The Gunboats of Shiloh

Today, where the Navy supports Army ground operations, interservice cooperation is the norm. Naval-delivered fire in support of ground operations is but one example of this cooperation. In the past, such fire support was executed largely through directed naval gunfire, but that mode has become some what of an anachronism, having been largely replaced by modern day discrete naval launching of guided missiles. While missiles have since mostly replaced cannon, examples of such interservice cooperation abound in American military history—a unique one occurring during the Civil War.         

Looking back at that history, Federal bombardment of land targets by ships’ artillery was extensively employed in the conflict. From the Mississippi River to the Caribbean Sea to the East Atlantic Coast, Union ships pounded Confederate land targets.  But it was unusual for such battering to significantly influence the outcome of a major battle when naval gun action was combined with land combat already taking place. One of those occasions where it did was in 1862 along the Tennessee River on the Shiloh Church battlefield. It was here that gunboats of the recently created Mississippi River Flotilla played a psychological role in providing fire support to Major General U.S. Grant’s beleaguered army being pressed on 6 April by that of Confederate General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, who had replaced the fallen General Albert S. Johnston.

The battle was finally terminated with the withdrawal of the Confederates from the field late on 7 April. The strategy and tactics employed by both sides have been extensively examined, with even today no clear judgment being rendered as to which side was the real winner. The role of the supporting gunfire of two Union gunboats in cooperation with Grant’s troops, on the other hand, has not been contested and in fact rarely addressed.

It might be argued, nevertheless, that the naval gun fire had a significant psychological impact on the Confederates to the extent that through their cumulative effect the gunboats played a unique role in accentuating the retreat of the Confederate forces from the Battle of Shiloh. A closer look at several perspectives from both sides shows how the gunboats can be given important credit for helping the Federal forces prevail at the end of the battle.  

At the Beginning

The Mississippi River Flotilla was conceived initially as a component of the Union ground forces fighting in the Western theater of operations. Originally the thought of such a naval flotilla was that it would be a waterborne wing of advancing U.S. armies seeking to cut the Confederacy in two. It was part of General Winfield Scott’s “Anaconda plan” to squeeze the slave states into submission. It was a seemingly unconventional plan, but one to which U.S. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles freely subscribed—although for him the idea of a naval operation conducted on a major waterway many miles from the sea was at best unique.

It appears, however, that Welles wholeheartedly acquiesced to the concept of a type of riverine force. He even supported the idea of having naval vessels manned by soldiers with civilian rivermen being employed as junior officers. In the spirit of Army-Navy cooperation that was to become quite frequent in the theater of operations he also willingly lent the Army naval personnel to train soldiers to become proficient sailors. To command the gunboats—akin to floating army artillery pieces—he nevertheless assigned competent regular naval officers. To command the naval gunboat fleet, Welles appointed a friend and former schoolmate, Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote. 

The two gunboats providing the fire support to Grant’s army at Shiloh were “timber-clad,” or protected by heavy wooden planking, and were part of the first group of combat ships to be specifically constructed for the flotilla. Commander John Rodgers initially purchased three river steamboats in Cincinnati, Ohio, under authority given him by the War Department with the intention of having them converted to gunboats. The vessels—the Conestoga, Lexington, and Tyler—were the first class of armed ships in the flotilla, and it was the latter two of the three which were engaged in providing the floating gun fire support to Grant’s beleaguered forces on 6 April and during the night into the following day.

The conversion from civilian commercial watercraft into combat vessels went forward in haste. The river steamboats were modified by strengthening their internal structures, lowering their vulnerable running machinery below the waterline, and installing thick five-inch bulwarks impervious to musket ball penetration. The Lexington, commanded by Lieutenant Commander James W. Shirk, mounted four eight-inch guns capable of throwing 64-pound projectiles and two 32-pounder cannon. The Tyler, commanded by Lieutenant Commander William Gwin, was armed with six eight-inch guns and one 32-pounder cannon. 

Grant’s Naval Gunfire Support

The Federals under Grant had advanced along the Tennessee River after having captured Confederate Forts Donelson, Henry, and Heiman on the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers in northern Tennessee in early February 1862. To support Grant, Foote dispatched the two gunboats, which accompanied the 80 river transports carrying Grant’s troops upriver. Upon arriving in the vicinity of the Shiloh Church in southern Tennessee, Grant’s assembled army was caught unawares by that of the Confederates and almost driven into the Tennessee River. At an important time after the day of battle, the gunboats, having contributed little during daylight, came into play. 

Luckily, Grant worked well with the Navy in support of his operations and was well pleased with its participation in the battle. At Shiloh he praised the hearty support that he was given and he noted in his memoirs that it always performed well for him while he was in command. In commenting on its part in the battle, however, he stated that there was really nothing the Navy could contribute until the sun went down on 6 April. Because the countryside was crisscrossed with ravines and heavy woods, there was as much chance of danger during daylight to friendly as well as enemy maneuvering troops of being hit by projectiles from gunboats on the river. As it was, the river’s high bluffs made direct fire on the Confederate far right flank frontline troops of little value. 

