The Battle of Shiloh-- Part 1: USS Tyler, USS Lexington and Brig. Gen. William H.L. Wallace

As far as my research for the discussion group on this battle, I concentrated on several aspects of the battle.
**  The first was the role played by the two U.S. Navy ships, the USS Lexington and the USS Tyler.  I am writing about those two ships in my Running the Blockade: Civil War Navy blog.

**  I also did some research on William H.L. Wallace (July 8, 1821 to April 10, 1862)  since he was from Illinois.  Of course, he was one of the two Wallaces commanding divisions at  the battle (the other one was Lew Wallace who wrote "Ben Hur" after the war).

W.H.L. Wallace was the original commander of the 11th Illinois Volunteer Infantry regiment which had suffered over 60% of its strength at the Battle of Fort Donelson.  His gallantry was noticed and with it a promotion from colonel to brigadier general.

A lawyer by trade, he had enlisted in the regiment as a private but was elected its colonel by the time it mustered in on July 30, 1861.

--Old Secesh

Answers to the Battle of Shiloh Quiz

I wrote down by quiz questions for the McHenry County Civil War Round Table discussion group in my last two posts.  Here are the answers:

1.  USS Lexington and USS Tyler

2.  Army of the Tennessee, Army of the Ohio were the Union ones.  The Confederate one was the Army of Mississippi.

Side Question:  Union Armies named after Rivers and would be the Army of the Tennessee.  Confederate named after regions, so their would be the Army of Tennessee.

3.  Southwest

4.  Strike Grant before Buell's troops arrived.

5.  Hornet's Nest

6   Corinth, Mississippi

7.  W. H. L. Wallace and Lew Wallace

Frank Question   William Hervey Lamar Wallace.

Second Frank Question.  Lew Wallace commanded the 11th Indiana and W.H.L. Wallace the 11th Illinois.

Did Ya' Pass?  Yaw'l.  --Old Secesh

W.H.L. Wallace: Grant's Greatest General?-- Part 2

Continued from October 6th.

The two Union generals with Wallace as both their last names causes a lot of confusion. When I first came across W.H.L. Wallace, I thought he was the one who wrote "Ben Hur." But, it was fellow General Lew Wallace who wrote that story.  Lew Wallace had commanded the 11th Indiana, wrote that the two generals being in the same army probably caused "great profanity in the army post office."

Before the war, W.H.L. Wallace had planned to study law under one Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois, but ended up studying law and becoming a lawyer in Ottawa, Illinois.

At the onset of the Civil War, Wallace volunteered as a private in the 11th Illinois and soon was elected colonel of the regiment. For his conspicuous service at Fort Donelson, Wallace was appointed brigadier general.

At the Battle of Shiloh, Wallace's men were next to the Hornet's Nest and the Sunken Road and withstood six hours of Confederate attacks. Wallace was in command of the division there and was mortally wounded. Union soldiers found him barely alive and carried him to his wife in a home nearby. He died three days later on April 10, 1862.

He is buried in Ottawa, LaSalle County, Illinois, at his family cemetery at 815 LaSalle Street along with his war horse Prince. There is a mural of him in Ottawa.

It would have been interesting to see how he would have done in the war had he not been killed so early.

A Great, But Little-Known General. -B-R'er