Essay Database

A rapid series of Union successes on the Mississippi was matched by important steps of progress on the Tennessee. General Grant had been ordered to advance on the line of the Tennessee towards Corinth in northern Mississippi. A misunderstanding with Halleck, however, resulted in his removal from his command, which was given to General C. F. Smith. Sherman was ordered to advance, and break the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. He failed in this, on account …

…and smoke of battle. The exultant Confederates, creeping so long with painful reticence, now woke the forests with their fierce, long-pent yells. The flying pickets served, like avant-couriers, to point the way for their pursuers. And thus, with the breaking light of day, overhung by sulphurous battle-clouds, through which darted the cannon-flash, while the dim smoke curled forward through every ravine and road and enveloped the camps, Grant's army woke to the battle of Shiloh.