Home » History » U.S. Civil War » They Shall Not Surprise Us: Everett Peabody, Part V

They Shall Not Surprise Us: Everett Peabody, Part V

© Perry Cuskey

A False Report

The report of his junior officers on the night of April 5th was all that Peabody needed to hear. With the army's safety clearly at stake the mint-new brigade commander realized that something needed to be done. Informed by Graves & Johnston that Prentiss had brushed aside their fears, Peabody decided to see the division commander himself.

Peabody's appearance would mark at least the fourth time that Prentiss had been approached that day with a report of enemy activity.

The first had occurred shortly after the review, when Major James E. Powell informed Prentiss of Confederate soldiers watching from the woods. To his credit, Prentiss was concerned enough to strengthen the pickets and order out a patrol.

But when that patrol returned around seven in the evening and reported nothing for three miles beyond the Union lines, Prentiss was satisfied. This crucial report would influence his thinking for the remainder of the night.

There was only one problem - the report was false.

Had the patrol actually gone three miles beyond the Union lines they would have found themselves smack in the middle of the Confederate army. Either they had somehow walked right passed several thousand heavily armed southerners without knowing it - and without being detected themselves - or they had not gone as far as the patrol's commander had claimed.

A far different account would later reveal that the patrol had gone about a mile before encountering a group of black laborers working in a local field. The workers informed the patrol's commander, Colonel David Moore, that they had seen around 200 Confederate cavalry earlier in the day. The patrol then returned to camp where Moore apparently filed a fake report.

Shiloh historian Wiley Sword has speculated that Moore lost his bearings in the dark and confusing woods, and after wandering across the front of Sherman's division chose to lie about this in his report to Prentiss. In any event they had not, as Moore claimed, conducted a "thorough reconnaissance over the extent of three miles."

Perhaps Moore falsified his report so as to avoid a chewing out. Or perhaps he was infected with the same overconfidence shared by the rest of the army. He may have reasoned that getting lost didn't really matter since, as everyone knew, there wasn't anything out there to begin with. So he may have felt his report to be nothing more than a little white lie that would do no harm.