ShilohHornet's Nest |
Brochure of Hornet's Nest for Shiloh National Military Park (NMP) in Tennessee and Mississippi. Published by the National Park Service (NPS).
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Shiloh
National Park Service
U.S. Department of the Interior
Use a “short-hand” version of the site name here (e.g. Palo Alto
Battlefield not Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Site) set in
29/29 B Frutiger bold.
Shiloh National Military Park
Tennessee-Mississippi
The Hornet’s Nest
The Hornet’s Nest
There is perhaps no more famous Civil War
icon than the Hornet’s Nest at Shiloh. Ranking
with Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, Bloody
Lane at Antietam, and the Stone Wall at
Fredericksburg, Shiloh’s Hornet’s Nest is well
known to even the most amateur of Civil War
buffs.
Shiloh’s Hornet’s Nest lies in the center of the
battlefield and was the scene of heavy combat
on both days of the battle. On the first day,
elements of three Union divisions manned the
line along a little-used farm road that ran
through the J.R. Duncan land. Duncan and his
family worked a small cotton field that bordered
the road to the south. With its open fields of fire
and road cover, there is little wonder that the
Duncan plot became one of the most important
localities on the battlefield.
Heavy fighting raged in the area of the Hornet’s
Nest on the first day, with no less that eight
distinct Confederate attacks turned back by the
determined defenders of the Sunken Road.
Attesting to the fury in the area, Confederates so
named the location because, they said, the
enemy’s bullets sounded like swarms of angry
hornets.
Household Names
The terms “Hornet’s Nest” and “Sunken Road”
are loosely used to mean the same geographical
area. In reality, they are much different entities.
The Sunken Road, meaning Duncan’s farm
road, extended for three-fifths of a mile, connecting the Corinth Road and the River Road.
The actual Hornet’s Nest, by comparison, refers
to the nearly six-hundred-yard stretch of road
in the center. This position, atop a small rise
and fronting an almost impenetrable undergrowth, became the target of the numerous
Confederate attacks on April 6. The terms did
not come into regular use until after the Civil
War, however. The name “Hornet’s Nest” predates that of the “Sunken Road.” Confederates
themselves used the term “Hornet’s Nest,” and
by the 1880s, veteran groups used the name
regularly. There was even an annual “Hornet’s
Nest Brigade” reunion. The term “Sunken
Road” did not come into general use until after
Congress established the national military park
in 1894.
The Hornet’s Nest
Legacy
Almost as soon as the battle ended, key participants began describing the action at the
Hornet’s Nest as the central event of the battle.
Defenders of the area, such as Brigadier General
Benjamin Prentiss, openly argued that their
stand made against so many brave Confederate
attacks held the Union line long enough for
army commander Major General Ulysses S.
Grant to establish a last line of defense.
Nest: Center of Union Line.”
Eventually, a park preserved the battlefield,
including the Hornet’s Nest. The area then
gained tangible status when park commissioners
placed first wooden and then iron road signs
marking prominent places on the battlefield.
Still standing even today, the iron road sign on
the Eastern Corinth Road marks the “Hornet’s
Historians have expanded on the veteran’s
remembrances and continue to argue the importance of the Hornet’s Nest. Almost all the
major monographs on the battle, as well as
media presentations such as Shiloh: Portrait of a
Battle, focus on the action that took place in the
center of the battlefield. These works even
portray the action in the area as a series of Confederate attacks across the open Duncan farmland. When these attacks failed, they argue, the
Confederates had to assemble the largest
concentration of artillery ever to appear on
the North American continent. In portraying
the Hornet’s Nest as the savior of Grant’s
army, historians made it an American icon.
Myth or Reality?
Despite the emphasis on the Hornet’s Nest’s
importance, a different story probably took
place. Historians have recently begun to question the Hornet’s Nest’s role in the battle. Several
pieces of evidence offer insight into the Sunken
Road and Hornet’s Nest in the context of the
battle as a whole.
