Swiss American Historical Society Review Volume 46 Number 1 Article 4 2-2010 Tue Swiss American Presence at the Battle of Shiloh H. Dwight Page Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_review Part of the European History Commons, and the European Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation Page, H. Dwight (2010) "Tue Swiss American Presence at the Battle of Shiloh," Swiss American Historical Society Review: Vol. 46 : No. 1 , Article 4. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_review/vol46/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Swiss American Historical Society Review by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Page: Tue Swiss American Presence at the Battle of Shiloh Tue Swiss American Presence at the Battle of Shiloh by H. Dwight Page On Saturday, August 1, 2009, my family and I finally made our long intended visit to Shiloh National Military Park on the Tennessee River just south of Savannah, Tennessee. Shiloh proved to be well worth the visit. This article appears in this particular journal because of the important role played by Swiss Americans in the Battle of Shiloh. The Battle of Shiloh, April 6-7, 1862, a turning point of the American Civil War, was one of the largest and most complex battles in history. 1 A General Ulysses S. Grant disaster for the Confederate Cause, it occurred in the wake of a series of military setbacks for the South. On January 19, 1862, Major General George B. Crittenden 's division had been routed at Mill Springs, Kentucky. This defeat exposed the right flank of General Albert Sidney Johnston, the Confederate Commander in the West. East Tennessee, a pro-Union region, was vulnerable to invasion by way of Cumberland Gap. During the first week of February, a joint Federal army-navy expedition, commanded by Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant and Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote, entered northern Tennessee and on February 6th attacked Fort Henry on the Tennessee River. The Confederate fort 1 For a detailed contemporary account of Shiloh and its aftermath, see Tenney W. J. Chapter XV in Military and Naval History of the Rebellion in the United States New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1866. Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 2020 40 1 Swiss American Historical Society Review, Vol. 46 [2020], No. 1, Art. 4 The Swiss American Presence at the Battle of Shiloh 41 fell after a two hour naval bombardment. The Tennessee River, a vital transportation artery, now lay open to Federal invasion all the way to Florence, Alabama. Hysteria seized many Southern citizens as Union gunboats raided upriver into northern Mississippi and Alabama. By February 12, 1862, Fort Donelson, located twelve miles east of Fort Henry on the Cumberland River, had been likewise invested by the Northern Army. After a series of incredible blunders by Confederate generals John B. Floyd and Gideon J. Pillow, the garrison at Fort Donelson surrendered on the sixteenth. More than just a defeat for the Confederacy, the fall of Fort Donelson was a catastrophe. About one­ third of Johnston's forces east of the Mississippi River, almost 15,000 men, had been captured. The vital Confederate heartland of Middle Tennessee and northern Alabama had been pierced. Nashville fell and its terrified citizenry fled in panic before the northern Juggernaut into Mississippi and Alabama. The Mississippi River stronghold of Columbus, Kentucky had to be abandoned. All across Middle and West ""'ennessee, Johnston's forces were reeling south in disorder. The collapse of Southern defenses in Middle Tennessee had Laid bare the state to invasion by a huge Federal Army. On March 11, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln had effected a new command whose mission was to seize all of Tennessee. Union General Henry Halleck's new Department of the Mississippi boasted over 150,000 combat troops arrayed from Missouri to eastern Kentucky.2 At the time of the Battle of Shiloh, the reputation of the Confederate Commander Albert Sidney Johnston was at its zenith; superiors and subordinates alike looked upon him as the foremost and ablest officer in the service of the South.3 When Texas chose secession in 1861. Johnston had submitted his 2 Connelly, Thomas L. Civil War Tennessee: Battles and Leaders. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1979), 34. 3 General Grant, for example, admired Johnston Confederate Com­ above all other Confederate strategists and always remembered Shiloh as the ultimate in applied violence. mander Albert Sidney See Catton, Bruce. Grant Takes Command. (Boston: Johnston. Little, Brown and Company, 1969), 204. