My wife's great-grandfather, James Hughes, fought in the battle of Shiloh, April 6 and 7, 1862. The oldest of seven brothers and one sister, James was the only one born in Ireland before his parents arrived in New York in 1843. The family was farming in the Irish Hills of Michigan near Hudson when James, 19 and his two brothers, John, 17 and Charles, 15, enlisted in the 15th Michigan Volunteer Infantry in December 1861. They mustered in with Company F of the Regiment at Monroe, Michigan on January 29th, 1862. After seven weeks of drill, they were ordered to leave for Tennessee on March 27.
They arrived by riverboat at Pittsburgh Landing on April 5 to join General Grant's Army of the Tennessee. At about 8 am the next morning, the Regiment was moving into position next to the 18th Wisconsin Infantry when the Confederate Army of Mississippi attacked. The Union Army was not expecting the attack - the 15th Michigan had arrived so recently that they had not yet been issued any ammunition. Having no way to fight, they were ordered to retreat from the front.
After a day of the fiercest fighting that had ever taken place in North America to that point, the Confederate Army had come close to wining the battle. Over half of the 18th Wisconsin regiment had been killed, wounded or captured by the time darkness fell that day - a fate James Hughes' Regiment narrowly avoided. The better part of two divisions had been overrun but the Union Army did not collapse. The next day would be different story.
Overnight, another 20,000 union soldiers arrived to reenforce the battered army. Grant ordered a counterattack the next morning and by the end of April 7, the Confederate Army had retreated. James, John and Charles Hughes saw heavy fighting that day with 8 killed and 10 wounded out of the 200 men in Company F.
The slaughter at Shiloh was unprecedented. Between both armies, over 24,000 were killed, wounded or missing. This represented more casualties in two days than our country had suffered in all its previous wars combined.
James, John and Charles had survived the battle and Union had won. Sadly, it was not long before tragedy came to the brothers. On May 3, Charles died of disease in Pittsburgh Landing. Two months later, on July 3, John died of disease outside Corinth, Mississippi. By the end of the month, James was discharged for disability. Family legend says that he was released to go home and tell his parents that his brothers were dead.
In the Civil War, 4 - 5 times more men died from disease than in combat.
James recovered and in the fall of 1863, possibly pushed by the likelihood of being drafted, he reenlisted as a sergeant in the 11th Michigan Cavalry. He saw much fighting in eastern Tennessee and then, in the winter of '65, participated in Stoneman's Raid into Virginia, North and South Carolina. (immortalized in The Band's song, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down - "til Stoneman's cavalry came and tore up the tracks again") James lived to be 86, finally joining John and Charles in 1927.
One hundred and fifty years later I would like to commemorate those who fought and died to preserve this nation, to ensure that 'government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth'.
The fight goes on today.