THREAD - Albert Sidney Johnston and a tin cup

The first truly great battle of the American Civil War was fought in Tennessee near a small Dunker church called Shiloh.

The Confederate Army of Mississippi had advanced through the night to attack Union camps at Pittsburgh Landing.

Catching the Union troops under William T. Sherman unprepared for battle the Rebel forces had initial success, driving the blue soldiers from their camps.

The two armies were commanded by a veritable who's who of Civil War generals. On the rebel side: Johnston; Beauregard; Hardee; Polk; Breckenridge and Forest to name a few.

On the Union side, Grant, Sherman, Buell Wallace and others commanded.

Albert Sidney Johnston had been a brigadier general in the old army, commanding all troops on the Pacific coast. He was currently the 2nd highest ranking officer in the Confederate army.

The rebel plan of battle at Shiloh was his.

The plan was simple. The grey troops would advance in a succession of lines, first on the right and rolling along to the left.

In the opening stages of the battle this plan seemed flawless. That was until a Union brigade held fast in a sunken road later named the Hornet's Nest.

Because of this the left began to out strip the right and the plan started to fall apart.

Johnston road among his troops, praising or chiding them as needed. Riding through an abandoned Union camp he came across a young Rebel Lieutenant, his hands full of Federal plunder.

He admonished the young man for stopping to take Union trinkets, the Lieutenant looking at his commander with in shame. Relenting when he realized the critique was poor reward for the earlier hard fighting Johnston leaned down from his horse and took a small tin cup from a table.

"This will be my share," he told the Lieutenant and then rode on.

For the rest of the day he used the tin cup to direct his men in lieu of his sword.

Further down the line Johnston came across a line of Arkansas troops that had been thee times repulsed from a peach orchard held by Union infantry and guns.

The general rode along their line, tapping the cup on the points of their bayonets.

"These will have to do the work, men. Follow me!" Without dismounting the army commander lead the battered men into the peach orchard for the 4th time, riding back out a short time later with a smile on his lips and the sound of rebel cheers of victory among the peach blossoms.

Johnston's smile did not last long though. He started to sway in his saddle and and aide had to grab the general to keep him from falling.

Helping him down the aide asked if Johnson was hurt.

"Yes," he responded. "And I fear badly."

His surgeon was tending to Union prisoners on a different part of the field, at Johnston's orders, and the majority of his staff were gone of a myriad of missions.

The aide began to strip the general, looking for a wound. He found it soon after removing a boot filled with blood.

The aide found a dime sized hole in the general's leg just above the knee. A minie ball had clipped his artery and the general was bleeding out quickly. A basic knowledge of tourniquets may have saved the general's life but it was not to be.

General Albert Sidney Johnston, the tin cup by his side, bled to death in a Tennessee valley, one of thousands of men killed that day in a battle that would have as many men killed as all previous American wars combined.