"Question of Shiloh geography" Topic

In reading various messages in the OR in the days leading up to Shiloh, I see numerous references to a "Pea Ridge" somewhere between Pittsburg Landing and Corinth, possibly near Shiloh church. Can anyone give me a definitive location for it?

Currently a wildlife management area. Perhaps this will help:
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A map here, but only in relation to current Tennessee counties:
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And I've got an on-line map showing a community of Pea Ridge TN, off 53 a hair south of the Kentucky line. (Scale? That map doesn't need any stinking scale!)

That map is showing an area way over by McMinnville. I'm talking about between Shiloh and Corinth MS.

Ouch! Good point, and I was careless. Try this:
"Pea Ridge is the high flat land South of the Elk River in Tennessee. It is generally thought of as the Southern half of Lincoln County, the old 17-25th Districts, but actually includes much of Madison County, Alabama and parts of Franklin County, Tennessee. You may consider yourself a Ridger if you have family or historical interests in Camargo, Skinem, Well's Hill, Yukon, Belview, Pleasant Grove, Kirkland, Macedonia, State Line, Hazel Green, Toney, Taft, Blanche, Cash Point, Ardmore, Lincoln, Corder's Crossroads, Fussy Hill, Flintville, Huntland, New Market, Old Salem or Belvidere. If so, this page is for you."

Comes from here, and no there's no map.:
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It's still I think a little east of where you'd like it, but a ridge can run quite a distance. It's also the third "Pea Ridge" I've come up with so far in Tennessee. (The second was so far east as to pretty well be Appalachia.) I've had zero luck finding an on-line map which shows both Shiloh and current county boundaries. Have you tried one of the map volumes taken from the Official Records?

The only reference I have – and I can't check this as I don't have the book to hand – is from Wiley Sword's 1983 book, 'Shiloh: Bloody April' which states 'Since Smith was sick aboard a steamboat at Pittsburg Landing Sherman was given the assignment to go to Pea Ridge, a small village about ten miles from Shiloh Church…'

I cannot find any reference to this in 'Battles and Leaders of the Civil War' but in Vol.I, p.576 in a rather unclear account of the preliminaries to Shiloh it records;'Sherman, landing there (Pittsburg Landing) his own division, made an apparently objectless short march into the interior and back on the 17th March.' It's possible that the aim of this was to reconnoitre the village of Pea Ridge?

I came across this map which shows the Confederate advance from Corinth to Shiloh. Halfway on a nearly straight line between Corinth and Shiloh Church on a road called State Line Road and near to Wardlow Creek is a place called Monterey on Pea Ridge. The place is so far as I can determine about 10 miles from Shiloh Church and is surely the place mentioned by Sword.link

Lincoln County is Fayetteville, way too far east.

Yes, the OR references that made me ask are about a couple of reconnaissances that Sherman made. So it's another name for Monterrey! I hadn't thought about it being a village, just a ridge, but that's about the right place!

Thanks!

I just looked in my copy of The Civil War Atlas (companion to the Official Records). There are two references in the index to Pea Ridge, Tennessee. One plate shows a small village of "Monterrey or Pea Ridge" and the other plate shows a broad ridge between Shiloh and Corinth called Pea Ridge (in about the same place as the village). There's a road running from Monterrey to Shiloh and two roads running across Pea Ridge headed towards Shiloh from the general Corinth area.

A report by Maj. Gen John A McClernand dated April 27, 1862 (O.R., Vol.10, Part 1, p. 652) mentioned Pea Ridge and might be useful in narrowing down its location. McClernand wrote the report from his location at Camp Stanton,

"I ordered a reconnaissance by my cavalry, under Lieutenant-Colonel McCullough. He has just come in, reporting that he went to Stantonville, 8 miles from Pittsburg, and on the road from that place to Purdy. On his way from Stantonville to Pea Ridge he captured one of the enemy's cavalry scouts, who is now in my camp. Upon arriving at Pea Ridge he encountered the enemy's picket, killing 3 of them and driving the others back. He met with these pickets about 5 miles from my camp."

Brunaburh's map clinched it.