This Great Battlefield of Shiloh: History, Memory, and the Establishment of a Civil War National Military Park. By Timothy B. Smith. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2004.)

HOW THE HISTORY of a battle is created and retold is not always determined by the conflict’s principal participants, but instead by lesser-known individuals who were instrumental in the preservation and creation of our national military parks. The story of the creation of these parks also tells us much about the importance of these places in American memory. Both of these points are made clear in Timothy B. Smith’s well-crafted This Great Battlefield of Shiloh, History, Memory, and the Establishment of a Civil War National Military Park.

U. S. Grant, Albert Sidney Johnston, William T. Sherman, and P. G. T. Beauregard are a few of the many famous personalities who are instantly associated with that landmark April 1862 battle. Yet it was not these men, but lower-ranking veterans and others -- such as David W. Reed, Cornelius Cadle, and Atwell Thompson -- who, over thirty years later, not only created Shiloh National Military Park, but also much of the longstanding, accepted history of the battle.

While providing a brief overview of the Shiloh area, along with a short summary of the campaign and battle, the book obviously concentrates on the establishment and history of the park itself: specifically from the park’s creation by Congress in 1893 through the transfer of control to the National Park Service in 1933.

Using the same system employed in the creation of other national military parks at that time (Chickamauga, Vicksburg, and Gettysburg), Congress mandated that the War Department create a Shiloh commission to oversee the design, construction, and eventual operation of the park. These commissions usually consisted of three park commissioners: two Union and one Confederate veteran of the battle, along with their support staff. The three most central and influential figures of the Shiloh commission were Reed (secretary and historian), Cadle (commission chairman), and Thompson (chief engineer).

Smith’s narrative details the numerous obstacles these three men overcame, including: 1) the gaining of Congressional legislation, 2) the constant struggle for funding and the subsequent undersized workforce, 3) the mechanics of creating the park’s physical infrastructure (surveying the field, acquiring the land, building avenues, bridges, culverts, etc.), 4) marking significant points of action, 5) creating regulations concerning the creation of monuments and markers, and eventually 6) the park’s maintenance.

More importantly, however, Smith provides an excellent description and analysis of how the commissioners, especially Reed, were instrumental in creating and then perpetuating widely accepted interpretations of the battle. Some of these interpretations have been scrutinized by historians over the last few decades, including the pinpointing of famous landmarks such as the Johnston Tree, Bloody Pond, and Sunken Road. In particular, historians today question whether the action at the "Hornet’s Nest" was truly central to the final outcome of the battle.

Reed was a veteran of the 12th Iowa who fought at the "Hornet’s Nest." Thus his memories and subsequent interpretation of the battle naturally concentrated on this part of the field. "Despite Reed’s undoubted quest for accuracy and commitment to tell the truth," Smith concludes, "his subjectivity and desire to create tangible points of interest for visitors caused him to create myths that are taken as gospel truth today" (71).

Interestingly, Reed's story is similar to that of a domineering historian at one of Shiloh’s sister parks, Gettysburg. John B. Bachelder was untiring in his efforts to preserve the battlefield and accurately mark the troop positions of both armies. Bachelder was instrumental in creating accepted interpretations of the conflict at Gettysburg, ones that have recently come under fire from some historians of the war. The most obvious example is Bachelder's now-controversial marking and memorializing of The High Water Mark area, the most famous landmark on the field, which he identified as the objective of Pickett’s Charge.

Smith also does a good job of placing the history of the Shiloh battlefield in the context of American history and the events transpiring around it. “In all these . . . activities,” observes Smith, “the commission was taking part in the larger, national effort to honor the courage and sacrifice of the soldiers who had fought in the Civil War.” He goes on to correctly point out that the “veterans’ fixation on courage and honor not only allowed white America to agree on the need and use of these battlefield parks, but it also pushed to the background the highly charged issues that had actually caused the war” (71).

The book is well-organized, with a preface, introduction, eight chapters, a conclusion, and seven appendices that contain valuable information. Included are the park’s enabling legislation, record of land purchases, listings of the superintendents of the national cemetery and of the commissioners and superintendents of the battlefield park, a short history of the park’s monuments and dedications, an overview of the history of the Shiloh Church, and a historiography of the battle. The work is sprinkled throughout with 30 photographs and four maps.

While the photographs are enlightening and strengthen the main text, a small frustration grows from the lack of even approximate dates for all but a handful. And I believe the addition of a modern map of the park (although outside the dates of this study) would have been helpful, especially for readers who have never visited the battlefield. Overall, however, This Great Battlefield of Shiloh is a commendable contribution to the field of Civil War studies, revealing many of the factors that helped shape memory of that fateful event.

ERIC A. CAMPBELL
Park Ranger and Historian
Gettysburg National Military Park