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#13 - Peach Orchard
For more
information on the upcoming Shiloh Battlefield Tour, or to register contact
us.
#13 - Peach
Orchard
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Quotes from Actual Battlefield Participants
| “I
will tell you while laying on the ground and just before we received orders
to fire I simply breathed faith: ‘Ever kind Father, preserve me.’
When I arose and the firing [began I] was as cool and composed as if sitting
down for a chat or shooting squirrells. The bulletts whistled over our heads,
shells bursting all around us, balls whizzing past, tearing trees.”
- Pvt. George W. Squirer, 44th Indiana |
Notes from the Field . . .
This was part of the sector
held by Brig. Gen. Stephen A. Hurlbut’s 
Fourth
Division.
Hurlbut formed his line initially just in front of (south of) the Peach Orchard
about mid-morning. The brigade of Col. Nelson G. Williams was directly
in front of the Peach Orchard, with Hurlbut’s other brigade, that of Brig.
Gen. Jacob C. Lauman, to the right. Williams was wounded early in the
fighting, and command of his brigade passed to Col. Isaac C. Pugh,
a Mexican War veteran who was affectionately referred to as “Old Pap
Pugh” by his
men.
As the struggle continued, Pugh became concerned about the security of his left flank and pulled his left regiment, the 41st Illinois, back into the Peach Orchard next to the Hamburg-Savannah Road. Hurlbut noticed this move and decided to pull the entire division back onto the same line. That put the 41st and 28th Illinois regiments in the Peach Orchard itself, with the rest of the division extending to the west and northwest, to the Hornets’ Nest sector (Stop 15). The position proved to be a strong one. Brig. Gen. John McArthur’s brigade, detached from W. H. L. Wallace’s Second Division, took up position on Hurlbut’s left, just east of the Hamburg-Savannah Road, and together the troops were able to hold here for several hours.
The Peach Orchard seemed
an incongruous place for such work. It was in full bloom, and as bullets zipped
through the trees, delicate pink petals rained down on the soldiers lying prone
in line of battle below them. Before the fight was over, the orchard was said
to look as if it had been hit by a hurricane.
In mid-afternoon the massed
Confederate attack that Albert Sidney Johnston 
orchestrated
and led in person finally forced the Federals out of the Peach Orchard.
To the
left McArthur’s
and, beyond him, Stuart’s, brigades were unable to compensate for the
fact that their lines never actually connected or came within supporting distance
of each other. The charging Confederates now drove them back. That left Pap
Pugh’s men here in the Peach Orchard unsupported on the left, and to
make matters worse, they were running out of ammunition. With Rebel troops
pouring
around the left flank and with Johnston leading a Tennessee brigade in a headlong
charge across Sarah Bell’s cotton field directly in front, the
situation here in the Peach Orchard became untenable. Hurlbut ordered his
division to
fall back.
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