A group of children were playing in front of a large Southern Plantation near Mobile Alabama, nearby an elderly man was dozing while some colored men were toiling in the fields nearby. A seemingly idyllic picture, but suddenly the elderly man awoke with a start and shouted to the children to quit their infernal chatter, a young boy of 10 looked towards the elderly man who was now setting back down into his rocker. The boy motioned for his friends to follow as he ran up the steps and asked his grandfather to tell him the story of how he knew General Lee. The elderly man sighed, thought deeply for a moment, debating whether he wanted to or not, but figured if it would keep the blasted children quiet he would tell them the story.
It all began in 1861, when we fired on Fort Sumter, beginning the Confederate War for Independence, I was just a young boy of 17 at the time, young and stupid. When Alabama joined the movement against the Federal oppressors I signed up to join the fight to free our homeland, I was placed into the 3rd Alabama and was sent north to join Lt. General Albert Sidney Johnston in Tennessee, well, my first confrontation was a skirmish with Federal troops near the confluences of the Yazoo River and the Mississippi at a place called Fort Donelson, which we lost because we were ordered to retreat, such an act disgraced us and infuriated General Johnston.
Eventually we were moved to Corinth and ordered to fortify the apparently vital transportation junction there, but after some discussions between the higher ups, we were ordered to move east, away from our fortifications. We had recently been pushed from Kentucky and now we were being threatened in Tennessee and apparently the Generals were concerned that the Blue bellies were combining their forces. So we marched east, towards the Tennessee River, shortly before the river we ran smack into General Sherman's troops. Ahh what fun that was, killing those poor boys who had never even seen a battle, they broke on the first charge and we pushed them deep into the woods, but we were stopped by a Pennsylvanian Regiment, a part of General Prentiss' division and these boys were veterans, we traded shots all day and managed to push them off the high ground. I swear on that day I saw the headquarters flag in the distance near Shiloh Church and I told my buddies that I would take that flag. They laughed at me and we continued to push Prentiss back. By nightfall we heard that General Johnston had been wounded by a Federal musketball and had been rushed to the rear, we prayed all night for our beloved General for neither of us Alabamians particularly liked Beauregard.
Come morning we were relieved to find out that Johnston's doctor was not far and was able to save the General, we resumed our attacks and continued to push Sherman and Prentiss back, we learned from Federal prisoners that their own big Gener'l had arrived, Grant himself, with more troops. We continued to push the troops that were in front of us and did not care about those who were miles away, but push them we did, eventually even Prentiss' veterans could not fight and broke, the entire Federal army fled across the Tennessee River losing thousands of men before we broke off the engagement and camped in their tents. We were proud of our achievement in finally beating the Federal troops, and in a large battle too. We heard later that General Lee beat the Yanks at a place called Antietam and pushed deep into Maryland, threatening Mr. Lincoln in his comfy White House.
It was several months later after fighting several more skirmishes and a decent battle at Corinth against Grant which ended with our victory, that word came to us that Mr. Lincoln agreed to our request that we break free of their tyrannical rule. I will always remember that it was General Stonewall Jackson himself that marched his army right to Mr. Lincolns door and demanded that he agree to our terms. So we were disbanded and sent home to a grateful family and a hero's welcome. I married your grandmother, who was a beautiful young southern belle and raised your father into the man he is now, a General in one of our world's most powerful military.
The boys stared in awe, before one of the boys shouted, "I am General Johnston!" and ran off, with the other boys following closely behind claiming other Dixie heroes. The Grandson remained behind though and the elderly man noticed his sad demeanor and asked what was wrong. The boy wondered, "Grandpa, my teacher told me that Shiloh was the most important battle for the Confederate War Effort, what did he mean by that?"
The elderly man smiled a slight smile and motioned for his grandson to sit on his lap, "Well son, it is like this...."
OOC:
Obviously this is different from real history, but I needed a plausible reason to see a Confederate Victory and recently read a book that said had General Johnston survived his wound at Shiloh, the Confederates may have won the day. So I decided to use the battle of Shiloh.
