Battle of Shiloh
Also called: Battle of Pittsburg Landing
Confederates surprised Grant’s army camped at Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River, but reinforced the next day, the Union drove them back; the two days cost more than 23,000 casualties.
Thure de Thulstrup / Adam Cuerden · Public domain · Source
Having taken Forts Henry and Donelson in February 1862, Ulysses S. Grant advanced south along the Tennessee River. At dawn on 6 April Albert Sidney Johnston’s Confederates surprised the Union camps near Shiloh Church and drove them back to the river; that afternoon Johnston was shot in the leg and bled to death.
When Don Carlos Buell’s reinforcements crossed the river overnight, the Union counter-attacked on 7 April and forced the Confederates, now under Beauregard, back to Corinth. Casualties on both sides came to about 23,700, more than in any American battle until then, and the nation first grasped how terrible the war would be.