Shiloh National Military Park

Visiting Shiloh National Military Park | Ste. Genevieve National Historical Park | January 2023

We woke up in Mississippi to a brisk morning. Not as cold as Alabama had been, but still cold enough that, once out of the tent, we didn’t stick around very long. A cold front was moving through the country and we were strategically planning our trip to 1. Avoid camping in inclement weather and 2. Avoid driving in inclement weather.

From this we determined that our best bet was to make it as far as St. Louis, wait out the rain/snow in the evening, and then sprint home to Iowa before the next round of snow came through. That left today’s drive at just around 5 hours, so we naturally added a few stops and attractions – starting only a few miles North of where we camped, at Shiloh National Military Park.

This is a fairly large park along the Tennessee River preserving the eponymous battle from 1862. That battle, which came as a Union victory, was one of General Grant’s growing number of laurels that would eventually put him in charge at Chattanooga, and then out East. Grant, having recently captured Forts Donelson and Henry near the juncture of the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Ohio Rivers, was promoted to the rank of Major General and given command of the Army of the Tennessee. The capture of those two forts opened up central Tennessee and Kentucky to river transportation and Union gunboats, and Grant intended to use both to open up the Mississippi River. In April of 1862, Grant moved his army up the Tennessee, eventually to meet with Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio and then move against Memphis.

Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston, having lost control of two major rivers, made the unpopular but tactical decision to pull out completely from Kentucky and middle Tennessee and regroup near the railroad hub of Corinth, Mississippi. When Grant moved up the river and disembarked at Pittsburg Landing, only 9 miles away, Johnston realized that once the Army of the Ohio arrived, he would be outnumbered almost 2:1 and went on the offensive attempting to take on Grant solo, marching virtually undetected to within a morning’s march of the camped army.

On the morning of April 6, Johnston ordered a dawn attack and caught the Union Army almost completely off guard. The five divisions of Grant’s Army were in camp having breakfast without any sort of breastworks when the battle started. The surprise attack succeeded extremely well, pushing the Union quickly out of several of their camps. Eventually, the Union commanders were able to rally a defensive line, but they were still giving up ground at a high cost for both sides.

On the afternoon of the first day of battle, Johnston was mortally wounded, and command was transferred to General P. G. T. Beauregard. As the day closed, Grant’s Army established a strong defensive position around Pittsburg Landing while being reinforced by General Buell and the Army of the Ohio. Beauregard however believed that Buell was in Alabama and called off the attack, perhaps believing that victory the next day was guaranteed.

On the second day, reinforced with fresh troops and now outnumbering the Confederate forces, Grant conducted a counter attack. Beauregard held out as long as he could, hoping for reinforcements. But when it became clear that reinforcements were not coming, he made the decision to return to Corinth. Grant and Buell decided to not pursue immediately, setting the stage for the siege of Corinth.

Since the park is very large, we decided to tour it via the auto tour, which takes an extremely circuitous path, looping back on itself several times. In comparison to Chickamauga, there were not nearly as many monuments, and even the monument to General Johnston was fairly underwhelming, especially considering that Johnston was the highest ranking officer to have died in the war and how highly he was esteemed as an officer by both sides (President Davis considered Johnston’s death as the turning point in the war).

We did get out of the car for a walk, not to see any of the battlefield, but to see the Shiloh Indian Mounds, a Mississippian Culture site, contemporaneous to many others we saw on our trip along the Natchez Trace and on this trip. Unfortunately, the main mounds and bluffs over the Tennessee River were closed for bald eagle nesting.

With our tour of Shiloh complete, we continued West. We originally thought we might take the opportunity to visit the Northeast corner of Arkansas for the counties and end of year metrics, but the driving difference was not worth it. Instead we drove fairly directly to I-55 and the bootheel of Missouri before heading North to St. Louis.

Along the way we made one final historic stop in the town of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri and the associated National Historic Park — a newer park, only added in 2017. We parked downtown near where we thought the visitor center was and then, when it turned out we were wrong, walked around until we found it. We wondered as we were walking what the National Historic Park was for. There were several museums on French colonial history, and murals and signage explaining the French history, but there didn’t seem to be a unifying event that we’re used to seeing at NHP’s. At the NPS visitor center, they explained that Ste. Genevieve, while also the oldest European settlement in Missouri, the NPS designation is mostly for the large concentration of French Colonial architecture in the US. Many of the buildings surrounding the visitor center date to the late 18th century and use fairly primitive, but stable, building practices. In other larger French settlements, these types of buildings would have been torn down as the cities grew, but Ste. Genevieve managed to hold onto many of these old buildings, and there are several local families who can trace their genealogy back to the original builders (or so I’m told).

Since most of the park is inside buildings, and Charlotte isn’t allowed inside, we were left to admire things from the outside where the weather was getting colder and colder. We took some pictures, got our stamps, and then pushed on further North to our hotel on the Illinois side of St. Louis.