Two Days Of Fighting -- 23,746 Estimated Casualties

Some folks share a historical interest in U.S. military battles.  The major American Civil War Battles Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg are a personal focus since several ancestors were troops doing the Union fighting.  The Battle of Shiloh was known but this struggle was never seriously studied. Below is a summary of some interesting facts presented by the American Battlefield Trust.  These accepted battle facts cause a hollow feeling in the gut -- kind of interesting that Shiloh is declared a union victory when 13,000+ of the official estimated 23,746 casualties are union troops.

A typical example of Civil War Battle causality is the case of our German-born paternal Great-Great Grandfather Corporal William Moegling, late of Company B, 97th Infantry Regiment of New York State Volunteers.  William was with his unit during the major battles of Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburg.  He remains assigned to his regiment in December 1862 at Fredericksburg but was probably then convalescing at a unit field hospital near Belle Plain Landing, Virginia. In early 1863 William was Discharged For Disability from the military. Official records show he suffered a gunshot wound to the right leg during the early morning hours of 17 September 1862 at The Battle of Antietam.  William died at his adopted Utica, New York home in 1869, probably due at least in part to the negative effects of his various Civil War service-connected injuries.  An unknown number of soldiers on both sides of the Civil War died many months and/or years following their military service injuries -- and these men (and some women) were never counted among the official Civil War casualties. 

A union victory at Shiloh! Well, technically true I guess, but when significantly more union troops -- nearly 2,500 more union causalities are lost at Shiloh -- it does cause a rational person to question this "victory."  Any student of the American Civil War knows the projected body count assessment was not a factor in General U.S. Grant's Army tactical planning.  Note: some living highly credentialed statisticians place the likely number of Shiloh battle casualties at more like 27,500+.  These increased casualty numbers are likely valid for all the century-and-a-half-old battle causality calculations experienced during the Civil War.  The generally accepted number is 620,000 total Civil War Union and Rebel army casualties; whereas, the actual causality number may be closer to 850,000.

A Battle of Shiloh summary as copied from the American Battlefield Trust website follows:

Hardin County, Tennessee, April 6 - 7, 1862

The Battle of Shiloh, also known as the Battle of Pittsburg Landing, allowed Union troops to penetrate the Confederate interior. The carnage was unprecedented, with the human toll being the greatest of any war on the American continent up to that date.

How the battle ended:

A Union victory. The South’s defeat at Shiloh ended the Confederacy’s hopes of blocking the Union's advance into Mississippi and doomed the Confederate military initiative in the West. With the loss of their commander, General Albert Sidney Johnston, in battle, Confederate morale plummeted.

Battle in context:

After Major General Ulysses S. Grant's Union victories at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in February 1862, Confederate General Johnston withdrew from Kentucky and left much of the western and middle of Tennessee to the Federals. This permitted General Grant to push his troops toward Corinth, Mississippi, the strategic intersection of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad and the Memphis and Charleston Railroad and a vital troop and supply conduit for the South. Alerted to the Union army’s position, General Johnston intercepted the Federal troops twenty miles northeast of Corinth at Pittsburg Landing. The encounter proved devastating — not only for its tactical failure but for the extreme number of casualties. After the Battle of Shiloh, both sides realized the magnitude of the conflict, which would be longer and bloodier than they could have imagined.

Click HERE to read more battle details including battlefield maps, see the American Battlefield Trust website.