Newly Arrived Near Shiloh, Unaware of the Looming Threat of Confederate Attack, William T. Sherman Works to Supply His Army for the Pursuit of the Confederates

We have found only one other Sherman letter from Shiloh having reached the market, and that was in the Forbes collection. This letter has been in a private collection for at least 2 generations

After Grant’s victory at Fort Donelson, the Confederate army withdrew to Corinth, Mississippi, in the northern portion of the state, where General Albert Sidney Johnston attempted to reorganize his forces and plan his next movement. Union commander Henry Halleck gave Sherman the assignment of leading the advance of the army in pursuit of the Confederates. He was also given the task of leading a division ordered to tear up the tracks of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, to hinder Confederate movements and supply efforts.. His division was transported by boat to the front, landing near Burnsville, where the command disembarked and prepared to destroy the railroad tracks and depots within the town. Heavy rains had swollen local streams into raging torrents, and several men of Sherman’s command died by drowning in the rushing waters. Flood waters inundated the surrounding countryside, and Sherman determined that further movement toward Burnsville was impossible. Ordering his men back aboard the ships, the division traveled up the Tennessee River, arriving at Pittsburgh Landing on March 14, where he planned to disembark his men and make another attempt at breaking the railroad. Leaving the troops aboard the transports, he made his way to Savannah, where General Smith had established his headquarters, to report on his recent activities. Smith directed Sherman to disembark his men at Pittsburgh Landing, along with the division of Brig. Gen. Stephen A. Hurlburt.

Smith ordered Sherman to make sure both divisions took up positions well back from the landing, so as to allow room for the rest of the army once it arrived. Sherman allowed his men to stay aboard the ships for several days, not disembarking them until March 19, when Sherman wrote he “took a post about three miles back, three of the brigades covering the roads to Purdy and Corinth, and the other brigade (General David Stuart’s) temporarily at a place on the Hamburg Road, near Lick Creek Ford, where the Bark Road came into the Hamburg Road.”

Once disembarked, as the rest of Grant’s army arrived, Sherman set out to supply his troops near Shiloh for the task at hand, not knowing that the Confederate Army, equal to Grant’s forces, was not far away.

Autograph letter signed, in the field near Petersburg / Shiloh, March 22, 1862, to Captain Woodworth. “Sir, The Siren [boat] has on board provisions for General [David] Stuart’s Division. As that Road will be busy please send all the stores you can spare, for which commissary Henry Brimerman 8th Division will receipt to you and replace from the army stores. I have sent to Young’s Point for a steam boat load. The admiral can let us have some, and he wrote the country was full of provisions.”

Around this time, Union forces began to run into Confederate troops, but presumed them to be small units or outliers; even artillery was dismissed as not part of a larger contingent. Johnston’s forces attacked and routed the Union forces at Shiloh on April 6.

We have found only one other Sherman letter from Shiloh having reached the market, and that was in the Forbes collection. This letter has been in a private collection for at least 2 generations.