrasts With the Vertically Oriented, Victory Iowa Monument.

Inscriptions on the Monument Read:
" Erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to Honor the Memory
of the Men Who Served the Confederate States of America."

"The States of the South Sent to the Battle of Shiloh Seventy Nine Organizations
of Infantry[,] Ten Organizations of Calvary and Twenty Three Batteries of Artillery
[.] How Bravely and How Well They Fought [.] Let the Tablets of History on This
Field Tell As a Greeting to the Living Remnant of That Host of Gray and in Honor
of Its Dead Whether Sleeping in Distant Places or Graveless Here in Traceless
Dust [.] This Monument Has Been Lifted Up By The Hands of A Loving and
Grateful People."

"Let Us Covenant Each With the Other and Each With Those Whose Sacrifices
Hallow This Field to Stand for Patriotism [,] Principle and Conviction as Did They
Even Unto Death." 

This Monument was Built During the Early Days of U.S. Involvement in World War I.



                                                            Photo: K. Blessing 6/5/07

     PEACH ORCHARD RESTORATION PROJECT
     This Orchard Was A Battle Site (Located Near Bloody Pond).
     Wire Fences Protect the Delicate Peach Saplings from Wildlife.

Battle at the Peach Orchard Took Place on the First Day, April 6th. The
Site of the Hornet's Nest Battle is in This Vicinity of the Park.

The Peach Orchard Grove Battle Plaque Reads:
" This was the scene of intense fighting on Sunday afternoon as
Federal troops stubbornly resisted Confederate charges through the
peach trees. Peach blossoms ripped off by mine balls fell like snow.

A Union soldier who faced the Confederate onslaught described the
heavy artillery fire: 'Everywhere around us the storm began to rage:
shot, shell...canister came howling and whistling through our lines.
The very trees seemed to protest against it. Missiles flew everywhere.' 

Successive Confederate infantry charges finally broke the blue line,
and the Federals retreated in disorder back toward Pittsburgh Landing.
The next day, however, a reinforced Union army won this ground back.

At the time of the battle, this land was owned by and farmed by the
W. Manse George family. When the fighting started, the family fled.
Later they returned to find their home burned and possessions destroyed.

After the battle, a cabin from another part of the battlefield was moved
here to replace the one swept away by war. A short path leads ...to this
historic building."



                                                  Photo: K. Blessing 6/5/07

ROW OF CANNONS FACING THE PEACH ORCHARD RESTORATION.

                                               Photo: K. Blessing 6/5/07

UP-CLOSE: CANNON FACING TOWARD BLOODY POND. THIS AREA IS NEAR
THE PEACH ORCHARD.

The Bloody Pond Battle Plaque Reads:
"Shiloh was, at its time, the bloodiest conflict this nation had seen. The
beautiful spring woods, fields, and orchards were transformed over two days
into scenes of death and destruction which eyewitnesses described as horrible,
desolate and heart-rending.

This shallow pond attracted the weary and wounded soldiers of both armies who
where engaged in heavy fighting nearby. Some crawled here for their last drink.
Observers after the battle reported that the pond was littered with dead soldiers
and horses. Blood had turned the water a murky red.

The Debris of Battle: American short-story writer Ambrose Bierce was only 20 when he fought here with the Union Army of the Ohio. Bierce recorded his impressions of the aftermath:

'Knapsacks, canteens, haversacks, distended with soaken and swollen
biscuits, gaping to disgorge, blankets beaten into the soil by rain, rifles
with bent barrels or splintered stocks, waist-belts, hats and the
omnipresent sardine box - all the wretched debris of the battle still
littered the spongy earth as far as one could see, in everydirection.
Dead horses everywhere, a few disabled caissons, or limbers, reclining on
one elbow, as it were; ammunition wagons standing disconsolate behind
four or six sprawling mules. Men? There where men enough; all dead.'

Union and Confederate soldiers alike drank and bathed their wounds at Bloody Pond. The long marches,the smoke,and the taste of gunpowder had heightened their thirst."

Wounded soldiers, Confederate and Union, were left behind after the battle. They suffered from extreme thirst as their bodies attempted to replace fluids lost The water turned a reddish color from their bleeding. Many died at Bloody Pond's edge.
It came to symbolize what probably happened at most battlefield streams and ponds.