Customer Reviews

Shiloh: A Battlefield Guide (This Hallowed Ground: Guides to Civil Wa)

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I've been a fan of _Gettysburg: A Battlefield Guide_ since its publication in 1999. When I saw that Mark Grimsley and Steven E. Woodworth had teamed to co-write a guide to Shiloh, I was excited. Grimsley and his co-author on the Gettysburg guide, Brooks Simpson, did a great job (see the several Amazon reviews, which give it 5 stars). Woodworth is one of the most knowledgeable historians of the western theater. His new book, _Nothing But Victory_, on the Union Army of the Tennessee, tells the story of an army that was more or less born at Shiloh.

I haven't yet had the chance to use the Shiloh guide on the battlefield, but it looks very promising. They had the Shiloh park historian vet the guide (the historian, Stacy D. Allen, is a well-regarded authority on the battle), and they created an ingenious two-axis tour, so that instead of constantly zig zagging back and forth to follow the action, you choose to follow the battle's progression first on the Confederate right or left flank, and then on the other. This keeps the action clear.

The narrative, analysis, and vignettes follow the pattern of earlier guides (Chickamauga as well as Gettysburg.) The discussion of the confused Confederate command arrangement is especially good. It is justifiably critical but never scornful and tries to be as understanding of the Confederate high command's predicment as possible.

I'm glad spring is here, because it's time for a road trip to Shiloh!

I wish I could be as enthusiastic about this book as the other reviewers have been so far. The purpose of this book is to provide a field guide for visitors to Shiloh that is more complete than the brochures and pamphlets available at the visitor's center but less detailed than full-fledged books on the subject and also to organize it in such a way that the visitor could follow the flow of action as it happened in time. Those are admirable goals and I think think the organization of the book accomplished the second goal. But the authors didn't edit it tightly enough to accomplish the first goal. This is a book! Make no mistake about it. It's 174 pages of fine print (including illustrations and appendixes). It would take an average reader two or three days to read it in sessions of a couple hours each or one very long sitting. If you use it as a field guide and attempt to complete the tour in one or two days, your days are going to be spent reading. You will be looking at the book most of the time, not the battlefield itself.

I am a serious Civil War buff and I have a huge collection of books on the subject including several specifically on Shiloh. I am not a casual visitor to battlefields who is satisfied with just reading brochures and looking at monuments. I want to know what actually happened on a battlefield. That's what gives it all meaning. Without that knowledge, the battlefield is little more than a park. But this book is simply too detailed to be a useful field guide, in my opinion. It would be much more useful if it was edited down to include about 1/3 of the information that it contains.

I like to visit Shiloh every couple years and I bought this book because I am planning a trip to the battlefield next month. I was excited by the book's promise but disappointed in its execution. I spent a couple hours perusing it last night only to realize that it will not be very useful for my coming trip. It would be useful, however, for someone making multiple trips to Shiloh to take in parts of the battlefield on each trip.

Another problem I have with the book is that information about a particular stop often digresses so much that sometimes very little of it actually applies to the stop it supposedly covers. Action must be put into context to fully understand it, of course, but sometimes the context is all you get here. For example, at the Bloody Pond stop, not one single word is mentioned about what actually happened at Bloody Pond. Most history buffs already know what happened there and, if not, they can read the sign next to the pond, but it would be nice if the book actually mentioned something about the Bloody Pond at the Bloody Pond stop. On the other hand, many things happened in the area of the Bloody Pond and that certainly should be mentioned. But someone who knew nothing of the battle and who didn't read the sign would have no idea why it was even called the Bloody Pond from the information in the book. The scope of each stop should have been more limited. We all want information but a field guide with too much information is no longer a useful field guide. At some point, it is no longer a field guide and this is a book more than a field guide. I think the authors forgot that they were writing a field guide and simply got carried away.

The woodcuts in the book are very nice and many are from original photographs. However, I would have preferred the actual photographs of the officers. I suppose the woodcuts saved printing costs and they do have a special charm. Also, the battle scenes, of course, were not taken from actual photographs. Unfortunately, very few battlefield photographs were made in the western theaters, especially that early in the war and almost no "action" photographs were taken at all in the Civil War.

Oddly, the authors did not include an index in the book. That is a serious omission in a book of this type. If you want to find information on a specific topic or person quickly, you will have to search through the book to find it. Not good! All field guides should have an index!

