OneManGang
Senior Member
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2004
- Messages
- 1,853
- Likes
- 8,240
Tennessee vs The Maxims vs Missour
Many years ago, your fearless scribe opined that “going out and dominating an SEC opponent IS Tennessee football!” What we fans saw Saturday was our beloved Vols going out and dominating an SEC opponent.
Remember that feeling.
A large part of said domination sprang from the Tennessee offensive line. That caused your humble servant to consult …
The Book of Armaments – Men of The Hill Edition.
Chapter 42, Verses 102 – 107
“And, Lo! It came to pass during the reigns of Lord Johnny of the Quick Kick and Lord Philip of the Hand Clap that the Men of The Hill didst deploy young men of great size and strength to do battle in the front lines.
These titans didst strike fear in opponents throughout the Land of the Pigskin and soon scribes and lore-keepers across the Fruited Plain didst bestow upon them the moniker of the “Tennessee Valley Authority.”
Many, many, of these stalwarts went on to serve in the armies of the Enfla and earned even greater acclaim.
The names of these brave warriors resound over the ages of VolLore.
Noble Timothy of the Vikings, Sir Bubba the Miller, Baron Spencer of Tempe, Stalwart Antone and Charles the Tall are but a few of those remembered whenever those who love The Men of The Hill gather to raise tankards to the sunny slopes of long ago.*
Are we seeing the emergence of a 21st Century version of those storied days of the the “TVA”? It's too early to tell. But, by thunder, Saturday was a helluva good start.
* * * * * * * * *
It is widely regarded as one of the most thrilling scenes in cinematic history. In 1959, director William Wilder created a massive set and hired a whopping 15,000 extras to bring the climactic chariot race of his new movie Ben-Hur to life. The film featured Charleton Heston in the title role and went on to earn eleven Oscars including best picture and best actor. Few among the millions of movie-goers enthralled by the spectacle knew that there were connections to events along the western branch of the Tennessee River near an old Dunker church nearly a century earlier.
Shiloh National Military Park is a true treasure. Most Civil War battlefields are close to the cities and towns they are named for and hence are islands of relative quiet amidst the hustle and bustle. Shiloh is different, situated in West Tennessee near the Mississippi border, it is to this day what it was in 1862: an out of the way place.
At the far southeast end of the road one follows on the self-guided tour, there is a small parking lot with some trees beyond. You are on the old Corinth Road. Probably, most tourists drive by here without a second thought. They are fools.
A trail leads through the stand of trees to an open field to the west with a small marker a hundred yards or so from the tree line. Walk to the marker and take a deep breath.
It doesn't take a great deal of imagination to be transported back to the morning of April 6, 1862.
Turn, and look back at that tree line. Ghosts will appear. Turn back, and more come out of the trees on the far side of the field. You stand at the exact point where the biggest battle in American history to that point began.
To the east of the Corinth road was encamped Gen. Benjamin Prentiss's Divsion, one of the five divisions of U.S. Grant's 40,000 strong Army of the Tennessee which had moved up the Tennessee River after the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson and had landed at a steamboat stop called Pittsburgh Landing near the small town of Savannah, Tennessee. Grant was confident there were no Confederate forces anywhere nearby. He was also waiting on Gen. Don Carlos Buell and the 20,000 men of his Army of the Ohio to come down from Nashville. Together, they would advance on the Confederate base at Corinth, Miss. and deal with whatever Confederates they found there. He ordered that no patrols be sent out lest they alert the Confederates to his presence and bring on a general engagement before Buell could come up, He passed this on to his divisional commanders and they on to their subordinates. Gen. Tecumseh Sherman scoffed that he had heard the Gray Coats were on their way with anywhere from 100,000 to 500,000 men every day since they'd started upriver.
Col. Everette Peabody, one of Prentiss's brigade commanders felt that such behavior was arrogant and wrong-headed. The night of 5 April he went to Gen. Prentiss to request active patrolling, Prentiss dismissed him and told him to go back to bed. Peabody refused to go along with this and at 0300 he summoned Maj. James Powell and told him to gather five companies (three from the 25th Missouri and two from the 12th Michigan), cross the Corinth Road, and find out what was on the other side. Shortly after 0400, Powell's patrol exchanged shots with some Confederate cavalry vedettes who quickly scampered off. Powell shook his companies out into a skirmish line and crossed the road, passed though tree line, and about 0500 they emerged into the field which belonged to a man named Fraser. It had been raining heavily and mist and fog swallowed the Yankee patrol.
Suddenly out of the gloom came a Confederate skirmish line. Shots were exchanged and the Rebels fell back. As the Federals began to celebrate, the forward units of the 9,000 men of Gen. William Hardee's Division, the van of the 45,000 man strong Army of Mississippi under Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, appeared along the far side of the field.
Both Peabody and Powell would fall in the next few hours, their resourcefulness and initiative in the early hours of 6 April would be lost until historians began combing the Federal and Confederate battle reports.
