This Great Battlefield of Shiloh: History, Memory, and the Establishment of a Civil War National Military Park (Voices of the Civil War) [Paperback]

Timothy B. Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 2006 | Series: Voices of the Civil War

Traces the history of the establishment of Shiloh National Military Park, arguing that Shiloh veterans purposefully set aside the issues of the Civil War in order to memorialize and honor soldiers from both sides of the conflict, both living and dead.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"An act of love but also of careful scholarship, This Great Battlefield of Shiloh tells the story of the construction of a National Military Park there and of the people who made it. Everyone interested in the battle will want to read what happened there after the fighting stopped, and anyone interested in the process of reunion after the Civil War will learn that a field of such carnage became a site of reconciliation and nationalism. Timothy Smith works at the Shiloh park, knows its history, and appreciates the larger significance of its story." —Gaines M. Foster, Louisiana State University --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From the Inside Flap

Around the turn of the last century, feelings of patriotism, nationalism, and sectional reconciliation swept the United States and led to a nationwide memorialization of American military history in general and the Civil War in particular. The 1894 establishment of the Shiloh National Military Park, for example, grew out of an effort by veterans themselves to preserve and protect the site of one of the Civil War’s most important engagements.

Returning to the Pittsburg Landing battlefield, Shiloh veterans organized themselves to push the Federal government into establishing a park to honor both the living participants in the battle and those who died there. In a larger sense, these veterans also contributed to the contemporaneous reconciliation of the North and the South by focusing on the honor, courage, and bravery of Civil War soldiers instead of continuing divisive debates on slavery and race.

This Great Battlefield of Shiloh tells the story of their efforts from the end of the battle to the park’s incorporation within the National Park Service in 1933. The War Department appointed a park commission made up of veterans of the battle. This commission surveyed and mapped the field, purchased land, opened roads, marked troop positions, and established the historical interpretation of the early April 1862 battle. Many aged veterans literally gave the remainder of their lives in the effort to plan, build, and maintain Shiloh National Military Park for all veterans. By studying the establishment and administration of parks such as the one at Shiloh, the modern scholar can learn much about the mindsets of both veterans and their civilian contemporaries regarding the Civil War. This book represents an important addition to the growing body of work on the history of national remembrance. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Univ Tennessee Press (September 30, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572335831
• ISBN-13: 978-1572335837
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #781,998 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Understanding a Battlefield, April 7, 2005

By 

James W. Durney (Tampa Bay area) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: This Great Battlefield of Shiloh: History, Memory, and the Establishment of a Civil War National Military Park (Hardcover)

Being married to a Civil War enthusiast can have a down side; my wife calls it "visiting dirt" whenever we stop at battlefields. For the enthusiast, a battlefield can be one of the best places on earth as you see more than words can convey; gain understanding of the what, why and how of the action. You can connect with the men; hear the guns while seeing their view of the battle. Talk to someone who has walked Pickett's Charge, climbed Missionary Ridge or stood looking toward The Sunken Road and you will feel their connection to that event. Each National Military Park is unique and the experience of one is not the same as another. Shiloh, in majestic isolation, is the park closest to what the veterans wanted to tell us about their service. This book is the story not of the battle but of saving the battlefield and determining how that story would be told.

In December 1894 Congress passed an act to "establish a national military park at the battlefield of Shiloh", with a budget of $75,000. This was in response to pressure from veterans who wanted their battle commemorated. From 1862 to 1894, only a military cemetery was in the area. Except for the cemetery, the battlefield had returned to farmland. Whenever a body was found, the cemetery would come out to remove the remains for burial.

This book, details how a small group of men converted several thousand acres of land, thousands of personal accounts and the Official Records into the park we have today. It is great fun to read about this effort and the writing is crisp and easy to follow. The author tells a good story, keeping our attention while generating interest. The amount of detail this small book is amazing as we work through land purchases, mapping the battlefield, placing units amid the chaos of battle while trying to find a place to live and work. It took a strong person to do this and we were blessed with a series of them, each making a unique and necessary contribution to the park.

Monumentation produced a new set of problems as regiments fought the official interpretation preferring their memories. Shiloh went through a series of "battles" with veteran's groups, state lobbies and the War Department that lasted for years. Lastly, the author gives us a glimpse of the emerging question on the Hornet's Nest complete with historical background.

