GRAPHIC: Say What Saturday: "Some With Their Heads Torn Off..."

Ole Miss

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Regtl. Staff Shiloh 2020
Asst. Regtl. QM Stones River / Franklin 2022
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North Mississippi
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"Went over the battleground again today & saw some of the most shocking sights I ever beheld. Men were lying dead in every possible position. Some with their heads torn off, limbs scattered around & the dead horses were in heaps all over the field & today it was quite cool which is very favorable, otherwise this stench would be almost intolerable. Most of the dead bodies have been robbed by our own men. The faces of the dead were perfectly black. Our men have been busy ever since the battly burying the dead but hundreds still unburied. Every house in the neighborhood is filled with wounded rebels. Some have been brought in today who have been lying in the woods since Monday."
April 9, 1862 Diary entry of James Hannegan of the 5th Ohio Cavalry at Shiloh
Regards
David
 
James D. Hannegan, age 23, was born in New York and joined the 5th​ Ohio Cavalry at Elizabethtown, Ohio on September 28, 1861. He was promoted to corporal and then 2nd​ Lieutenant and finally 1st Lieutenant then mustered out on November 18, 1864. He was killed by a train in St. Louis on September 13, 1887.

Hennegan was with the 5th​ Ohio, 3rd​ battalion which served guard duty along Owl Creek and did not see any action in the Battle of Shiloh. Hennegan’s diary provides vivid details about the aftermath of the battle and the sights, sounds and smells that assaulted his senses.
Regards
David
 
The human carnage of a battle like Shiloh where there are small fields 10 - 15 acres, and a few larger caused so many soldiers to crowd into these killing fields. 100 to 300 yards across with case, cannister and ball being fired along with thousands of rifles and smoothbores is just unimaginable to me.
Hannegan's diary provides this picture:

"8 April: This morning all of our cavalry started to follow up the retreat. We find the ground strewn on both sides with arms of all kinds, clothing, wagons, & ambulances & also the battery of artillery stuck fast in the mud. The woods also were full of their dead & wounded. One battalion of our cavalry had a brush with some of the rebel cavalry who were covering the retreat. The road presented a scene of the most awful confusion & large numbers of wounded rebels were left on the fields too & all their dead. Went over part of the battleground today & the sight was horrible. The dead were lying in every position and the faces of the rebels were perfectly black as they were nearly all drunk during the battle. In one place where our men charged upon a battery every horse belonging to it was lying dead in one pile & the dead rebels were thick around them. Nearby in a pile of oats layed a dozen wounded rebels & the dead body of their general. It is supposed to be General Johnston. All the prominent rebel generals were here."*
Regards
David
*https://www.gilderlehrman.org/collection/glc0412901
 
Annie what a good idea but unfortunately mankind inherently can't be at peace. From the earliest times man has fought to keep, take or protect his from other men.
I suspect very few wars were started by leaders who fought in the trenches and front row of battle.
Regards
David
 
It must having been horrifying. I recently read about the death of Julius Peter Garesche at Stones River, he was decapitated beside Gen. William Rosecrans. It’s hard to know what effect such a sight had on Rosecrans. If he has memoirs I’d like to see his Stones River account.
 
I'm amazed at what these men endured -- saw and heard. That they were abke to go on in most cases and do their duty is remarkable. That ustrue of all wars, of course. But I thin we of this dayand age tend to discount that fact for the Civil War in a way we don't for more recent wars.
 
It never ceases to amaze me how men could witness such carnage and yet still find it within themselves to continue fighting day after day. I’m lucky, I’ve never been asked to fight in a war and so for people like me I have to rely on the testimonies of those that have. The common factor seems to be that men simply get used to death, I once read about a soldier from another war that said that mangled bodies and body parts were an everyday occurrence, in fact one particular soldier got so blasé with death that he’d sit on a corpse to eat his lunch, he said that dead bodies make comfortable seats, anything was better than sitting in the mud.
 
This account stood the hair on the back my head up. Its one thing to read about it and a whole nother to have been there.
 
And For most of the confederate Soldiers at Shiloh this was their first taste of battle ,going into it completely green not knowing what to expect
The majority of the Federal troops a were as green as the Rebs and in fact the 15th and 16th Iowas arrived on Sunday morning and were issued arms and ammo before being sent to the far right flank to arrest the Confederate drive. With the terrain at Shiloh being a few fields separted by woods and brush, very few if anyone knew what was happening. The attack began at about 6 am and it spread quickly throught the Union lines with smoke, noise and screams of the dying and wounded creating a litteral h*ll on earth.
Regards
David
 
And they could all see how the wounded were just left out there. I cant understand how they continued to do that when their likely fate was plain to see. And for what in the end.
 
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