Save 23 Acres at Shiloh and a Half-Acre at Chattanooga!

The Opportunity

The Battle of Shiloh lasted two days. Yet, the campaign to save 23 acres of Shiloh battlefield has lasted 130 years. Now, at last, the opportunity is here.

To save this incredible property, as well as an additional half-acre of hallowed ground at Chattanooga, the Trust must raise $280,000. We already expect to receive nearly half of the money needed to complete this project from preservation partners. So the funds we raised will be matched. This is why your preservation gift will DOUBLE the impact!

The Trust needs to raise the last $280,000 in the next 45 days. Please join us in saving this hallowed ground.

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The History at Shiloh

At the outset of the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862, the Confederates had high hopes for an important strategic victory. They aimed to block the Union advance into Mississippi, and early in the battle, it seemed that they might succeed.

As night fell on the first day of battle, General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, who took command after General Albert Sidney Johnston was shot and died bled to death, believed his army was victorious. In what might have been his fatal error, he called a halt to the attacks as darkness approached.

What he didn’t know was that, during the night, thousands of additional Union troops arrived to reinforce Ulysses S. Grant’s battered army. By daybreak, Federal forces numbered nearly 54,000 men near Pittsburg Landing, an advantage of 24,000 men over Beauregard’s army. The greater numbers, and the tactical advantage they provided, proved to be decisive.

How significant were the events of this battle? Confederate President Jefferson Davis summed it up aptly, writing, “When Sidney Johnston fell, it was the turning point of our fate; for we had no other hand to take up his work in the West.”

No wonder that, 32 years later, Shiloh — the very scene of this turning point — was chosen to be one of America’s first five national military parks. The original 1894 boundary for this park even included the 23 acres we’re working to save today as part of it!

These acres — which include a portion of the widow Mary Howell’s farm and the field where Confederate Colonel Preston Pond sent two infantry regiments on the morning of April 6th — could not be incorporated into the park when Congress established it. But, 130 years later, it can happen now.

The History at Chattanooga

Ulysses Grant had been given command of all Union forces in the west and was pushing doggedly to break free from the rail hub at Chattanooga, where Confederate forces under General Braxton Bragg laid siege to the city, hoping to starve the Federal forces into surrender.

After three days of coordinated attacks at Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, and Tunnel Hill, Grant and his men succeeded in driving the Confederates out of their entrenched position at Chattanooga and into Georgia, effectively opening the way for General William Tecumseh Sherman’s infamous March to the Sea soon after.

The American Battlefield Trust has already saved 405 acres at Chattanooga.

The parcel is small — just half an acre. But it’s mighty... It’s right in the very center of the action! Soldiers from three different Union brigades surged over the land as they fought upwards to drive the Confederates from Tunnel Hill.

Save 23 Acres at Shiloh and Chattanooga, Tennessee

The American Battlefield Trust exists to fulfill and expand what Americans started back in 1894. And that’s to save our history before it gets paved over and forgotten, so that every American, and each new generation, can visit the places where men fought and died, and learn about their valor, courage, and honor.

Once again, we’d be expanding the borders of one of the first five national Civil War battlefield parks. And once again, we’d be saving hallowed ground from a battle that had an enormous impact on the trajectory of the war.

Give today to see your support nearly DOUBLED! These two plots at Shiloh and Chattanooga are where the Civil War and our nation’s history turned. These acres can still be saved with your help.

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