Video: April 6, 1862 (at 32:09)

(Sunday, April 6, 1862, during the American Civil War) — The Battle of Shiloh, also known as the Battle of Pittsburg Landing, began this morning in southwestern Tennessee when Confederate forces under Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P. G. T. Beauregard launched a surprise attack on Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

On the first day of the battle, the Confederates struck with the intention of driving the Union defenders away from the river and into the swamps of Owl Creek to the west, hoping to defeat Grant’s Army of the Tennessee before the anticipated arrival of Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio.