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Grant’s previous victories at Forts Henry and Donelson had boosted his confidence. He believed he had the superior army and that the Confederacy would soon collapse. Sherman, in charge of day-to-day operations at Pittsburg Landing, shared his commander’s arrogance, “I always acted on the supposition that we were an invading army. . . we did not fortify our army against an attack, because we had no orders to do so, and because such a course would have made our men timid.” Despite intelligence about and evidence of Southern forces in the area, Sherman was dismissive. To the Major who reported encountering Confederate troops nearby on April 4, he replied, “You militia officers get scared too easy.” So, when taken unawares by Rebel forces on April 6, the Union troops had no defensive plan in place. With the fighting concentrated in a small area—the Snake River on one side and the Tennessee River on the other—this narrow funnel-shaped zone became a cauldron of death. The battle became a free-for-all, with soldiers attacking one another and calvary working to prevent men from fleeing, rather than launching attacks.

For Grant, who was nine miles downriver at his headquarters, his folly may had been to rely on Sherman, who had several warnings about a Confederate attack but failed to heed them. On April 5, Sherman wrote to Grant, “I have no doubt that nothing will occur today other than some picket firing. The enemy is saucy, but. . . will not press our pickets far. I do not apprehend anything like an attack on our position.” His words soon came back to haunt him. Sherman’s men had just finished breakfast on April 6 when they got word of Confederate units on the march. Sherman rode out to investigate. As he raised his spyglass to view the oncoming troops, the orderly next to him was shot dead by enemy fire. Sherman was shot in the hand. It was only then that reality sunk in. “My God,” he said, we are attacked!”

As news of the carnage at Shiloh spread to North and South alike, the public’s notion that the war would be short-lived ended. Newspaper accounts, many erroneous but all shocking, described the chaos and bloodshed on the battlefield. This changed people’s romantic view of the conflict. The war had turned ruthless. In his memoirs, Grant wrote, “Up to the battle of Shiloh, I, as well as thousands of other citizens, believed that the rebellion against the Government would collapse suddenly and soon, if a decisive victory could be gained over its armies….” After Shiloh, he admitted, “I gave up all idea of saving the Union except by complete conquest.” Sherman reinforced this view, “…we cannot change the hearts and minds of the people of the South, but we can make war so terrible…that the rebels will tire of it.”

The most radical change in view occurred among the soldiers who fought at Shiloh. After the battle Confederate private Sam Watkins of the First Tennessee wrote: “I had been feeling mean all morning, as if I had stolen a sheep … I had heard and read of battlefields, seen pictures of battlefields, of horses and men, of cannons and wagons, all jumbled together, while the ground was strewn with dead and dying and wounded, but I must confess I never realized the ‘pomp and circumstance’ of the thing called ‘glorious war’ until I saw this.”