That night, however, with the position of the troops on both sides relatively fixed and the enemy right flank exposed on the river, firing by troops on land had essentially ceased, and a general quiet had set in. It was then that the river fleet commander, having ascertained the approximate location of troops on both sides of the battle line, suggested to Grant a novel proposition.

Grant, who was open to any ideas that could contribute to his retrieving a presently unfavorable battle situation, readily agreed to the proposal. It was for the gunboats to fire their eight-inch and 32-pounder guns at the rapid rate of every 15 minutes into the Confederate lines throughout the night. Although from the Federal side the impact could not be evaluated at the time, just the commotion engendered was bound to upset and unsettle the weary Confederates, who, at the very least, would suffer from a lack of sleep. Grant, in commenting on the vigorous harassing fire produced, later stated, “This was done with effect, as is proved by Confederate reports.”

A Cincinnati Gazette reporter (using the pseudonym “Agate”) who was present with Grant at the battle described the gunboats in action in embellished terms. At 2100 on that Sunday evening, according to the reporter, all was quiet with a calm prevailing when suddenly there was a flash like that of sheet lightning over the ripples of the flowing river. The blinding light was followed by a deep roar that vibrated up and down the river’s bluffs, shattering the stillness of the night. A few minutes later came another flash and bang, and then another and another throughout the darkness. 

As the reporter described the scene, “By the flash you could just discern the black outline of the piratical-looking hull, and see the gunboat settled into the water at the recoil. The smoke soon cast a thin veil that seemed only to soften and sweeten the scene, from the woods away inland you caught faintly the muffled explosion of the shell like the knell of the spirit that was taking its flight.”  He further noted that, at the time, whatever effect the gunboats’ nightly cannonading could not be ascertained from the Federal perspective.

Federal Evaluation of the Nightly Shelling  

Several factors impacted the effectiveness of the naval gunfire, as the Union troops saw it. The first was the lack of Federal ground observers to direct the gunboat fire with any accuracy. The ability to call in naval gunfire on specific targets where a forward observer could adjust the fire was not possible. There was no timely communication between the gunboats and the troops on the shore, which made the delivered fire harassment at best, and so there was no ability to engage targets of opportunity. On the Shiloh battlefield the Union forces close to the banks of the river could see the gunboats but they could not judge how effective the gunfire was, since the projectiles were lobbed over their heads well in land and beyond the field of vision of any Federal ground observer on either the gunboat or on the ground.

The second factor was the nature of the terrain over which the fighting took place. Grant stated in his memoirs that the ground was “heavily timbered,” which so obscured any field of vision that where the gunfire might have been important in influencing the actual fighting, it still would at best have been haphazard. Since the fighting was quite fluid and movement back and forth during daylight, there was the large risk that the fire might well land on friendly as well as enemy troops depending on where the battle lines were at any one time.

Third, the shelling took place at night, and as General William Sherman noted in his memoirs, those rounds did not land on specifically designated targets, nor could they have, considering the nature of the circumstances. Instead, Sherman stated, the bombardment “caused shells to be thrown toward that part of the field of battle known to be occupied by the enemy.” Thus, the risk of the projectiles landing among the Federals who had taken up static night positions was significantly reduced. At the same time the Confederates, also having bedded down for the night, had ceased being moving targets and thus vulnerable to harassing fire.  

Fourth, the Federals were sparse in giving much credit to the actual damage done to the Confederates by the gunboats’ firing.  It was recognized that the high bluffs of the Tennessee River had greatly reduced the effectiveness of direct fire by the boats’ mounted guns, so little could be expected from the fire damaging the enemy, especially those troops close to the high banks who were in defilade.

Fifth, the fact that the Federals were keeping up a steady fire throughout the rainy, cold, and windy night helped to enhance the morale of their troops who had taken a beating in the day’s fighting. It also helped that the rounds were not landing among them but to their front. Aware of actual battlefield conditions elsewhere, which were not encouraging, and in terrain subject to a steady rain, the miserable soldiers at least could gain some feeling from the explosions that all was not given up for lost.

How the Confederates Saw It

If the Union troops were generally disheartened, those Confederates on the front line saw victory  in sight that night, only to be gained with a decisive final push on the second day of the battle. The initial commander of the Confederate force, General Johnston, having been killed early on the first day of combat, had been replaced by General Beauregard. His troops, at the end of that day, were in a good position to complete the work Johnston had begun. As a result of the day’s action, the Confederate right flank was resting on the banks of the Tennessee River opposite to the mouth of the river’s Dill’s Branch—close to which Grant’s two gunboats were positioned.

To the frontline Confederate infantry of General Braxton Bragg on that flank, the gunboats’ presence did not make much difference. Because the bluffs were high, which restricted effective direct fire, the Federal floating guns had to elevate their muzzles high enough that their projectiles cleared the high banks. The result was that the rounds went well over the frontline Confederate soldiers’ heads. The victorious soldiers greeted the high-flying projectiles in a jocular mood as they watched them pass over head and explode further to the rear.