The number of dead and wounded in the area
shows that the Hornet’s Nest did not see the
heaviest fighting at Shiloh. An 1867 document
produced by laborers locating bodies on the
battlefield states that the heaviest concentrations
of dead lay on the eastern and western sectors of
the battlefield and that the dead were fairly light
in the center, where the Hornet’s Nest was located. That in itself states that casualties were
fewer in the center where, according to myth,
the heaviest and most important fighting took
place. Supporting this point are casualty figures
for the units engaged in the Hornet’s Nest.
Colonel James M. Tuttle’s brigade of four Iowa
regiments, which held the Hornet’s Nest and the
Sunken Road in front of Duncan Field, sustained a total of 235 killed and wounded in the
battle - a number less than some individual
regiments sustained on other parts of the field.
Troop positions also shows that the Hornet’s
Nest and Sunken Road was not the critical area
on the field for most of the day. When they went
into action, Colonel Thomas W. Sweeny’s
Union brigade of six regiments, positioned in
Duncan Field north of the Corinth road, did
Why the Hornet’s Nest?
In Context
If the Hornet’s Nest was not the central event in
the Battle of Shiloh, why then did it become so
important to historians? The answer is simple.
For years after the Civil War, veterans of the
Hornet’s Nest emphasized their role in the
battle, claiming that their sacrifice had provided
Grant with enough time to establish a last line
of defense. Division commander Brigadier
General Benjamin M. Prentiss wrote a widelycirculated report after the battle, which emphasized his role in the battle as well as that of his
troops. Even after the war, veterans still claimed
the defense of the Hornet’s Nest was the central
event of Shiloh. A veterans’ organization, the
“Hornet’s Nest Brigade,” even held annual
reunions.
not have ample room to deploy. As a result,
only two regiments went on line; Sweeny held
the other four in reserve for most of the day.
Once the Union line began to fall apart on
either side of the Hornet’s Nest, Sweeny began
to send his reserve regiments as reinforcements
for the other more critical areas. He sent two
Illinois regiments to the Peach Orchard sector
and one to the north to aid Major General John
A. McClernand. Only one regiment went to aid
the Hornet’s Nest. Had the Hornet’s Nest been a
critical point with desperate and severe fighting,
Sweeny probably would not have sent his regiments away from the area. Furthermore, troop
position tablets show that very little action took
place in Duncan Field. Confederate officers,
knowing what would happen to charges across
open ground, chose to seek cover while making
their attacks. Duncan Field, where myth states
that so many Confederate charges took place,
has no Confederate tablets denoting troop
positions.
preting the battle to the public. The historian
appointed by the Secretary of War was David W.
Reed, a member of the 12th Iowa, which had
fought squarely in the Hornet’s Nest. With
images of battle in his mind and a growing
consensus that the Hornet’s Nest was the central
event of Shiloh, Reed developed the Hornet’s
Nest interpretation of the battle, which still
dominates Shiloh historiography today. Reed’s
main medium was his government-published
history of the battle, The Battle of Shiloh and the
Organizations Engaged.
Congress established Shiloh National Military
Park in 1894 to preserve the battlefield, and the
Secretary of War appointed a commission to
oversee building and development. Although
made up of veterans, the commission relied
heavily on its appointed historian, who wielded
much power in locating troop positions, making sense of the confusing reports, and inter-
D.W. Reed beside his regiment’s monument at Shiloh
The new interpretations of the Hornet’s Nest
and the Sunken Road do not minimize the role
of the fighting in the center of the battlefield.
The area was indeed important, especially later
in the day when almost every Confederate unit
on the battlefield concentrated at that point.
Many Confederate charges swept forward into
the grueling Federal fire, only to be turned
away. Hundreds of brave men and boys lost
their lives in the Hornet’s Nest. For all these
reasons, the Hornet’s Nest was very important,
but perhaps not as important as other, less wellknown operations taking place simultaneously
on other parts of the battlefield. Taken in the
context of the entire battle, the Hornet’s Nest
may be more myth than reality.
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