Mount McGregor, New York, 1885.

At a quiet, rustic cottage nestled among pine trees,

the late afternoon sun slants across the porch,

catching the silver in Ulysses S. Grant's beard.

A blanket covers his legs, a knit cap warms his head.

In his right hand, a knife-sharpened pencil moves steadily across a sheet of paper as he writes,

carefully recounting events from 40 years earlier. The Battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburgh Landing,

he wrote, has been more persistently misunderstood

than any other engagement during the entire rebellion. Grant's memoirs, begun the previous

fall in New York City, would grow into a two-volume 360,000-word work, an astonishing feat

completed in just 11 months. It was intended not only to

detail his role in the war, but to explain the broader moral purpose of the conflict.

Shiloh would be the battle that shattered Grant's illusions about the war. Like so many in the

North, Grant had expected a swift union victory. But in that

wide clearing in western Tennessee, hemmed in by trees, he witnessed relentless close quarters

combat from dawn until dark, as Confederate troops hurled themselves against union lines.

By the second day's end, the field was so thick with the dead that it was said one could walk

in any direction, stepping only on bodies, never touching the ground.

As Grant reviewed his sentences, he thought back to those horrendous days.

Shiloh had made it clear.

This would be no gentleman's war. It would be total.

Dear listeners, glad you could join us. This is American History Hit, and I'm Don Wildman.

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