41st Ohio Infantry - Battle of Shiloh

Battle of Shiloh

Early in 1862, General Grant and General Buell were advancing south through Kentucky toward Nashville, Tennessee, with Grant on the western side of the Tennessee River, and Buell on the eastern side. Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston's Army of Tennessee was moving to oppose this advance, and Johnson chose to strike before the two Union armies could join together. He chose to attack Grant's formations on the western bank, near Pittsburg Landing and a small chapel called Shiloh Church. Johnson began his attack just before dawn on April 6, 1862.

The 41st Ohio was with Buell's army on the eastern bank of the river. Prior to the battle, Colonel Hazen had been promoted to command of the 19th Brigade in the Army of the Ohio, of which the 41st OVI was one of three regiments (the others being the 9th Indiana under Colonel Moody, and the 6th Kentucky under Colonel Whitaker). Of these three regiments, the 41st was the smallest, having been reduced to 371 active duty men through sickness and incapacitation during their months of training and marching. Above Hazen in the chain of command was Brigadier General William "Bull" Nelson, in charge of the 4th Division, in the vanguard of the advance toward the action at Pittsburg Landing. For most of April 6, the division was stopped eight miles away from the river crossing to Pittsburg Landing, waiting for promised local guides who could help them find their way through the swampy ground in front of them. Though some could hear the battle raging, at that time they could not tell if it was a major engagement or merely a skirmish.

In the afternoon of April 6, a local pro-Union resident was found to guide the division forward, and the advance finally started. Unfortunately, the difficult march through a narrow track in the swamp caused the division to become strung out and widely separated. At 5 p.m. the lead elements arrived at the crossing point on the east bank of the river. Across the river chaos ensued, with roughly 10,000 to 15,000 disorganized Union troops milling about seeking a way to escape the Confederate attack that was in the process of smashing the Federal lines on the west bank. Desperate to begin moving his men across the river, Nelson commandeered any floating craft he could and pressed them into service, shuttling men of the 4th Division to the west bank. Despite his best efforts, however, by the time Johnson and his Confederates launched their final attacks around 6 p.m., only about 500 men of the division had made it across. The rest, still working their way out of the swamp, began to stack up on the eastern bank, waiting for transport. Among the stranded troops were Hazen's brigade and the 41st.

After nightfall, under the light of torches and bonfires, the shuttling of troops across the river continued. To make matters worse for the demoralized Federal troops, rain began to fall. The 41st crossed the river in the night and moved to take up its assigned position not far from the river, to the right of the 4th Division. Not long after finding their place, the troops began to prepare for a pre-dawn counterattack against the Confederates. At 5 a.m., the troops stepped off.

Due to inexperience and rough ground, the troops had to pause frequently to adjust their alignment. They crossed over Dill's Creek, and began to come across corpses from the previous day's fighting. They advanced cautiously through the underbrush to the edge of Cloud Field, near a set of ancient Indian mounds. The division soon came upon Confederate pickets, drove them back, and at about 6 a.m., began to come under artillery fire. The division halted while Federal artillery was brought up to support them. Hazen's 19th Brigade then charged the Confederate batteries across an open field (Wicker's and Sarah Bell's fields), taking heavy losses. It was now around 9 a.m.

Upon reaching the enemy guns, the Confederate forces counterattacked with infantry and drove the 19th Brigade back across the fields. Captain Terrel's Fifth Artillery, having just landed at Pittsburg Landing, was rushed forward to support the hard pressed 4th Division. The Fifth Artillery placed their guns in a favorable, though exposed position, and began an accurate fire into the enemy's flanks. The Confederate attack faltered under this new bombardment. Captain Terrel's guns, however, attracted the attention of the Confederate troops, and were soon forced to withdraw. Here the attack faltered and paused. About noon, the 4th Division was reinforced by a regiment from another division and attacked once again (in cooperation with Gen. Crittenden's division), forcing the Confederates out of their positions, overrunning several batteries and capturing their guns.

Over the course of this first engagement for the 41st, nearly half of the regiment became casualties (24 men killed, 110 wounded, and 1 missing in action). It was, by any measure, a difficult introduction to what they would see for the next three years of war.