Nov 7, 2026. My last TN National Park Site: Shiloh National Military Park. This well-preserved and massive battlefield is filled with signs explaining the positions of various troops and historical notes on exactly what happened when. This was the bloodiest battle in then-American history, and though Union troops won and were then able to penetrate the southern interior, both sides lost all hope for a short and easy war.

After the area near Shiloh was secured, Union troops headed south and continued the fight near Corinth, MS in order to take control of a strategic railroad junction. I visited the MS portion of Shiloh NMP last year, so I won’t include that info here.

After the Civil War, states contributed monuments to honor their fallen soldiers. The monuments can be found throughout the Park, and I include a couple photos here.

The Park Site also contains Shiloh Indian Mounds Historic Landmark, a site that preserves the location of Late Woodland and Early Mississippian indigenous communities. The site was inhabited between 1000 and 1350 AD. The mounds consisted of home mounds and burial mounds. A handful can still be detected; most have succumbed to erosion and forest growth.

It is awe-inspiring, in the most horrible of ways, to stand on grounds where thousands of young men died in gruesome and bloody battles. I respect these men – many of them boys, really – and their sacrifices, and I am grateful I have no first-hand knowledge of such hellish experiences. I know I am privileged in many ways. So many of us are so very privileged in so many ways.