After capturing Fort Donelson on February 16th 1862, General Ulysses Grant marched his army of 35,000 men deeper into the south. By March 11th, Grant's army had reached Pitts Landing, Tennessee on the banks of the Tennessee River. Pitts Landing was only ten miles north of the Tennessee - Mississippi border. Grant's movement forced the Confederates to concentrate all of their available strength to oppose him. General Albert S. Johnston had designated General Pierre Beauregard as commander of the Corinth, Mississippi area. Johnston marched from Murfreesboro, Tennessee to Corinth with 17,000 men and was joined by General Bragg's army of 10,000 and General Ruggles' force of 5,000. Corinth was fifteen miles southwest of Pitts Landing. By a very circuitous route, General Polk marched 8,000 men from Columbus, Kentucky to Bethel Station, Tennessee which was ten miles northwest of Corinth. Polk's position threatened Grant's right rear flank. The entire Rebel force now numbered 40,000. Johnston and Beauregard shared command of their armies.

General Grant situated his headquarters at Savannah, Tennessee six miles northeast of the Union army of five corps bivouacked in the Pitts Landing area. In the absence of Grant, General Sherman commanded the encampment. General Lew Wallace's division of 6,500 men was dispersed in three camps seven miles due west of Savannah to guard against any flank attack. General Pope's command of 25,000 men at New Madrid, Missouri was besieging a Confederate fort on the Mississippi River and was unavailable to support Grant. However General Buell's 50,000 man army at Nashville was not engaged in any significant action. At the behest of General McClelland, he slowly began to move towards a conjunction with Grant's army. His progress was glacial except for General Nelson's advance force of 5000 men which reached the east bank of the Tennessee River opposite Savannah on the night of April 5th.

The area around Pitts Landing was heavily forested with dense undergrowth. Confederate scouts routinely reconnoitered around the edges of the camp. These scouts were easily spotted by the Yankees but they were ignored. No action to deter them was taken and General Sherman neglected to inform Grant about this issue. General Johnston realized that if he waited, then Buell's army would finally reach Grant and their combined force would heavily outweigh his own. So he decided to take the opportunity to attack the Yankee encampment before Buell could arrive. He ordered his troops to march northeast on the afternoon of April 3rd but poor weather had turned the roads into quagmires. After two days of marching, the Confederate army was within two miles of the southern edge of the camp and the Rebel forces deployed in attack formation. However the men were tired and hungry and it was now 4 pm. So Johnston decided to delay the attack until the pre-dawn hours of April 6th.

That night, minor sporadic fighting broke out between northern and southern pickets. General Sherman was unconcerned and neglected to send any messages to Grant about these skirmishes. Thus Grant's army was taken completely by surprise at 5 am the next morning when long lines of Confederate soldiers burst into the encampment during breakfast. After savage chaotic fighting and many casualties, the Yankees were forced back into a defensive line. In Savannah, Grant heard gunfire at 6:30 am but did not reach the battlefield until 8:30. The rest is history: after repulsing wave after wave of Confederate attacks and taking grievous casualties, the Union army managed to survive the day. The next morning, the Yankees were reinforced by Wallace's division, Nelson's understrength division and Buell's late arriving divisions. The counterattack drove the depleted and exhausted Rebels into retreat. However Grant did not pursue them because of the exhaustion of his troops.

But what if the night of April 5th, 1862 and the very early morning hours of April 6th could be reset? Just one enterprising Union scout, one captured Rebel scout, one Confederate deserter or one runaway slave could have alerted Sherman to the danger. Had such an occurrence happened, the results would probably have been very different indeed. With time to prepare and reinforce, Grant probably would have savaged the Rebel army. General Wellesley (Lord Wellington) proved in Spain and at Waterloo that stout defensive positions can produce inordinate casualty rates especially with the new longer range rifled muskets. Without their very heavy casualties, the Union army would not have needed to recuperate for a full 24 hours after the battle. Grant was renowned for his bulldog temperament and would have immediately pursued the retreating Rebels down the few roads, inflicting as much damage as possible.

If the Yankees were successful in mauling the Confederate army past the point of being a viable military force, then the whole Mississippi River would have been undefended and might have fallen to Grant unopposed! With no army to defend it, a year and three months would not have been squandered with the necessity of besieging the impregnable Vicksburg. With the western flank of the western theater conquered, Grant could have been transferred to the east to replace the inept McClelland in the fight against General Lee while Sherman assaulted Georgia. The war may have ended a year or more sooner. All of this was lost because of a lack of a tiny bit of intelligence and prompt communication. Instead, Grant was relieved after Shiloh and replaced by General Halleck, an administrative paper pusher who attempted to dig his way to Corinth only to find it long abandoned by the Confederates.

I started reading military history in 1982 because I was stunned by the power of the hyper-realism of combat. I systematically studied military history starting with the Pelopennesian War and continuing all the way up to the Kuwaiti campaign. I read all of the significant military history books in my local library (over two hundred books on World War II alone). In all of my reading, I can think of no other battle that could have been reversed by such a miniscule change but with such enormous and far reaching consequences.