Nearly 24,000 soldiers were killed, wounded or missing after the two-day Civil War battle that raged here on April 6 and 7, 1862. Beginning with a Confederate surprise attack on Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Army of Tennessee, the prolonged battle employed 62 cannon on a site called "the Hornet's Nest," and included gunboat fire from ironclads on the Tennessee River. At battle's end, the Confederates retreated. Take the self-guided 9.5mi driving tour of the 4,000-acre battlefield that leads from the National Cemetery and Pittsburg Landing on the river past mass burial trenches, numerous state markers, "Bloody Pond" and the site of the Shiloh Meeting House.