The onrushing gray tide smashed through the rest of Prentiss's division and slammed into the main Union line as sleepy blue-bellies stumbled into line and tried to figure out the just what the hell was going on. Grant was summoned from his room in Savannah by the sound of cannon fire. Sherman, at the far right of the Union line was the last to be hit, but his division gave way as well. The Union forces rallied at places like The Hornets Nest and The Peach Orchard but were eventually evicted after horrific slaughter. Inexorably, the Union lines fell back toward Pittsburgh Landing and the welcome shelter of the naval artillery on a pair of gunboats standing by.
Rapidly getting up to speed, Grant sensed both peril and opportunity. He had one un-engaged division, his Third Division under Gen. Lew Wallace was encamped around Adamsville, a few miles to the north. Grant took a steamboat there and issued orders for Wallace's division to march into line on Sherman's right and, if possible, turn the Confederate left. Wallace was not present and so got the orders in writing.
Wallace dithered. He took time to get his units aligned and in order before marching them out in column formation. Meandering through the thickets and clearings, Wallace managed to miss Sherman's division entirely and found himself in the Confederate rear. At this point he had two main options: 1) his column was basically in line of battle. If he simply pivoted his units 90 degrees, he could slam into the Confederate division battering Sherman and eliminate or scatter roughly a quarter of their total force. Or, 2) he could reverse march put his rearmost unit in the lead and fall into line where he was supposed to be.
Wallace chose a third option: he decided to counter march, this meant that his lead brigade would reverse course, march completely through the other brigades and then the the other brigades would follow in order. This was the textbook solution. It also took two or three hours, hours Sherman didn't seem to have.
By nightfall, the Confederate advance had run out of steam. Grant had his back to the river, but the lead elements of Gen. Buell's Army of the Ohio were already arriving. The Confederate Gen. Johnston had been mortally wounded around mid-day and command had devolved upon the vainglorious, pompous and irascible Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard. It was Beauregard who ordered the stand-down. He noticed two things, 1) Grant was in an extremely strong position, backed by heavy naval guns and holding the high ground and 2) his own forces were disorganized and very weary after a day of intense combat. Beauregard would come in for heavy criticism for this, but likely made the right decision.
The next day, 7 April, the combined forces of Grant and Buell pushed the Confederates back and recaptured all the ground they had lost.
After the battle, Union newspapers and politicians began searching for someone to blame for the near disaster. At first their ire was on Grant, whom, it was said, was drunk. He wasn't but the story took on a life of its own before finally being squelched by Lincoln himself who snorted that if it would help the rest of his generals fight as hard as Grant, he would send barrels of the General's favorite whiskey to all of them.
Eventually their gaze turned to Lew Wallace whose dithering and dawdling provided no help whatsoever. Wallace was removed from command and shipped back east. He would later command at the Battle of Monocacy, where, despite losing the battle, he bought time for re-enforcements to reach Washington and stop “Old Jubilee” Early's Confederates the next day.
After the War, Wallace went back to his law practice but soon tired of that and went into politics, eventually being appointed Territorial Governor of New Mexico and later Minister to the Ottoman Empire. He also embarked on a career as a writer.
During his time in New Mexico, in 1880, Wallace published his best known work, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
As the late, great, Paul Harvey would say, “And now you know the REST of the story.”
*********
So how did the team do compared to the Maxims?1. The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win.
Despite a few blown coverages and missed assignments, the Vols did very well. A couple of bone-head penalties did mar the record, though.
2. Play for and make the breaks. When one comes your way … SCORE!
Blowing big holes in the opposing defense creates breaks. Playing stout defense does as well. The Vols seized those chances and chased the Tigers out of Neyland Stadium. It has been noted in these pages before that when the Vols actually APPLY Neyland's Maxims they are well nigh unbeatable.
3. If at first the game – or the breaks – go against you, don’t let up … PUT ON MORE STEAM!
Many were concerned when Mizzou went down the field twice during the second canto to score field goals. However a 13-yard strike from Guarantano to Gray put paid to any notions the Kitties may have had.
4. Protect our kickers, our quarterback, our lead and our ballgame.
Day and night from last year and the with addition of Cade Mays things are certainly looking up! The defense didn't quite play lights out and showed some definite vulnerabilities but did what was necessary.
5. Ball! Oskie! Cover, block, cut and slice, pursue and gang tackle … THIS IS THE WINNING EDGE.
The defense is starting to get its collective feet under itself. Methinks they are still a few elite players away from domination, though.
6. Press the kicking game. Here is where the breaks are made.
Tennessee's kickers had a so-so outing. Your scribe is still of the opinion that kickoffs into the end zone for touchbacks are fascist but that's the way the rules are written.
7. Carry the fight to Missouri and keep it there for sixty minutes.
Damned right.
HeadVol Pruitt summed it up very well after the game, “Are we there yet? No, we’re not, but we feel like we’ve got good leadership and we’re working hard to get there.”
Keep that attitude and it will happen.
MAXOMG
*Yet another Classical Reference!
© 2020 Keeping Your Stories Alive
Suggested Reading:
Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative. Volume I
James Lee McDonough, Shiloh: In Hell Before Night
Wiley Sword, Shiloh: Bloody April
General Lew Wallace (National Park Service)
Last edited:
