another month, even march of 1862, this would have been a busy location. pittsburg landing in the tennessee river, hardin county. the area was being used as a base of operations by the united states army. the army that disembarked here was under the command of ulysses s. grant. the reason the army was in the area was western confederate railroads, princically the memphis charleston line that linked chattanooga eastward, extremely important railroad to the confederate states of america. it intersectioned with the north/south route known as the mobile-ohio, ran from kentucky, the ohio river basin to the gulf of mexico at mobile. secretary of war, leroy pope walker of the confederate states, called these two railroads the vertebrae of the confederacy. and they intersected, they junctioned just 22 landward miles to the west of pittsburg landing. hence, the revival s military targets for the u.s. forces now attempting to put together a rebellion and we were less than a year into t
lulled into a sense of safety, everything was all secure. at lease the high command. there were men in the ranks, there were officers in the ranks who were of different opinion. one of them was a brigade commander under benjamin prentice, colonel everett peabody. he violates orders and orders out a combat reconnaissance because he s fearful that there s something in front of them based on the way he s reading intelligence, and his brigade is not going to be caught unawares, and he sends out a combat reconnaissance. did peabody believe that the entire confederate army is out there? probably not. but he knew something was out there and he wanted more intelligence. so he didn t tell he was sending out a combat control, he didn t tell sherman, whose force would have to march across his front, to perform its patrol. he didn t tell him he was sending it out. so nobody knew that federal force, ruffle five companies of infantry at 3:00 in the morning on april the 6th started marching