Another minor criticism that I have with the book is that the text is very small. I'm fortunate to still have vision that is far better than 20/20 but I am at the age when I have to wear weak reading glasses. I suspect that many Civil War buffs are in the same boat. If so, make sure your glasses are strong enough.

What I would really like to see is an edited down version of this book. My wife, also a history buff, suggested that we do our own editing by highlighting important information. That shouldn't be necessary with a field guide. I will take it along on my next visit to Shiloh but I suspect that it won't get much use. I don't want to spend a day or two at Shiloh reading. I also want to see and experience the battlefield!

I would recommend that anyone planning a visit to Shiloh first read Larry J. Daniel's, Shiloh: The Battle that Changed the Civil War first. To get a more emotional sense of what the battle was like, also read Shelby Foote's, Shiloh. Then, when you visit Shiloh, take along William C. Davis's, The Battlefields of the Civil War. This is my single favorite book to take with me when visiting CW battlefields. It gives an excellent and clearly written overview of the battles and includes wonderful illustrations and maps. Another excellent publication to take along is The West Point Military History Series publication entitled, Atlas for the American Civil War. This is the what is actually studied by military students at West Point. However, it is just maps showing movement; there is no text but it's a great supplement to help understand a battle's development. Take along Shiloh: A Battlefield Guide too, if you have it. But don't spend your entire visit reading! Enjoy the experience. Try to sense what actually happened there and hear the echos of cannon. That's the greatest reward of visiting historic sites. Don't miss that by having your face buried in this book. Do most of your reading before you visit the battlefield.

I used the "Battlefield Guide" May 18-19 while touring Shiloh, and could not have been more pleased with it. I re-read Sword, Daniel, and McDonough first, and used the Guide in conjunction with the Trailhead Graphics map of the battlefield. The tour stops were aptly detailed and quick & easy to read. I strongly recommend the Guide for anyone planning a walking tour of the Shiloh park.

I have walked much ground that was fought over by the men who fought the Civil War, but one field I have yet to reach rests in southwestern Tennessee, in the countryside near a little chapel called Shiloh Church. There one of the Confederacy's stars, Albert Sydney Johnston, fell like a hawk on the unsuspecting army of Ulysses S. Grant on the morning of April 6, 1862. What followed was the first massive struggle of the war. Dead and wounded were counted in the tens of thousands rather than in the hundreds. There Grant's quality of coolness under fire first showed itself, as on that first day it appeared that Johnston's men might push the Federals back into the Tennessee River. Instead, Johnston suffered a mortal wound, Don Carlos Buell landed with a huge reserve of additional Union soldiers, and on the next day Grant swept back across all the ground he had lost.

The University of Nebraska Press has undertaken the publication of a series of excellent battlefield guides, of which the two noted authors of this volume are editors. Each has contributed to at least one other book in what is now a five volume series.

When I get to Shiloh, I will have this guide at my side. It provides an excellent overview of the battle and a very logical plan to see and understand the events of both days. The maps, prepared by Christopher Brest, are numerous and clear. The illustrations, nearly all taken directly from the original four-volume printing of Battles and Leaders of the Civil War are both nostalgic and crisp. They use both battlefield sketches and portraits of many of the principal actors. Only William Tecumseh Sherman, whose Battles and Leaders image was one of him long after the war, festooned with medals and sash, seems a little out of place.

According to the authors, if I use this guide, and if I take all the time I need to take at all the stops they plan, I will spend most of a day on the field. I know it will be a day well spent for everyone who picks up this book before setting off on that tour.

If and when you go to Shiloh, they have a marked battlefield tour that includes 14 stops, but all they do is catch the highlights of the battle. They do not have chronology in mind. But this book does. It presents the action according to day, because it was a two day battle, as well as according to time. Then it divided the battle into its east and west campaigns, which successfully portrays the battle in its entirety. Without this book, I would not have known what I had missed out on. I am extremely happy I used this book and highly recommend it. Also, check out this series on Chickamauga (I bet it is good also).

I had the chance to go to Shiloh this winter, and had to bone up in a hurry. I read Daniel, got a bunch of maps (Trailhead!) and finally wound up using this when I actually hit the field. You need them all, but it was instrumental in turning one of the most confusing fields into something I could somewhat comprehend. I recommend it very highly, as I do the entire series. If you're going to actually walk the field, and not just drive around like a Gettysburg ghost hunter tourist (What was that?), then you probably need to buy it.