Battle of Shiloh

Grant’s unentrenched army is overrun at dawn; Sherman makes a stand as the camps fall.

Prentiss (North) holds a sunken lane for six hours; Johnston (South) bleeds to death; the line clings to the river by dusk.

Fresh divisions cross the river overnight and the Union counterattacks, driving the Confederates back to Corinth.

~23,700 fall in two days. The short-war illusion dies in the West; Grant is blamed, then vindicated.