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#5 - Spain's Field

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Spain's Field - is not on the NPS Map

Picture or portrait of soldier | Official Report of a Commander | Brigadier General Stephen A. Hurlbut
(Hyperlink of a commander's name links to their name on the Official Order of Battle)

Quotes from Actual Battlefield Participants

Notes from the Field . . .

About the same time Peabody took up his first position along the low ridge overlooking Shiloh Branch, Col. Madison Miller, commanding Prentiss’s Second Brigade, began getting his troops into position in this small field belonging to a farmer named Peter Spain. At the time of the battle, the field extended farther to the north and east. Miller’s men were roughly in line with Peabody’s brigade, though not connected, and they were less than two hundred yards in front of the nearest of their own brigade’s camps, that of the 18th Missouri. Miller had the added asset of two batteries of artillery, but his infantry was even greener than Peabody’s. The 18th Wisconsin had arrived at Pittsburg Landing the afternoon before and marched out to join the brigade that evening. The 15th Michigan, arriving somewhat later, had camped closer to the landing and was only now marching up to join the brigade.

“We were drawn up in line of battle,” wrote Pvt. Edgar Embley of the 61st Illinois. “I was looking as anxious for the secesh [Rebels] as ever I did for a squirrel but I did not look long before I seen their guns glittering in the brush.” As the Confederate line moved through the forest less than a hundred yards in front of the 61st, Embley pointed them out to his captain. The shooting started at once. Embley was relieved to notice that the first Confederate volleys were aimed high and sailed harmlessly over the heads of his unit. Then the Rebels corrected their aim. “Dust flew around our feet,” recalled Embley, “the bark flew off the trees. We dropped on one knee and loaded & fired.” Prentiss was there, urging the men to fire low and take careful aim. Every Confederate they shot would leave one less to shoot at them. Though taking casualties, the 15th Michigan was not firing at all. Instead, they stood nervously but steadily in line, bayonets ready. They had not yet been issued any ammunition. Prentiss noticed their plight and ordered them to the rear to fill their cartridge boxes.

The Union cannon did deadly work with both shell and canister. “Several times the enemy essayed to move out from the shelter of the woods across the intervening thickets, but each time our guns—double-shotted with canister—tore great gaps in their ranks and drove them back to cover,” recalled Capt. Andrew Hickenlooper, commanding the 5th Ohio Battery.

Advancing against Miller’s line were the Confederate brigades of Brig. Gen. James R. Chalmers and Brig. Gen. Adley H. Gladden, composed of Alabamians, Mississippians, Tennesseeans, and a single regiment from Louisiana. As Gladden, a wealthy New Orleans businessman who had commanded a regiment in the Mexican War, led his brigade into Spain’s Field, a shell from one of the Union guns struck him in the left arm and shoulder, inflicting a hideous wound. “I am struck,” he gasped to an aide, “but let’s go on.” Moments later, however, the aide had to help the mortally wounded general to the ground, and command of the brigade passed to Col. Daniel Adams of the 1st Louisiana.

Numbers and momentum were all the Rebels side, however, and every check to their progress seemed only temporary. They renewed the assault, moving forward in a line that stretched out of sight in either direction from Spain’s Field. The Union infantry line began to crumble. Hickenlooper’s battery lost 59 horses “killed in their harness all within a few seconds of each other,” and could get only four of its six guns off the field. The other Union battery, Capt. Emil Munch’s 1st Minnesota Battery, was badly shot up and lost its commander but managed to save all six guns. The victorious Rebels swept forward and overran the camps of Miller’s brigade only a few minutes later than their comrades did those of Peabody’s brigade, a few hundred yards to the northwest.

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