Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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.

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.

General Ulysses Grant once noted that "the Battle of Shiloh has been perhaps less understood, or, to state the case more accurately, more persistently misunderstood, than any other engagement". With Grant commanding the Army of the Tennessee, the Battle of Shiloh began on April 6, 1862 with a daring attack by the Confederate's Army of the Mississippi commanded by General Albert Sidney Johnston. Johnston lost his life during the battle. On April 7, 1862, following reinforcement of Grant by the Army of the Cumberland, the Confederate forces were driven back.

The Battle of Shiloh occurred in a remote area of Southwest Tennessee near Savannah, Tennessee and about 22 miles north of Corinth, Mississippi. Congress provided for the establishment of a National Military Park at Shiloh in 1893. (The National Cemetery was established just after the Civil War.) I visited the park four years ago. It remains pristine and isolated and undeveloped. The park is arranged with quiet dignity. I was moved by my visit.

In his book "This Great Battlefield of Shiloh" Dr. Timothy Smith discusses the establisment and history of the Shiloh National Battlefield. Dr Smith holds a PhD in history from Mississippi State and is a park ranger at Shiloh. He is deeply familiar with the Battle, with the history of the Park, and with recent scholarly approaches discussing the relationship between memory and history in studying the Civil War.

Dr. Smith begins his book with a brief overview of the Battle. He then discusses how an organization composed of veterans and political leaders worked successfully for the establishment of the Park. He explores in detail the work involved in establishing the Park, in the matters of clearing title, acquiring land, building roads, planning monuments and living quarters, determining the history of the Battle and much else. His stresses the reomote location of Shiloh and the lack of roads early in the 20th Century. Most material needed to be shipped on the Tennessee River to the site of Pittsburgh Landing, a key feature of the Battlefield. Many people devoted their lives to the establishment of the Shiloh Park. Dr. Smith pays most attention to Cornelius Cadle, the first chairman of the commission which managed the park, Atwell Thompson, the park's chief engineer, and David Reed. Reed was a historian whose account of the Battle of Shiloh set the stage for subsequent interpretations over the next 70 years.

There is a great deal more to Dr. Smith's account than factual information. His book explores well the purposes for which the Park was established -- to promote American patriotism, reconciliation after the Civil War, and American nationalism. In accordance with much recent scholarship, Dr. Smith is aware that these values were purchased at high cost -- the origins of the Civil War in slavery and in sucession were marginalized in an attempt to celebrate Union and the valor of Americans both North and South. I found Dr. Smith's account measured and careful, both in the importance he attaches to the values for which the Park was established and in his realization of the tragedy of forgetting the origins of the War.

Dr Smith also has interesting things to say about the Battle of Shiloh itself and of the history that David Reed and the Park perpetuated. Reed saw the Sunken Road and Hornet's Nest in the middle of the Battlefield as the key to the fighting. Many subsequent historians have followed that view. But, according to Dr Smith, more detailed research has shown that the Sunken Road saw only limited action with most of the fighting taking place to its East or West. This is a point that needs developing and analysis in subsequent studies of the battle.

Among the more romantic elements of the Battle of Shiloh is the death of General Albert Sidney Johnston, the highest-ranked American officer to be killed in Battle. Dr. Smith gives an excellent account of how the Park determined the spot where Johnston fell and how it was marked on the Battlefield. Johnston's actual location at his death too remains a subject of dispute.

This is a fine book particulary in the way Dr. Smith discusses the meaning of the Battle and the War and encourages reflection on these matters by his readers. I wanted to visit Shiloh again after reading the book. The book will interest readers interested in Shiloh and in Civil War historiography.

Over the years I have grown weary of reading accounts of Civil War battles that never provide any information on what happened to the battlefield after the battle is over. Apprently most military authors must assume that every reader knows the field either became a park or a parking lot in later years and they ignore the subject completely, not even touching on it in an epilouge. That's why I love this book. It shows the Shiloh battlefield continuing to live as the parchment upon which the battle was written. This post-war account of the field contains almost as many quirky characters as held command in the fight. Some of the stories are amusing, some are appalling such as the former officer who continually insisted that an artificial lake be placed in the park to make it more picturesqe... he never could understand that the lake would be non-historical and cover the scene of heavy fighting. Happily, the park administrators politely resisted his requests until he finally passed away.

