1815 – At Dartmoor Prison in southwest England 7 American prisoners were killed by British soldiers under the command of Captain Thomas G. Shortland. Some 6,000 prisoners were awaiting return to the US. A farmer’s jury with no victims or witnesses issued a verdict on April 8 of “justifiable homicide.”
1862 – Two days of bitter fighting began at the Civil War battle of Shiloh as the Confederates attacked Grant’s Union forces in southwestern Tennessee. Union commander Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, planning to advance on the important railway junction at Corinth, Miss., met a surprise attack by General Albert Sidney Johnston’s Army of Mississippi. The Confederates pushed the Federals back steadily during the first day’s fighting, in spite of Johnston’s death that afternoon. Only with the arrival of Union reinforcements during the night did the tide turn, forcing the rebels to withdraw. The opposing sides slaughtered each other with such ferocity that one survivor wrote, “No blaze of glory…can ever atone for the unwritten and unutterable horrors of the scene.” Gen. Ulysses Grant after the Battle of Shiloh said: “I saw an open field… so covered with dead that it would have been possible to walk across… in any direction, stepping on dead bodies without a foot touching the ground.” More than 9,000 Americans died. The battle left some 24,000 casualties and secured the West for the Union. In 1952 Shelby Foote wrote “Shiloh,” an historical novel based on documentation from participants in the battle. Recorded Books made a cassette version in 1992.
1862 – Albert Sidney Johnston (59), US and Confederate general, was killed in battle of Shiloh.
1865 – At the Battle of Sayler’s Creek, a third of Lee’s army was cut off by Union troops pursuing him to Appomattox. Skirmish at High Bridge, VA, (Appomattox). The Battle of Sailor’s Creek (also known as Sayler’s Creek, Hillsman Farm, or Lockett Farm) was fought near Farmville, Virginia, as part of the Appomattox Campaign, in the final days of the American Civil War. It was the last major engagement between the armies of Gen. Robert E. Lee and Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant before the capitulation of Lee’s Confederate army at Appomattox Court House three days later.
1866 – G.A.R. was formed (Grand Army of the Republic). It was composed of men who served in the US Army and Navy during the Civil War. The last member died in 1956.
https://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com/2014/04/06/april-6/
