View single post by calcav
 Posted: Fri Jan 12th, 2007 01:40 pm
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calcav
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Joined: Sat Jan 28th, 2006
Location: Corinth, MS
Posts: 160
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Mana: 
 Walking the quiet paths and grassy fields of Shiloh it is difficult to imagine the horrors that occured the evening of April 6th, 1862. Most of the wounded spent the night where they fell, robbed of any rest by a cold rain that began to fall around midnight. Those that found shelter were awakened by shells fired at ten minute intervals by the gunboat Tyler until midnight ,when it was relieved by the Lexington that continued the harrasing fire at 15 minute intervals. During the fighting in the area known as the Hornet's Nest the woods around the 44th Indiana caught fire and many of the wounded were unable to crawl away. Some men, wounded and horribly burned, waited through the night for relief that did not come. A young Confederate soldier was woken from a sound sleep to stand picket duty and was horrified at the scene he found under the stormy sky, ""Vivid flashings of lightning rent the heavens and...sickening sights fell before my eyes...I saw a large piece of ground literaly covered with dead heaped and piled on each other. I shut my eyes upon the sickening sight...Through the dark I heard the sound of hogs...quarreling over their carnival feast."