They Met at Shiloh

On a sultry afternoon, April 4th, 1862, the caissons of Michael Grierson's Texas battery slog their way along a rutted and soggy Corinth Road to rendezvous with the gathering Confederate Army of Tennessee. Stephen Murdock and his pards of the 6th Mississippi lay on their arms and worry that the federals three miles away are wise to their presence. Regardless of many warnings, the Union camps remain unprepared. Early morning will find Robert Mitchell with his Dutch comrades in arms in Grant's army preparing for another day of drill and parade in the forward camps of Peabody's brigade. Grant marks time as Buell's Army of the Ohio moves to join him before the planned move on Corinth, Mississippi. Buell is in no hurry, and Philip Pearson and the 24th Ohio log another weary day on the march. The Confederate army waits for the order to step off while the Union soldiers spend their days in blissful ignorance along the banks of the Tennessee River. The fate of Confederate Tennessee rests on the shoulders of 70,000 Union and Confederate soldiers about to meet on the farms and fields around a tiny Methodist church, at a place of peace called Shiloh.