The battlefields in Shiloh National Military Park are a fitting place for an eagle to soar.
Located in Tennessee, Shiloh National Military Park preserves theAmerican Civil War's Shiloh and Corinth battlefields. The Battle of Shiloh launched a six-month struggle for the key railroad junction at Corinth. It was here where Union forces marched from Pittsburg Landing to take Corinth in a May siege, and then withstood an October Confederate counter-attack.
To preserve these historical battlefields, and the nature within, the Shiloh National Military Park was established on Dec. 27, 1894. Local farmers had grown tired of their pigs rooting up the remains ofsoldiers that had fallen during the battle, so they insisted that the federal government do something about it. Federal officials complied, and the park was transferred from the War Department to the National Park Service in 1933.
Since the 1960s, the park has allowed approximately 600 acres of land to return to native forest conditions. About 200 acres of virgin bottomland oak and hickory forest, which is rare in western Tennessee, remain in the park’s Owl Creek watershed. These old-growth oak trees represent the last remnants of the original forest cover from the time of the battle.
