The most impressive part for me was our walk down the sunken road, and through the "hornet's nest".  Trying to picture what it must have been like, leaning against a fence post looking at thousands of screaming Rebels charging and firing.  Fire-reload-fire-reload.  It was surely a day that would be forever indelibly imprinted in the memories of the survivors.
It was from here, that General Prentiss first stopped the Confederate advance.  Again and again Johnston would order his men into the maelstrom only to be thrown back by those holding the road.  "It's like a hornet's nest down there" one commander told him, and the name has stuck ever since.  While the Rebels threw everything they had at the "hornet's nest", Grant seized on the opportunity to fortify substantial positions near the banks of the Tennessee River, well within the range of Union Gunboats which had steamed to assist.  Likewise, Buell had arrived and was now ferrying his troops across this same river. By noon, Johnston realized the price he was paying at the "hornet's nest" and withdrew long enough to order up the largest line of cannons assembled heretofore in the war, sixty-two artillery pieces, all of which opened up simultaneously on the sunken road, devastating its defenders.  The subsequent charge was successful and the Hornet's Nest fell with most of Prentiss's division being killed or captured.  Prentiss himself was taken prisoner. By 2:00PM the Rebel advance continued.  Johnston rode off toward the river to rally the men. He was found, shortly thereafter, mortally wounded. He bled to death before his surgeons arrived, making him the highest ranking Confederate officer to die in the war.  General P.G.T. Beauregard took command and continued the attack but Grant was now well fortified and the battle lines had become confused.  As night fell, Grant remained securely fortified in his riverbank position.  The Rebels retired the attack and took refuge for the night.  There was to be no rest however, as Union gunboats opened up with salvos every 15 minutes to keep the Rebs awake.  Under the cover of the bombardments, Buell slipped the rest of the Army of the Ohio across the river.  The next morning, Beauregard, not knowing that Buell was across the Tennessee, continued the attack, and for the first few hours seemed to be having success, but lack of training and poor communications soon destroyed his advantage and he was facing an overwhelming enemy of 55,000 men.  With full understanding of the situation, Beauregard elected to withdraw from battle, leaving 15,000 dead and wounded behind. The battle of Shiloh had come to an end. The significance of Shiloh was not in its geographic or political importance.  It was simply a place where two mighty Armies met and fought because they found themselves together at the same point in time. Other great battles would be fought for adjacent lands along the Mississippi with similar results until the Confederate army would be split in half and finally defeated. If anything significant can be found in this, it is in the way those who participated threw themselves into the task with such voracity and devastation.  All hopes of a short "limited" war were gone.  The grinding, dogmatic execution of death and destruction had begun in earnest and the illusion of "an honorable war" was only one of its many victims.

***THE END ***