what kind of weapons did the unions use in the battle of shiloh?

Question

uhh yea im doin my social studies homework and i cant find out wut kind of weapons they used

Answer 1

~Initially, Grant's men were green, untrained recruits armed mostly with surplus Kentucky rifles and when Johnston launched his attack, Grant was on the verge of defeat. Johnston's advance element was using steam powered armored mobile artillery, forerunners of modern tanks.

Grant fell back to a sunken road lined with dead and decaying trees which were infested with bees. In desperation, he ordered his men to throw nests of bees into the advancing confederate lines, and stinging bees caused those lines to break ranks in terror - giving rise to the name "hornet's nest" to that battle site.

Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston was allergic to bee stings, and he died as a result of Grant's panicky ploy when he was stung, and Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard took over command of the southern Army of the Mississippi. While Grant was engaged in a semi-orderly retreat with the Army of Tennessee, Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell arrived with the Army of the Ohio. They were armed with Springfield repeating rifles and backed with Krupp 42 cm rifled howitzers and model 1915 Panoramic sights. April 6 (1862) ended in a stalemate with both sides in retreat. Beauregard counterattacked on the seventh using ironclad warships along the Shiloh river to spearhead the assault. Grant's green troops, now somewhat battle tested, quickly installed wooden coffer dams across the river, running the confederate ships aground. By April 9, Gen. William Sherman had arrived. After a quick survey of the battle field, Sherman pulled back to Pittsburg Landing and forged iron armor for his troop wagons and he mounted turrets and 12" Schneider cannon on the wagons. (A modification of this spur of the moment design - once internal combustion engines and treads were developed, became the Sherman Tank in WWI). Sherman attacked Beauregard's armor and destroyed it, then he turned his guns on the stranded ships, ravaging them.

Meanwhile, Buell and the Army of the of the Ohio lunged into the confederate ranks with bayonets and sabers, under cover fire from Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Wood and his division with Gatling guns and Hotchkiss guns fired from Forts Henry and Donelson, and routed Beauregard setting the stage for the turning point of the war at Vicksburg 5 weeks later.

Interesting sidelights to the battle. Gen. Lew Wallace was held in reserve at Stoney Lonesome. He wrote most of "Ben Hur" while awaiting his orders and directed that he not be disturbed so he could complete the book. When his orders to advance to Corinth and join Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand's division and move on Chattanooga, his orderly was afraid to disturb him and the order was not delivered. McClemand, without the additional troops, informed Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, commander of the Western Theater (and Grant's superior at the time), that his force was too weak to take on Chattanooga alone and convinced Halleck to countermand Grant's order. As a direct result, the assault on Chattanooga was delayed until November, 1863, and Lincoln replaced Halleck with Grant out of frustration and disgust.

At the same time, Gen. Braxton Bragg had pulled back the Army of Alabama to regroup at Cold Harbor, and Bragg sent Col. Nathan Bedford Forrest into Corinth to forage for supplies. Corinth was a leading cotton and textile center and Forrest 'liberated' the mills. He confiscated over 350,000 sheets, far more than were needed by the troops. Forrest dispatched 50,000 of the sheets to his Mississippi plantation with the intention of selling them after the war. Wallace fled to the banks of the Tennessee River when he learned of Bedford's approach and, after the battle, was sent to New Mexico territory (where he would eventually become governor) as punishment for his cowardice by Lincoln. After the war, Forrest did sell many of the sheets and restored his personal fortune, but he retained a few thousand and dressed his new 'army' - the Ku Klux Klan - in them.

Answer 2

The North, or the Federals, or the Union soldiers were NEVER called "the unions." Command of the Union soldiers went from Brig. Charles F. Smith to Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant , to Maj. Gen Ulysses S. Grant and Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell. The Confederate command was shared between General Albert Sidney Johnson and General P.G.T. Beauregard.

Answer 3

According to an eye witness, they used obsolete flintlocks. The ammunition was rolled in cartridge paper , which contained powder, a round ball and three buckshot.

Answer 4

umm, they used guns.