Today is the 146th anniversary of the second day of the Battle of Shiloh, Tennessee during the American Civil War. (Warning Will Robinson: many more Civil War Posts upcoming this month!!) Shiloh is a battle that illustrates 3 chapters of God Caused the Civil War rather handsomely, if I do say so myself; which I will, of course, since that's the whole purpose of Self Indulgent B.S.!!
The first piece of this puzzle is that Confederate General Albert Sydney Johnston bragged to his troops that they "would water their horses in the Tennessee River" the night of their attack, meaning they were goin' ta WHUP them Yankees they were about to attack. In the Lord's providence, good ole Albert got shot in the back of his leg by his own troops during the attack, didn't realize he was wounded (I guess because of the adrenalin rush of battle), and bled to death when a simple tourniquet would have saved him. This was one of the examples of death by "friendly fire" that occurred in the War and illustrates that "pride goes before a fall," the theme of two chapters, actually, of the book. (Stonewall Jackson's wounding at Chancellorsville was the most famous example.)
The second piece of this puzzle is that the Confederates attacked at Shiloh on a Sunday morning, catching the Yankees with their pants down, so to speak...in some cases, literally, I guess, down by the creek (or should that be "up the creek?"). HOWEVER, even though they pushed back the Federals all day on Sunday, General Grant regrouped and Kicked Confederate Butt on Monday. Statistically, attacking on a Sunday during the War had a 66% chance of losing the battle, whereas attacking on Friday, Saturday, or Monday had about a 67% chance of winning the battle. Maybe the Christian generals on both sides who said they lost battles because they broke the Sabbath were on to something?!! By the way, as I point out in God Caused, the attackers at the Battles of Bannockburn in Scotland, New Orleans, Waterloo, Little Big Horn, Manila Bay, Gallipolli, and Pearl Harbor LOST as part of a world history list of Sunday battles.
The third piece of this puzzle is that the battle took place near Shiloh Meeting House, a Christian Church that was named after a place in Israel that most folks point out means "peace" but fail to point out that it was the place God judged Israel for its sin. This is the point of two other chapters of the book; that God providentially manuevered battles to the vicinity of Christian churches in order to point out that He was NOT happy and was not in the process of blessing America. (One note, however: He DID bring roughly 300,000 Americans to a saving knowledge of Him through conversion experiences, including Abraham Lincoln on November 19, 1863 and George Armstrong Custer in February, 1865 while he was on furlough!!)
The last piece of this Providential Puzzle (oh, the opening lines of my book are, "How many coincidences does it take to make a providence of God? One, if you’re willing to believe it. On the other hand, thousands will be insufficient if you’re not.") is that Charlton Heston died yesterday, so we watched "Ben-Hur" in his honor, a book written by General Lew Wallace, a Christian, who was at the battle of Shiloh and led the successful attack on Monday of the Union right flank. In Ben-Hur, the Hur family comes to faith in their Messiah as a result of some very interesting circumstances. I'd recommend the movie with 5 stars!
Got popcorn and gunsmoke?
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