General Johnston’s son, Confederate Colonel William P. Johnston, who was not present at the battle, but writing some time later, gave a detailed version of the gunboats’ bombardment: 

About an hour of daylight [on 6 April] was left to us. The enemy’s gunboats, his last hope, took position opposite us in the river, and commenced a furious cannonade at our supposed position. From the elevation necessary to reach the high bluff on which we were operating, this proved "all sound and fury signifying nothing,” and did not in the slightest degree mar our prospects or our progress.

Colonel Alexander Robert Chisolm, on General Beauregard’s staff, offered a slightly different view when he wrote of gunboats firing furiously with their huge projectiles crashing overhead in the dense foliage. He noted that the din, frequency, and proximity of the rounds landing in the rear areas was fearful but was tempered by the excitement generated by the apparent forthcoming Confederate victory. In a poignant description, however, he noted, “there was room left in our minds for some most unpleasant sensations, especially when the top of some lofty tree, cut off by a shell, could come toppling down among the men.”

Brigadier General Thomas Jordan, adjutant general of the Confederate Army, gave his firsthand impression of a similar situation when he wrote:

I had reached a point very close to the Tennessee River where it was densely wooded. The large ordnance of the gun-boats was raking this position, creating more noise in some quarters than harm to the Confederates, as the projectiles tore and crashed in all directions through the heavy forest.

Lacking in such direct observations as those of Jordan and Chisolm, and at least initially in the case of Johnston’s narrative, was the effect that the gunboat shelling was having behind the Confederate front lines, which was significant. It was the adverse effect in the Confederate rear areas that Grant was referring to when he noted the admissions of such in Confederate reports. The results, according to them, were not felt up front, but among weary, wet, and disheartened stragglers and malingering soldiers in the Confederate rear. It was here that the gunboats’ heavy artillery did their most damage, not so much in a physical way but in a psychological one.

Beauregard, nonetheless, was confident at the end of the day on 6 April that he had beaten the Union Army. At the same time, however, Jordan noted that the Confederate troop formations were disarranged and in need of reorganization. The many stragglers and malingerers who populated the rear areas were sowing discordant information and rumors among those willing to listen. 

On the front lines, those soldiers who had been involved in heavy fighting during the day sorely needed relief, rest, and sustenance, which they eagerly sought. The stormy, cold, and rainy weather also had an adverse effect on the troops, which tended to dampen any great enthusiasm about a forthcoming successful outcome of the battle. Yet, as Johnston noted, those Confederate troops facing the enemy still maintained a high state of morale. Beauregard himself notified Confederate authorities in Richmond that he had won a significant victory and reputedly went to bed that night in General William Sherman’s former tent.

The next day, Grant’s army was reinforced by the arrival of the troops of Major General Don C. Buell, who launched a vigorous counterattack and started to drive the Confederates from their previous day’s advanced positions. Hard fighting with great loss was experienced again by both sides. The Federal advance took it out of the range of the gunboats’ fire, and their work was over. By noon, Beauregard made the decision to withdraw from the battlefield. He waited, however, until 1430 to publish the order to retreat, and by evening an exhausted Union force again occupied the positions held before the Confederate surprise attack the day before.     

Johnston placed the impact of the gun boat activity into perspective when he concluded it was:

… in our rear, where these heavy shells fell among the reserves and stragglers [was the impact felt]; and to the utter dismay of the commanders on the field, the troops were seen to abandon their inspiring work, and to retire from the contest when danger was seen almost past, and victory, so dearly purchased, was almost certain.

Colonel Johnston’s opinion as to the state of affairs was confirmed by Beauregard’s major subordinate commanders, who lamented the decision to retreat from the battlefield, leaving it to Grant’s men. 

The Gunboats’ Contribution  

The shelling of the Confederate rear areas the night of 6 April 1862 had a decided influence on the psychological well-being of the troops under Beauregard’s command. Because most of the shelling by the gunboats was done at night against weary troops in a static situation, its harassment effectiveness was significantly enhanced. Inflicting physical wounds, however, was not as important as causing psychological ones resulting from the loss of Confederate soldiers’ sleep and their weariness. On the other hand, the positive effect of hearing the outgoing Federal bombardment heightened the morale of Federal troops thus helping to set the stage for their alleged victory on 7 April. 

From a tactical point of view, the overall effectiveness of the gunboat fire has to be viewed in the context of the combat that occurred beyond the river bluffs and elsewhere on the battlefield. From various perspectives, it is apparent that naval gunfire as innovatively conceived by Grant and his naval counterpart added to the cumulative effect of psychologically impacting the Confederate forces when the projectiles fired from the two gunboats landed in the Confederate rear areas. The result was the causing of consternation, fear, and disorder, all of which helped lead to the Confederate exit from the battlefield and giving the Union its claimed Shiloh victory.

But just as important is that the victory be viewed in the context of the excellent cooperation between the U.S. Navy and Grant’s command. Navy-fired missiles may have largely replaced gunfire in modern warfare, but the obligation of interservice cooperation, as demonstrated in the employment of naval guns in supporting the ground troops on the Shiloh battlefield, remains uncontested.