Impenetrable Thicket

In the early afternoon of the first day, Union troops stubbornly defended the center of General Ulysses S. Grant's ragged three-mile battlefront from a dense oak thicket. Union infantry, supported by six artillery batteries of four to six cannons each, easily repulsed several piecemeal Confederate assaults. With most of the Confederate army engaged elsewhere on the battlefield, only isolated brigades attacked Grant's center. Under General Braxton Bragg, Colonel Randall L. Gibson commanded one such brigade, and his troops, unsupported by artillery, made at least three attempts to break the Union line. Each assault stalled in the "impenetrable thicket," and his infantry was decimated. Although these attacks failed, Confederates gained ground elsewhere on the battlefield. Colonel James F. Fagan of the 1st Arkansas Infantry recalled that his regiment entered a dense thicket of undergrowth, engaged the enemy three different times, and endured a murderous fire of bullets, shot, and shell until endurance ceased to be a virtue.

Shiloh, Tennessee · United States