The Battle of Shiloh, 6 April 1862. Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston has launched a surprise attack on Union forces under General Grant massing on the banks of the Tennessee River. In the early stages of the battle, Confederates had overrun some of the Union camps and many had begun to loot the abandoned tents. Johnston spotted a Confederate officer with a arm full of the spoils of war and chastised him for his behavior. Observing how chastened the officer was, Johnston picked up a tin cup and declared it to be his part of the spoils.
Later, Johnston would wave the cup as he encouraged his men to launch an assault against stubborn Federals holding a position that would become known as “the Hornet’s Nest.” Johnston’s men swept the position, but Johnston would receive a wound which, although would appear slight, would cause him to bleed out shortly after the attack on the Hornet’s Nest. Historians speculate that this loss may have cost the South the leader it needed in the West to turn the tide of the war.
A compact, illustrated account of the first major battle in the Western theatre of the American Civil War.
The common image of the Confederate Army during the Civil War is dominated by a limited number of early photographs of soldiers wearing the gray and butternut associated with the CS regulations and quartermaster issues. This sequence of books examines a much wider field: the original uniforms of the state militia and volunteer companies which were brought together to form the Confederate armies, and the continuing efforts by individual states to clothe their troops as wear-and-tear reduced the originally wide range of uniforms. A mass of information from state papers and other contemporary documents is illustrated with rare photographs and meticulous color reconstructions.