While this is a small book, it is well worth the money. I have gained a real understanding of what was required to build the National Military Parks and will carry that with me each time I visit one.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What The Battlefield Tells Us, Not Just About the Battle, April 6, 2005

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R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: This Great Battlefield of Shiloh: History, Memory, and the Establishment of a Civil War National Military Park (Hardcover)

The battle at Shiloh, Tennessee, on 6 and 7 April 1862, was the first major battle of the Civil War. Confederate forces under Albert Sidney Johnston and P. G. T. Beauregard were successful on the first day of the battle, forcing Ulysses S. Grant's larger forces back to the Tennessee River at Pittsburg Landing. The following day, the Union, having gotten reinforcements from Lew Wallace and Don Carlos Buell, reversed the Confederate gains. The famously bitter and bloody battle at Shiloh was an effort by the Union to take possession of the vital railroad junction at Corinth, Mississippi, which was shortly thereafter taken almost bloodlessly. _This Great Battlefield of Shiloh: History, Memory, and the Establishment of a Civil War National Military Park_ (University of Tennessee Press) by Timothy B. Smith is not the story of the battle, but about the park that grew up to commemorate it. From a battlefield of legendary carnage, Shiloh (along with other similar military parks) became a focus for nationalism and reconciliation. Smith himself is on the staff of Shiloh National Military Park, and his book might be particularly interesting for those many who visit the park, but it also tells of the national attitudes since the Civil War that allowed the park to come into existence and grow into its current form.

Any visitor to the park will find it a very isolated place, and now tranquil; the isolation helped keep the area of the park from development. In 1866, Congress authorized its military cemetery, but for thirty years, the cemetery was the only memorial to the battle, and it was the site of many reunions of veterans from both sides, especially on the anniversaries of the battle. Veterans were shocked to find the battlefield neglected, and in 1893 determined that their particular scene of valor would be saved from change. At their influence, Congress eventually authorized the park and the War Department was to organize and operate it. The most important appointment was that of David W. Reed, the park's first secretary and historian. Reed had served in the 12th Iowa Infantry, and saw combat at Shiloh in the positions known as Sunken Road and the Hornet's Nest. Smith admits that Reed's "subjectivity and desire to create tangible points of interest for visitors caused him to create myths" about the battle, based on his own participation in it. The Hornet's Nest, for instance, Reed cited as the most important site of the battle, but it seems to have been the scene of only light fighting. Every visitor to the park now goes to see Bloody Pond, but contemporary accounts do not even mention it. Nonetheless, Reed formed the history of the battle and wrote it large in the Shiloh landscape, positioning markers on the fields to interpret the battle for visitors. When it came time for state commissions to erect monuments on the field, he was embroiled in some bitter battles as he defended his version of history.

"As the monuments went up, the proverbial smoke cleared," writes Smith, and eventually almost everyone agreed with Reed's interpretation, however subjective it might have been, and everyone loved the beauty of the park and the monuments within. When it was completed as a park around 1908, Shiloh was a monument not only to the battle but to the veterans who had formed the park and to the ideas of the time. For instance, none of the monuments call attention to the larger war, or to questions of succession or slavery, and none refer to the correctness of either side. They certainly do not reflect that Jim Crow segregation, if not slavery, was bedeviling the nation. They are devoted strictly to looking inward, to the battle and the battlefield itself, and the heroes of both sides lodged therein. The memorialization can be seen, therefore, as a process of reconciliation and limitation of controversy over the war, a process fueled by nationalism. Shiloh and the other parks may be viewed as tools to help remake the American people into one. Smith's book is thus a valuable history not of a battle, but of a battlefield and of the ideas Americans have imposed on and derived from it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Guide, February 5, 2005

By 

Blake L. Strickler (Murfreesboro, TN) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: This Great Battlefield of Shiloh: History, Memory, and the Establishment of a Civil War National Military Park (Hardcover)

This book is simply amazing. For all of you out there who have ever been to a battlefield and asked yourself, 'How did this stuff get here?' This book is for you. I have been to Shiloh many times over the years and have always felt that something was missing from my battlefield experience. That is until read this fine book. Timothy Smith does not mull over the battle or the tactics of the Generals as much as he reviews how the battlefield was forever shaped and marked fifty years later by the men who brought this battlefield into exsistence.

Simply put this book answers all the 'who, what, where, when, why and even the how' of the establishment of Shiloh National Park. If your curious about Shiloh after the battle than this is your book! Thanks Tim.