Shiloh was the first great battle of America's Homeric Civil War. The broad outlines of the Battle are simple; the Union Army of the Tennessee under General Ulysses Grant  was bedded down near a Baptist Church, Shiloh Baptist Church. The Federals were attacked by Confederate forces under General Albert Sidney Johnston and Pierre G.T. Beauregard. During the first day, the  Confederates  made great headway but their General Johnston was killed; the next day, Grant aided by General Sherman counter attacked and won the field. Simple.....yet this is the Civil War, so it is all so Homeric. And being Homeric, the heroes and their fates are more important than the battles themselves. It is often said that Grant is the first modern General. This Blogger agrees; that being the case, the closest modern  General in comparison to Grant is the German World War I General,  Erich von Ludendorff; who was really good kicking the hell out of befuddled and backward Russian Generals but lousy when

  On April 9, 1865, General  Ulysses S Grant closed out the Confederacy. General Ulysses Grant is the best writer among the Civil War Generals; his book, PERSONAL MEMOIRS OF ULYSSES S. GRANT is a masterpiece. He won a brutal campaign of attrition to end the American Civil War with a Union victory. The first battle of the campaign of attrition was the Battle of the Wilderness, in  the dense thickets known as the Wilderness of Spotsylvania .  Grant hurled the Union Army of the Potomac into tangled woods, against Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia,  to bloody results. The Army of the Potomac lost 17% of its troop strength in one battle. So many Union soldiers were casualties that, for the first time in American history, rumors had it that the Federal Government fudged the casualty lists downward, to assuage the public dismay. Grant was a drunk; he qualified his drunkenness by stating that he never drank when his wife was near or when he was on active duty. Hence, General Gran