Many years after, speaking one day to General Sherman, I asked him,
“What do you regard as the bloodiest and most sanguinary battle of the Civil War?”
“Shiloh,” was the prompt response.
And in this opinion I heartily concur.
Note—The killed and wounded in the two days’ Battle of Shiloh numbered nearly twenty thousand Federals and Confederates, or about thirty per cent of the entire number engaged. These figures become the more significant when it is remembered that a very large proportion of the troops engaged on both sides were absolutely raw and were at Shiloh in their first baptism of fire. These losses again become most significant when compared with the losses in the world’s most noted battles. Waterloo is considered one of the most desperate and bloody fields chronicled in European history, and yet Wellington’s casualties were less than twelve per cent. In the great battles of Marengo and Austerlitz, sanguinary as they were, Napoleon lost less than fifteen per cent, while at Shiloh, Americans fighting against Americans, the killed and wounded numbered more than twice the casualties of the Duke of Wellington’s Army at Waterloo.
SATAN FISHING
Ole Satan went a fishin’ when de Lawd he fus’ made man,
En all de fish dat cum his way he never fail to lan’.
He had all diff’unt kind er bait to suit dey appetite,