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#6 - Rea Field

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Quotes from Actual Battlefield Participants

Notes from the Field . . .

The view from this point was much different during the Civil War than it is now and is a prime example of the National Park Service’s misguided policy of allowing Civil War battlefields to become overgrown. Rea Field, which today extends some 200 yards south of this point, stretched in the 1860s stretched more than 800 yards in that direction, almost to the place where Peabody’s brigade made its stand on the low ridge above Shiloh Branch (Stop 3). The east edge of the field ran straight. The west edge, then as now, meandered with the course of Shiloh Branch, hidden in the trees and brush just beyond the west edge of the field. To the north lies the ravine of the east fork of Shiloh Branch, location of Rea Spring. The ravine, heavily wooded now, with dense underbrush, had a few trees in the 1860s but was open enough to allow clear views of what lay beyond: Sherman’s headquarters at the little Shiloh Methodist Church, and the camps of most of Sherman’s division. With the exception of a single brigade detached to another part of the battlefield, only one of Sherman’s regiments was encamped south of Rea Springs. That was the 53rd Ohio, Col. Jesse Appler, commanding, whose camp was right here in the middle of the north end of Rea Field.

Appler was nervous this morning. During the night he and others had heard scattered shots from the picket line. Before dawn a scouting detail had returned from the far south end of Rea Field with a report that heavy firing could be heard only a little ways farther south. Appler was unsure what to do. Then a soldier of the 25th Missouri rushed into camp, bleeding from a wound in the arm and shouting, “Get into line; the rebels are coming!” That was enough for Appler. He immediately ordered the drummer to beat the long roll, summoning the men of the 53rd out of their blankets and into ranks along the regiment’s color line, just west of the camp, facing toward Shiloh Branch. While the men assembled, Appler fired off a message to Sherman, apprising him of the situation. Minutes later, however, the messenger was back and in a low voice told Appler, “General Sherman says, ‘You must be badly scared over there.’”

Events Appler had scarcely imagined now followed in rapid succession. An officer ran up from the left end of the line shouting, “Colonel, the rebels are crossing the field!” Sure enough, Confederate troops of S. A. M. Wood’s brigade were passing from west to east (right to left, as viewed from here) across the south end of the field as they moved around the flank of Peabody’s hard-pressed brigade. Appler ordered the line to shift over to the south side of the camp and face south, toward the gray-clad specters at the far end of the field. No sooner had the troops come into position than regimental adjutant Lt. E. C. Dawes rushed up to the colonel and said in a low voice, “Colonel, look to the right.” There in the woods and brush along Shiloh Branch they could see rifle barrels glinting in the light of the newly risen sun. “This is no place for us,” gasped Appler. “Battalion, about face; right wheel.” Pivoting on its left flank, the regiment swung back through its camps to take up a line in the trees on the eastern edge of the field. The camp would now be directly in front of the regiment’s battle line, and as he passed through camp Appler kept shouting, “Sick men to the rear!” The 250 ailing soldiers who had been confined to the regiment’s hospital tents, along with the surgeons and medical orderlies, lost no time obeying. The scene was taking on aspects of pandemonium.

Moments later, Sherman arrived, staff and mounted orderlies in tow, to find out what had Appler so upset. Still convinced the Rebels could not possibly attack, the general assumed it was a mere skirmish. Riding into the middle of Rea Field, just in front of the 53rd’s tents, Sherman focused his field glasses on the far south end of the cleared ground and scrutinized the activity visible in Prentiss’s sector. Just then someone yelled, “General, look to your right.” Sherman lowered his field glasses and looked in the direction of Shiloh Branch just in time to see a line of Confederate skirmishers break cover less than seventy-five yards away and lower their rifles for a volley. “My God, we are attacked!” cried Sherman, throwing up his hand as if to ward off a blow. The Confederates fired. A bullet hit Sherman’s up-raised hand. Another slammed into the head of Sherman’s orderly, Pvt. Thomas D. Holliday, who fell from his horse dead. The general wheeled his horse and was off at a gallop for his headquarters, shouting to Appler as he passed, “Hold your position; I will support you.”

For the men of the 53rd, the battle was on in earnest. Behind the Confederate skirmishers came solid lines of battle, stretching out of sight in the woods on either side. On an open knoll near the Corinth Road about 650 yards to the west, a dozen or so Confederate guns wheeled into battery and opened fire. Union artillery near Shiloh Church responded. “A Confederate regiment came through the line of our officers’ tents,” recalled Dawes, “Colonel Appler gave the command to fire; there was a tremendous crash of musketry.” The Ohioans’ volley at a range of fifty yards drove the Southerners back. Again the Rebels advanced, and a second time the deadly fire of the 53rd beat them off. The slaughter was appalling. The 6th Mississippi here lost 300 of the 425 men it took into the fight.

And then Col. Jesse Appler had had all he could take. As the Confederates fell back a second time, the colonel of the 53rd jumped up a shouted to his men, “Retreat and save yourselves.” His regiment streamed to the rear in disorder.

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