Tales from the road: 'Disappearing' into Dill Branch Ravine

Dill Branch Ravine (right) on the Shiloh (Tenn.) battlefield

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Minutes after leaving Tom Petty and Bob Dylan behind, I stiff-arm the 21st century and disappear into the woods above Dill Branch Ravine on the Shiloh (Tenn.) battlefield.

“Watch for snakes,” a ranger had warned me earlier.

A stark reminder of the cost of war.

But on this glorious morning, I spy no snakes. No humans either. I’m apparently the only living soul traipsing toward the ravine, where on the evening of April 6, 1862, Confederates mounted a desperate (and failed) attack to break Ulysses Grant’s army on the ridge.

As a deep carpet of leaves and twigs crunch and snap beneath my hiking boots, I happen upon an eye-opening (and sobering) marker: “Burial place. 14th Wisconsin Infantry,” it reads. “Bodies removed to Nat’l Cemetery.” Such markers frequently spring surprises on walks in the Shiloh woods.

A few yards away, I inspect the bottom of a massive, uprooted tree. Surely a Gardner or sliver of artillery shell burrowed itself among the mosaic of pebbles and other stones.

Later, I enter the ravine from the Tennessee River side, scurrying down a steep embankment and into the muck of Dill Branch. During the battle, two Union gunboats anchored in the river — the wooden USS Lexington and USS Tyler — emptied their massive guns into the ravine. Combined with Grant’s cannons on the ridge defending Pittsburg Landing, my God what noise they must have caused.

“Terrorizing” for the Confederates, a ranger later told me. But apparently the fire did little else to the Rebels. 

“Every two minutes, the enemy threw two shells from his gunboats,” Confederate Brigadier General Patrick Cleburne wrote, “some of which burst close around my men, banishing sleep from the eyes of a few, but falling chiefly among their own wounded, who were strewn thickly between the camp and the river…”

"Sounded terribly and looked ugly and hurt but few," Confederate Colonel John D. Martin wrote of the fire from the gunboats. 

Ulysses Grant's artillery protected Pittsburg Landing during the Battle of Shiloh.

Dill Branch Ravine on the Shiloh battlefield

Using cannons like these, Union gunboats in the Tennessee River shelled the ravine.

Surely several of the 32-pound shells from the gunboats remain buried in the ravine, perhaps still prepared to unleash their deadly contents on anyone who confronts them.

A gift from nature.

Deep in the ravine, as sunlight squeezes between the trees, I marvel at its steep walls. While climbing a hill on the return to my launch point, my heart races to well over 100 beats a minute. Under fire and carrying equipment, soldiers attacked here? What bravery.

In and above the ravine, I discover gifts from nature. A spectacular, red leaf among drab surroundings. Brilliant, green moss on a large, gray rock. A decaying, rusty brown stump. A single, cackling bird and a bouncy squirrel.

Maybe I should disappear into Dill Branch Ravine more often.

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SOURCES

 — War of the Rebellion: Serial 010, Page 582, Kentucky, Tennessee, Northern Mississippi, Northern Alabama and southwestern Virginia, Chapter XXII

 — Ibid, Page 622.