Portal:American Civil War

The Battle of Shiloh, also known as the Battle of Pittsburg Landing, was a major battle in the Western Theater of the American Civil War, fought on April 6 and April 7, 1862, in southwestern Tennessee. Confederate forces under Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P. G. T. Beauregard launched a surprise attack against the Union Army of Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and came very close to defeating his army.

On the first day of battle, the Confederates struck with the intention of driving the Union defenders away from the Tennessee River and into the swamps of Owl Creek to the west, hoping to defeat Grant’s Army of the Tennessee before it could link up with Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell‘s Army of the Ohio. The Confederate battle lines became confused during the fierce fighting, and Grant’s men instead fell back in the direction of Pittsburg Landing to the northeast. A position on a slightly sunken road, nicknamed the “Hornet’s Nest”, defended by the men of Brig. Gens. Benjamin M. Prentiss‘s and W. H. L. Wallace‘s divisions, provided critical time for the rest of the Union line to stabilize under the protection of numerous artillery batteries. Gen. Johnston was killed during the first day’s fighting, and Beauregard, his second in command, decided against assaulting the final Union position that night. Reinforcements from Gen. Buell arrived in the evening and turned the tide the next morning, when he and Grant launched a counterattack along the entire line. The Confederates were forced to retreat from the bloodiest battle in United States history up to that time, ending their hopes that they could block the Union invasion of northern Mississippi.

Nevada began the war as a territory, but the process of achieving full statehood in was expedited by the events of war. Union sympathizers were so eager to gain statehood for Nevada that they rushed to send the entire state constitution by telegraph to the United States Congress in order to ensure its arrival before the presidential election as they did not believe that sending it by train would guarantee that it would arrive on time. The constitution was sent on October 31, just eight days before the election on November 7, 1864. The Nevada state constitution remains the largest and costliest transmission by telegraph. It had less than 40,000 inhabitants when it gained statehood (territories needed 60,000 to petition for statehood), far fewer than the initial population of any other state. President of the United States Abraham Lincoln wanted an additional Northern state that would presumably vote for his reelection, and help force pro-Northern ideas into new amendments to the United States Constitution. In total, Nevada sent 1,200 men to fight for the Union.

Nevada’s main contribution to the war was the $400 million worth of silver mined from the Comstock Lode, which financed the Union Civil War effort to defeat the Confederacy. A common belief is that Nevada achieved early statehood due to its silver; however, as the Union already had the right to claim Nevada’s silver as it held Nevada as its territory, Nevada’s achieving statehood was due to political concerns, not economic.

Dabney Herndon Maury (May 21, 1822 – January 11, 1900) was an officer in the United States Army, instructor at West Point, author of military training books, and a major general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

Maury was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, the son of Naval officer John Minor Maury, who died of yellow fever in the West Indies when Dabney was two years old. He was brought up by his uncle, Matthew Fontaine Maury, studied law in Fredericksburg and graduated from the University of Virginia in the class of 1841. He finished his studies at the United States Military Academy in 1846 and was brevetted as a second lieutenant in the Mounted Rifles. Maury served in the Mexican–American War at the Battle of Cerro Gordo, and suffered a painful wound that almost resulted in the amputation of his arm. He later authored a book, Tactics for Mounted Rifles, which became the standard textbook.

When the Civil War began, Maury was the Assistant Adjutant General in the New Mexico Territory, based in Santa Fe. Hearing the news of the firing on Fort Sumter, he resigned from the United States Army and travelled back to Virginia. He entered the Confederate Army as a colonel, serving as an Adjutant General, then was Chief of Staff under General Earl Van Dorn. Following the Battle of Pea Ridge, he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general and assigned to field command. Maury led a division at the Second Battle of Corinth, and was appointed major general in November 1862. He participated in army operations around Vicksburg, Mississippi, and in the defense of Mobile, Alabama. In the latter military campaign, Maury commanded the Department of the Gulf.