What a novel approach to one of the Civil War's greatest battlefields and parks! When I first picked the book up off the seller's shelf to flip through it, I thought that it would be a boring rehash of the battle, crunch of numbers, and numbing facts on the park's creation. Never-the-less, I went home and ordered a copy from Amazon. When it arrived, boy, did I discover my preconceived ideas were wrong! I started reading it and never put it down until I was finished. Smith did a superb job of writing what could have been a difficult subject and held my attention throughout. I'll never walk a park again without thinking of the tremendous effort that went into creating it. OK, Mr. Smith, I know your love for Shiloh, and that you enjoy your job there, but you've left me yearning for another volume on Chickamauga, and perhaps another on some of the smaller parks like Stones River that fell short in their creation, and those like Franklin who never made it. The illustrations topped off the superbly handled story. Hat's off to the author, and to the men who made the park possible. I can't imagine anyone being disappointed in this book!

This short book tells the story of Shiloh National Military Park from the aftermath of the battle until its transfer from the jurisdiction of the War Department to the National Park Service in 1933. Smith's enthusiasm for the park shines through this revised dissertation, even though his prose is usually more serviceable than exciting.

Attempts to relate the early administrative history of the park to current discussions about historical interpretation--probably only the flotsam of the book's academic origins--are unnecessary because anachronistic. But Smith hits his stride when he begins to discuss his protagonist, David W. Reed (1841-1916), the "Father of Shiloh National Military Park," to whose memory he dedicates the volume.

For those interested in the development of American military parks, there are three important lessons to be gleaned from Smith's book: 1. The federal government was, at least on occasion, capable of dealing prudently and fairly with private landowners when acquiring park property--although it must be admitted that the area around Pittsburg Landing was an economic backwater. (53) 2. Not surprisingly, the winners of a battle tend to be more enthusiastic about commemorating it than the losers. (78) 3. An intelligent and gifted administrator such as Reed, early on the scene, can shape interpretation in such a way as to make full revision almost impossible. For instance, all Civil War buffs know something about the importance of Shiloh's "Hornets' Nest," "Sunken Road," and "Bloody Pond," but these iconic locations now seem to have been as much a creation of Reed's historical imagination as battle reality. (69)

Gettysburg, Antietam, Bull Run, Shiloh are places we won't ever forget. On these battlefields, where streams ran red with blood, the United States was truly born. Between 1861 and 1865, the clash of the greatest armies of the Western Hemisphere turned these small towns, little known streams and obscure corners of American countryside into names we will always remember.

The cost in American life was greater than that for all other American wars combined, from colonial times through the wars against terrorism. Antietam was the bloodiest, and yet more fatalities on both sides occurred at Shiloh, Tennessee, and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. My sons and I made many trips to both places to pay respect to our soldiers who died protecting the right to be where we were and who we were. At a Confederate Decoration Day celebration, on Jefferson Davis' birthday, one of the re-enactors told me that Nathan Bedford Forrest was his hero. I took a photo of the hero in action he had on his horse carrier. He was shocked when I told him that Amazon had removed my review about the Forrest book which was all made-up with all truth absent. He said to me, "You mean we still have censorship in the United States." A local Confederate, Dr. William Johnson Worsham, was honored for his service to our country; his war memoirs, "The Old 19th Tennessee Infantry Regiment, CSA" were published in 1902. A special commemoration and dedicated monument in the Old Gray Cemetery. On the Seal of the Confederacy are these words: "Deo Vindice", God is our Vindicator. I also took pictures of the different flags displayed on June 3.

Extraordinary leaders and incompetent tyrants served on both sides. Their power to fascinate, inspire, or exasperate remains undimmed. These men -- heros and fools -- toiled in a typhoon of broader forces. Grasping this dynamic relationship among the battlefield, the home front, and the diplomatic front is absolutely essential if you want to understand the American Civil War.

Shiloh is by far one of the best battlefields to visit. Scouts all over Tennessee travel to Shiloh to camp out and study history at the place where it happened. Living history is better understood and absorbed if you are standing on the very spot where important actions took place.