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_review/vol46/iss1/4 2 Page: Tue Swiss American Presence at the Battle of Shiloh 42 February 2010 SAHS Review resignation from the United States Army as the then Commander of the Department of the Pacific. Making a perilous overland journey from California to Virginia, Johnston met with President Davis in Richmond and cast his lot with the South. Davis rewarded his colleague by appointing him a full general with rank second only to Confederate Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper, who served in an administrative capacity from the Richmond War Department. As Commander of Department No. 2, Sidney Johnston assumed responsibility for a huge area of the western Confederacy. Despite his fame, Johnston's six month tenure commanding in the West prior to the Battle of Shiloh had not been successful, and now, following the disastrous losses of Forts Henry and Donelson, along with the evacuations of Columbus, Bowling Green and Nashville, the western Commander was bitterly criticized. A confused and exasperated Southern public demanded that Johnston be replaced. With one exception, the entire Tennessee congressional delegation petitioned Davis for Johnston's removal. Nonetheless, President Davis' confidence in Johnston remained unshaken. Indeed, in historical retrospect, we perceive that the Confederate defeat at Shiloh was not the fault of General Johnston at all , and that his contemporary detractors were misinformed. That momentous defeat should rather be attributed to poor judgment on the part of Confederate President Davis himself. Had Davis responded promptly to Johnston's earlier pleas for reinforcements, the disastrous chain of events between February and April, 1862 would not have occurred. As it was, the Confederate President, now in February, 1862 gravely concerned about the Tennessee route of the Union invasion into the Southern heartland, belatedly attempted to repair the damage. Under his orders, the Confederate War Department ordered 5,000 Southern troops under Brigadier General Daniel Ruggles from New Orleans and a 10,000-man corps from Major General Braxton Bragg's Department of Alabama and West Florida to reinforce Johnston in the north. Yet Davis might have done more. Thousands of armed men still sat idle in Florida, along the Atlantic Coast and in Texas. Major General Earl Van Dom's 20,000-man army in Arkansas was not ordered to Johnston's assistance until March 29th, 1862. With the arrival of Van Dom's reinforcements, Johnston made good the loss of over 12,000 Confederates captured at Fort Donelson and amassed the largest army Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 2020 3 Swiss American Historical Society Review, Vol. 46 [2020], No. 1, Art. 4 The Swiss American Presence at the Battle of Shiloh 43 yet organized in the South. Besides more troops and equipment, President Davis also sent Johnston another able general - Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, the popular hero of the South from his prominent role at both Fort Sumter and First Manassas. Unfortunately, Beauregard mived in the West just as Johnston's (entucky defensive line collapsed. ~!armed by the unorganized and weak ;tate of Confederate armed forces in the West, Johnston's talented new second Confederate General Pierre in command was pessimistic about the Gustave Toutant Beauregard worsening situation and even considered returning to Virginia. Nonetheless, immediately upon his arrival in West Tennessee in early February, 1862, General Beauregard immediately began to organize a new Confederate army, and invited Johnston to join it. With Bishop Polk's Columbus garrison as a nucleus, Beauregard began building in February what he labeled as the "Army of the Mississippi Valley." Urgent pleas for support were sent to Western governors, the Confederate War Department, Beauregard's political allies in the Confederate Congress, and commanders of neighboring military departments at Pensacola and New Orleans. Beauregard's ambitions were aided by Albert Sidney Johnston's apparent mental collapse. Grant's unexpected descent on Fort Donelson had shocked Johnston, who by late February appeared confused and unable to make command decisions. It required no West Point education to grasp that concentration of Confederate forces on the western front was essential. Yet by February 12, the disoriented Johnston had informed Beauregard that he was taking Hardee 's troops to Chattanooga, and Johnston began preparing for a retreat southeastward down the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad. Had Johnston carried out this strange plan, the two wings of his small army would have been some 300 miles apart, with Grant and Buell in between. Only urgent pleas by Beauregard convinced Johnston to abandon the unwise idea and move instead southwest toward Corinth. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_review/vol46/iss1/4 4 Page: Tue Swiss American Presence at the Battle of Shiloh 44 February 2010 SAHS Review Indeed, with Federal forces poised to ascend the Tennessee River and carry the war southward into Alabama and Mississippi, despite their differences of opinion, both Johnston and Beauregard saw the critical need to concentrate their divided forces and defend the important Memphis and Charleston Railroad. A vital artery of commerce, this railroad was the only all-weather east-west railroad in the South that linked the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Seaboard.