The signs of Shiloh

The signs at Shiloh were everywhere. It is a large memorial park and there are hundreds and hundreds of signs. Since they are so smart, the signs are all organized. The big square signs have detailed information about the group/person in that area during the battle.

The triangular signs indicate a location of a group of soldiers on the first day of the battle. The yellow color meant it was a group from the army of the Ohio. If it was blue, it was from the army of the Tennessee and the red signs were the army of the Mississippi. (hopefully if I am getting this wrong, John will come back and edit!).


At first, we felt like we had to read all the signs. They were so interesting, but very quickly we realized we were going to miss out on the parks of the site we wanted to see if we read every single sign.

Another strategy John and I use that helps with traveling with kids is to try and have a game plan. John and I talked about what both of us what we absolutely wanted to see. John wanted to see the Sunken Road most of all and the headquarters of the different leaders as well as take some time to look at the different types of cannons on display throughout the park. He wanted to see more than that, but those were his bare minimum essential sites. I wanted to see the peach orchard, the Minnesota memorial within the park, and I wanted to take the short loop trial with Native American artifacts.

These locations would have to be our priority. We could stop and look at other things, but we couldn't spend much time there without giving up one of our other desires. We had arrived later than expected due to our unexpected stop in Mississippi (see Corinth) and we still were hoping to leave by 4ish in order to eat dinner close to our hotel. The clock was ticking.

Anyhow, after the first several signs, I gave up on the further afield signs as I could easily tell from a distance by the shape and color what the information was going to be about. John stuck with it for quite a bit longer, but in the end even he had to give up on taking in each and every sign.