GDG- Fwd: REV: Stowe on Cunningham _Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862_

[Dennis Lawrence]

>
>
>REVIEW:
>
>H-NET BOOK REVIEW
>Published by H-CivWar at h-net.msu.edu (July 2008)
>
>O. Edward Cunningham. _Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862_. Edited
>by Gary D. Joiner and Timothy B. Smith. New York: Savas Beatie, 2007.
>xxx + 476 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, appendices, bibliography,
>index. $34.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-932714-27-2.
>
>Reviewed for H-CivWar by Christopher S. Stowe, U.S. Army Command and
>General Staff College
>
>A Traditional, Yet Fresh Look at the Shiloh Campaign
>
>Over the past two decades, studies of Civil War military operations have
>come to encompass more than the battlefield itself. Academic publishing
>houses attempt with increasing frequency to broaden contextual
>understanding of campaigns and combat, no longer limiting their purview
>to leadership variables, tactical and operational decisions, or the
>strategic consequences of victory and defeat. Mirroring long-standing
>trends in the military historical field at large, campaign volumes now
>routinely investigate such topics as soldier motivation, the effects of
>battle upon the American rank and file, and the social cost of war upon
>home front populations and those communities that had the distinction of
>witnessing the struggle's indelible tragedies first hand.[1]
>
>Transformations in academic titles notwithstanding, commercial
>publishers--whose offerings necessarily seek a wider
>readership--continue to emphasize the "drums and trumpets" approach to
>Civil War history. The popularity of the battle and campaign genre is
>wholly undeniable, as even a cursory glance at the shelves of one's
>local Barnes & Noble bookstore suggests. Such traditional methods have
>drawn criticism from academics for some time as being redundant in a
>field fairly saturated with literature; nevertheless, important and
>enduring "battle books" appear with a welcome regularity. Not alone
>among publishers that present conventional military research as a
>cornerstone of their catalogs, Savas Beatie has in its five-year
>existence established a notable reputation for producing exceptionally
>worthy volumes. This trend continues with O. Edward Cunningham's
>path-breaking _Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862_, a work
>originally penned over forty years ago. With its printing, only now will
>it receive the recognition it assuredly deserves.
>
>In their fine introduction, editors Gary D. Joiner and Timothy B. Smith
>argue convincingly for the utility of Cunningham's study. As specialists
>in the Civil War's western campaigns, Joiner and Smith recognize the
>value of the manuscript. A Louisiana State University doctoral
>dissertation completed in 1966 under the direction of legendary Civil
>War scholar T. Harry Williams, Cunningham's work provided a trove of
>information for a small coterie of ranger/historians and researchers at
>the Shiloh National Military Park who consulted a worn copy of the
>manuscript located there. In setting Shiloh's historiographical context,
>the editors note that volumes printed before 1966 tended to emphasize
>the famed "Hornet's Nest" as Shiloh's nexus, while important offerings
>published during the 1960s and 70s ignored his manuscript completely,
>either perpetuating the dominant "Hornet's Nest School" or focusing upon
>the death of General Albert Sidney Johnston, commander of the
>Confederate Army of the Mississippi, as the contest's critical moment.
>Cunningham--who passed away ten years before his book's
>publication--pored over an impressive array of primary and secondary
>materials to arrive at some distinctively different conclusions.[2]
>
>_Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862_ adheres to what has long been
>the standard campaign study format. After ably setting the wider
>strategic and operational setting in the months before April 1862 and
>introducing the campaign's principal players, the author devotes eleven
>chapters to the Confederate and Union concentration near Shiloh Church
>and the battle itself. His is a straightforward, narrative approach to
>history--not uncommon to dissertations of the era--with little in the
>way of comprehensive analysis. Indeed, the author's major disagreements
>with Shiloh orthodoxy are implied rather than overt; nevertheless, they
>reveal significant divergence from customary battle lore.
>
>Foremost among Cunningham's claims is that the Hornet's Nest, though
>undoubtedly a stirring event in the two-day struggle along the banks of
>the Tennessee River, did not represent the most significant action
>during the bloody Sunday of April 6. Instead, the author avers, it was
>the Federal defense of the Hamburg-Purdy/Corinth-Pittsburg
>crossroads--located just west of the Hornet's Nest--that figured more
>prominently in the development of the battle. Here over fourteen
>brigades clashed in a fearful, hour-long firefight and melee. Finally
>compelled to yield "the Crossroads" near noon, Union generals William
>Tecumseh Sherman and John Alexander McClernand subsequently executed a
>slashing counterattack to regain the position, only to be forced back
>again by elements of four Confederate corps. Though less remembered than
>the storied Hornet's Nest, the actions at the Crossroads represented a
>crucial phase in the contest. The mass of combat power expended there,
>coupled with disorganization after hours of intense fighting, prevented
>the Confederate high command from exploiting the Federal retreat and
>seizing the all-important Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee. Had it
>been successful in taking these objectives, the Army of the Mississippi
>not only would have administered a more decisive defeat to General
>Ulysses Simpson Grant's Army of the Tennessee, but also might have
>prevented the timely junction on April 6-7 between the latter and its
>support forces, General Don Carlos Buell's Army of the Ohio.
