The Confederate advance startled the Union soldiers and drove them back. One Union private described it this way: "as I rose from the comfortable log from behind which a bunch of us had been firing, I saw men in gray and brown clothes, running thru the camp on our right, and I saw something else, too . . . a gaudy sort of thing with red bars . . . a Rebel flag." The Confederates had not eaten for twenty-four hours, and when they reached the Union camps, they stopped for a moment to ruffle thru knapsacks and tents in order to find some breakfast.
An interesting fact about the Battle of Shiloh is that eight out of every ten men on both sides had never before been in combat. Thousands of Federal troops ran and many hid. Many did not stop running until they reached the river and some even tried to swim to safety to the other side. When seeing how fearful many of these raw recruits were, Grant commented that "most of them would have been shot where they lay, without resistance, before they would have taken muskets and marched to the front." There was one Union line that held near the center. Multiple Confederate attacks were repelled by this line. The action was so furious that survivors of the fighting called it the Hornet's Nest. Johnston himself led a charge to break a Union line at what was called the Orchard. He was successful, but at the cost of his own life.
Finally, the Union line in the center surrendered, but they had held up the Confederate advance for six hours. It was now growing dark and the Union army had been pushed back two miles. During the night, 25,000 fresh Union troops arrived to reinforce Grant. At dawn, the Union force, now 50,000 strong, attacked. The Confederate forces fell back a number of times and finally withdrew to Corinth. The causalities at Shiloh were horrific. One hundred thousand men fought there and nearly one in four was a casualty. More Americans died at Shiloh than in all of the battles of the Revolution, the War of 1812, and the war with Mexico, combined. For all of the losses, Grant would be denounced as a butcher. However, it was this battle that brought him to the following understanding: "up to the battle of Shiloh, I, as well as thousands of other citizens, believed that the rebellion against the Government would collapse suddenly and soon if a decisive victory could be gained over any of its armies . . . but [afterward] I gave up all idea of saving the Union except by complete conquest."
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