Gen. Ulysses S. Grant,
Army of the Tennessee
Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston,
Army of the Mississippi
The road to Shiloh : early battles in the West by 
VCG Wilson/Corbis/Getty Images
The battle of Shiloh started on April 6th, 1862 and finished on April 7th, 1862. The battle was a decisive victory for the Union, both strategically and tactically. The Union forces were surprised by the confederacy and pushed back to the banks of the Mississippi River on the first day of the battle. The Union had holdouts that held to allow the army to fallback towards the river which had naval gunboats in support, the hornets nest is a famous example of one of the holdouts. It was given it name because soldiers said that so many bullets where flying it looked like swarms of angry hornets. On the second day of the battle, Grant's forces now bolstered by General Buell's Army of the Ohio were able to push the Confederates back. The total combatants for this battle was 110,053 with 65,085 Union soldiers and 44,968 confederate soldiers. Casualties for both sides combined to a total of 23,746 with 13,047 Union casualties and 10,669 confederates.