Battlefield visits for this week

My wife and I will be hitting some old stomping grounds (Corinth, Shiloh, Chickamauga, Chattanooga) and one I've yet to visit for photo taking of monuments and cannon. My novel covers will all feature some relic of each battlefield and denote what monument featured is and who it represented on the front matter like the current cover of They Met at Shiloh of Byrne's Mississippi Battery in front of the Hornet's Nest.

I intend to blog about each day's visit and post pictures of some of the things we're focusing on and include a little history of the battle. I'm looking forward to seeing Stone's River and getting back to Chickamauga to survey the full line of Thomas' defensive line for note taking.

We live in New Mexico, so a visit to any battlefield takes some planning and vacation time. Shiloh is my all time favorite, though. I'm not sure I can ever visit it enough.
We're also going to be at the Corinth Interpretive Center to hopefully get good shots of the bronze relief at the front entrance to the museum for one cover and see if the reconstruction of Battery Robinette offers any useable views (from memory when there a few years ago before they built the reconstruction there are a lot of telephone poles and such all around so getting an interesting and unmarred view of the cannon might be tough) but there's the monument and graves of the 2nd Texas just beyond.

Enjoy your trip!

Enjoy your trip. Maybe you should move up here?

I'm jealous! Have a great trip Phil!

We're also going to be at the Corinth Interpretive Center to hopefully get good shots of the bronze relief at the front entrance to the museum for one cover and see if the reconstruction of Battery Robinette offers any useable views (from memory when there a few years ago before they built the reconstruction there are a lot of telephone poles and such all around so getting an interesting and unmarred view of the cannon might be tough) but there's the monument and graves of the 2nd Texas just beyond.

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Tell Tom Parsons Ole says hey.

Once you get to Tennessee, what route are you taking to Shiloh? Highway 57 out of Memphis or Highway 72 across North Mississippi to Corinth?

Have fun on your trip Phil!

Robtweb1 said:

Once you get to Tennessee, what route are you taking to Shiloh? Highway 57 out of Memphis or Highway 72 across North Mississippi to Corinth?

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We'll be headed out of Nashville.

Just got back to the hotel after a long day of driving but I saw a few things I'd never seen before at Shiloh and we got some good shots at the Corinth Interpretive Center.





For some reason, I'd never been down this path around the Peach Orchard the many times I've been to Shiloh, but there it was the Manse George House replica.





The revitalized Peach Orchard. When we were there 5 years ago these were mostly twigs guarded by wire meshing.









One of my earliest memories of Shiloh was this grouping of Wisconsin Color bearers clustered in a semi-circle overlooking the Tennessee River on the bluff above Pittsburg Landing.





This was not there when we were at Corinth 5 years ago, a commemorative monument for the Texas regiments from Shiloh to the Siege of Corinth to Iuka and finally to the battle of Corinth. This was erected in 2010.





Unknown Confederate graves just in front of Battery Robinette at Corinth. I believe them to be from the 2nd Texas.





Monument to Colonel Rogers of the 2nd Texas, killed leading the assault on Battery Robinette.





Reconstruction of Battery Robinette; it's a little cheesy with the concrete embrasures and such, but one of these shots might become the next novel cover subject.

More will be posted on my blog soon.

Really good photos Phil, thanks for posting.

phil1861 said:

Reconstruction of Battery Robinette; it's a little cheesy with the concrete embrasures and such, but one of these shots might become the next novel cover subject.

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For what it's worth, I got a surprise when I saw the remains of what I assume are original concrete gun placements at Columbus, KY.

What can I say about Shiloh? The more I go, the more I learn about various parts of the field.





You really have to hike to find this marker. It is in the dense wooded area just in front of the bookstore and the gun line marking Grant's last line of defense and across the Dill Branch Road. The 36th Indiana was one of the first regiments to come ashore in the afternoon on April 6th and was pushed forward to support a line of heavy guns protecting the way to the Landing. It was one of the few Army of the Ohio units to see any combat during daylight on April 6th. There are a few trails leading through the forest but I had to just wander around as the ground is pretty uneven and the markers not very well marked by paths. The 36th was part of the final wall that the Confederate attacks broke against in their exhaustion and waning daylight. The combat was ineffectual and casualties were light.

The ground in this area is rolling and cut by short and steep little cuts and generally upward in elevation. It is easy to see why the attacks peter out at this point even though, besides the 36th Indiana and the artillery in line just in front of the heavies lined up behind them there are few organized regiments to oppose the final push forward. The 36th is a green regiment and rather full and though fatigued with the forced march presents a formidable front at this late stage in the Confederate attack.





The monument can be found near the bloody pond where the 6th Ohio, 24th Ohio, and the 36th Indiana are marked where they began their attack upon the Confederate right flank positions atop the Hamburg-Purdy Road on a slight elevation that commanded the area.

It was also a treat to view the new video (I never saw the original one, but they were showing it in the bookstore and it was pretty hokey looking). If not for the reenacting community, this new video would not have the level of authenticity to it. You can have special effects, make up, and actors dressed correctly but if the extras can't do portray soldiers correctly (no amount of practice can do it, only hours and hours of drill from people who have a vested interest in doing it right). To those of gave their time, my slouch hat is off to you.

When I was on the set of Saints and Soldiers my buddy and I arrived a day early and were brought onto the set to do some fill in time. They hired a handful of extras from a local acting academy, uniformed them, gave them weapons, and then tried to use them in some scenes. It was a joke. They couldn't do it, not with 5 minutes of coaching. They just could not portray German tactics or any kind of bearing because they had no interest (other than getting paid the standard extra fee for that day) in doing so. If anything, reenacting has brought a level of realism to movies who use them.

The most disappointing visit was to Stone's River, mostly because my expectations were high on the monument and tracing of unit movements scale set by Shiloh and Chickamauga. There are a few, like the McFadden Ford/Farm hillside where Mendenhall's batteries were gathered (represented by 6 cannon in various locations) and by the Knoll where the Chicago Board of Trade battery was located. Otherwise, there seems to be a checkered history with this battlefield as far as period weaponry (one of the Rangers pointed out that the Wiard Guns that used to be there had been removed and that one of the Parrot Rifles posted at the park entrance was a repro).

The most striking, however, was the Slaughter Pen, so named for the geologic outcroppings of parallel granite rock (glacial deposited) that formed natural entrenchments where Sheridan's division fought off Polk's repeated attacks. The forest in this area is thick and the adjacent fields open and wide between forested areas. It can be easily seen why one would take refuge and be able to defend it easily enough, but also be easily overwhelmed as the intervening trees would have given one a limited range of fire.

Less than half of the battlefield has been preserved, the town of Murfreesboro taking over all of the Union right and only the center and Left anchored on McFadden's Ford remains. Nothing of the Confederate positions other than in the center remain.

I did find several USCT markers in the cemetery, all right in a row which I snapped a shot of on my iPad (I carried my iPad everywhere so I could take notes on the geography, approx. distances between open spaces and forest, hills etc). There's a marker for the 5th US Battery H in the cemetery, whose position there was key in halting the Confederate advance in front of the Cotton Field on the first day.

If you are a monument hound, Stone's River is pretty barren from that standpoint. But, there are plenty of walking trails and plaques to read to know why that spot is important to the battle.

First photo is of the 5th US Battery H location, second is of the USCT markers, third is the Slaughter Pen rock formations, and last is the Chicago Board of Trade battery on the Knoll.