Shiloh Battlefield National Park

 One of the major battles in the early portion of Civil War Western Theatre was the battle of Shiloh.  The battlefield is a short drive from home...  and I always wondered about the infamous "hornets' nest"...  It was pretty high on my bucket list, and it was a great weekend adventure...

Camping

We left on Friday afternoon and headed to Pickwick Dam State Park...  nice weather, all seemed to be easy-peasy...   

Until we were about five miles from the campsite...  and the pretty white puffy clouds turned dark gray and opened up with a downpour...  It was all we could do to figure out where the road was... and slow way down.  

Finding the park entrance was a challenge, but thanks to Google Maps we could at least know when we were close to the turns.  But...   the deluge continued until it came time to back into the site...  We tried umbrellas to keep dry while backing into the narrow site (on an angle to the road, but still narrow and very small (it was a state park after all!).    -- lesson learned, have rain jackets with hoods in the truck even in bright sunny days -- 

In addition to the rain struggles, this was our first campground with water and electric only....  only a couple of days, and there was a dump station on the way out of the campground.  Manageable, but another first for us.   Although, we noticed on Sunday morning that there was a line waiting for the dump station...  lesson:  do not plan to travel on Sunday or dump on Saturday night...  

A trip to Walmart for groceries yielded an interesting sight...  

 

A horse and buggy tied to the light post in the middle of the Walmart parking lot...   

There is an Amish community in the area, and the contrast between the horse and buggy and the modern Walmart shopping lot was interesting... 

Shiloh

The Shiloh battlefield is named after the Shiloh Meeting House, built around 1853 by the Southern Methodists.

The battlefield park is huge, big enough that the only way to see it all is by following the auto tour and getting out every few minutes to look at various key battlefield sites.     We took the tour and stopped a number of times...  

On the right side of this picture, you can see the low area on the battlefield that is called the "Sunken Road".   Confederate soldiers are reported to have called this area the "Hornets' Nest" because of the heavy rifle fire during the battle.

But the real goal of the Union Army was not the Shiloh Meeting House, or Pittsburg Landing, but the railroad crossing in Corinth about 17 miles to the SouthWest from the battlefield.

In Corinth, the north-south running Mobile and Ohio railroad crossed the east-west Memphis and Charleston railroad.  This crossing was one of the most important strategic sites during the war.

The battle started in the Shiloh area and proceeded SouthWest to Corinth...

It was a very chilling, exciting visit where we both learned a new respect and awe for the soldiers that fought during this very difficult time in our country's history...