During the Battle of Shiloh, then the bloodiest conflict the nation had seen, beautiful spring woods, fields, and orchards were transformed over two days into scenes of death and destruction that eyewitnesses called horrible, desolate, and heart-rendering. A shallow pond drew weary and wounded soldiers from both armies as heavy fighting raged nearby, and some crawled there for a last drink. After the battle, observers reported that the pond was littered with dead soldiers and horses and that blood had turned the water a murky red. Ambrose Bierce, twenty years old when he fought there with the Union Army of the Ohio, later recalled the aftermath as a landscape strewn with knapsacks, canteens, haversacks swollen with soaked biscuits, blankets beaten into the soil by rain, damaged rifles, waist-belts, hats, sardine boxes, dead horses, disabled caissons and limbers, ammunition wagons behind sprawling mules, and many dead men.

Photo: Craig Swain

Photo: Craig Swain

Photo: Brandon Fletcher

Photo: Brandon Fletcher

Photo: Craig Swain