>
>By no means does the Hornet's Nest--or associated areas such as the
>"Sunken Road," "Peach Orchard," and "Bloody Pond"--receive scant
>attention in Cunningham's narrative. The author, however, was the first
>to correctly question the long-held notion that the so-called Sunken
>Road created the conditions enabling the stout Federal defense within
>the Hornet's Nest. Instead, Cunningham finds that the dense thickets in
>front of the road itself (which was hardly as sunken as some postwar
>accounts suggest), coupled with open fields of fire emanating from each
>of the position's flanks, mitigated Confederate success in assaulting
>what became a Union stronghold at Shiloh. And Southern attackers,
>realizing its seeming impregnability, assailed the Hornet's Nest
>position far fewer times--eight at the very most--than standard studies
>of the battle had led scholars and enthusiasts to believe. Indeed, the
>impenetrable nature of the Nest led Confederate attackers to seek
>opportunity elsewhere--most notably at the aforementioned "Crossroads,"
>but also along the rough, wooded ravines located hard by the Tennessee.
>By late afternoon, Benjamin Mayberry Prentiss's Yankee defenders,
>completely overcome by events on both their left and right, surrendered
>the Hornet's Nest to their Confederate foes in what was a dramatic, if
>perhaps overrated, Shiloh episode.
>
>Cunningham's findings, backed as they are by prodigious research, have
>spawned a recent "revisionist" movement within Shiloh literature; the
>published books and articles of Smith, Shiloh Chief Ranger Stacy D.
>Allen, and others incorporate elements of the author's original thesis
>in their modern retelling of the campaign.[3] As the progenitor of an
>emergent school of thought, the publication of _Shiloh and the Western
>Campaign of 1862_ certainly is past due. There are a few weaknesses,
>however, that detract somewhat from its general effectiveness and
>ultimately prevent it from gaining definitive status among Shiloh
>volumes. Above all, Cunningham's narrative style is at times formulaic
>and repetitive, reflecting the unseasoned approach of a young writer.
>Moreover--as mentioned above--the author neglects at times adequately to
>discuss or analyze the consequences of Confederate and Federal command
>decisions both during and after the contest. Instead, he offers a series
>of brief "what if" questions at the conclusion of chapter 15 to suggest
>critical points of contingency. Last, the modern maps fail to identify
>the maze of roads, paths, and streams that feature so prominently at
>Shiloh, sometimes confusing the reader as s/he wades through the
>regimental-level discussions that make up the bulk of the account.
>Despite these criticisms, the work of the late O. Edward Cunningham
>should find a place on the bookshelves of the serious Civil War military
>devotee, not only as a work of history, but also as an important piece
>illustrating the development of Shiloh historiography.
>
>Notes
>
>[1]. For examples of this growing trend within Civil War military
>historiography, consult the ten titles (to date) comprising the
>University of Nebraska Press's Great Campaigns of the Civil War series;
>also notably conspicuous in this genre is George C. Rable,
>_Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!_ (Chapel Hill: University of North
>Carolina Press, 2002).
>
>[2]. Works emphasizing the Hornet's Nest as the battle's focal point are
>David W. Reed, _The Battle of Shiloh and the Organizations Engaged_
>(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1902); Albert Dillahunty,
>_Shiloh National Military Park, Tennessee_ (Washington, DC: National
>Park Service, 1955); and James Lee McDonough, _Shiloh: In Hell Before
>Night_ (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1977). Those studies
>that point to Johnston's death as the decisive moment at Shiloh include
>Wiley Sword, _Shiloh: Bloody April_ (New York: William Marrow and Co.,
>1974); and Charles P. Roland, _Albert Sidney Johnston: Soldier of Three
>Republics_ (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1964).
>
>[3]. Timothy B. Smith, _This Great Battlefield of Shiloh: History,
>Memory, and the Establishment of a Civil War National Military Park_
>(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2004); Smith, _The Untold
>Story of Shiloh: The Battle and Battlefield_ (Knoxville: University of
>Tennessee Press, 2006); Stacy D. Allen, "Shiloh!: The Campaign and First
>Day's Battle," _Blue and Gray_ 14, no. 3 (1997); Allen, "Shiloh!: The
>Second Day's Battle and Aftermath," _Blue and Gray_ 14, no. 4 (1997);
>and Larry J. Daniel, _Shiloh: The Battle That Changed the Civil War_
>(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997).
>
>
>
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>
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>Hugh Dubrulle
>Book Review Editor, H-CivWar
>Associate Professor
>Department of History
>Saint Anselm College
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