Singleton tells of family ties, regular trips to site of Battle of Shiloh

Albert Sidney Johnston

(For decades, local historian and paranormal investigator George “Buster” Singleton published a weekly newspaper column called “Somewhere in Time.” The column below, which was titled “Return to Shiloh” was originally published in the Feb. 5, 1976 edition of The Monroe Journal in Monroeville, Ala.)

Today, I will take leave from the happenings of our county to share with my readers a secret that I have kept within myself for a number of years. Each year as spring approaches, and the month of April draws near, this strange feeling comes over me.

Don’t expect to read within the next paragraphs that during the month of April I will turn into a werewolf, or mount up on the wings of an eagle and soar to great heights, over great distances. Because this is not the case.

During the War Between the States, my great-grandfather, William Singleton, cast his lot and fortunes with the Confederate army. It was during the last days of March 1862, under the command of General Albert Sidney Johnston, that he, along with 40,000 other troops, moved toward Corinth, Miss., in an effort to crush General Grant’s army before it could be reinforced.

On Sunday, the 6^th of April 1862, the two armies met head-on at a landing on the Tennessee River, known as Pittsburg Landing. The great battle later became known as the Battle of Shiloh, the name derived from a small log church that stood near the center of the battlefield.

Sometime during the two days of fighting, my great-grandfather was killed in the savage engagements that took place there on the bluffs overlooking the Tennessee.

As the Army of the South retreated back toward Corinth, the awesome task of burying the ones that had fallen in battle was undertaken by a small detail left behind by the Union Army.

The Confederate dead were buried in several large mass graves, or burial trenches. Each one contained more than 700 bodies of the men in grey. Somewhere among these who sleep in their crowded and desolate surroundings sleeps my kin, who I am told I favor. Here beneath the soil he tried to defend, he waits for the time when the final bugle will sound and the last roll call will take place.

So each year, for reasons I cannot explain, I get the feeling that I must go once again to Shiloh. And each time I walk across the fields where the bitter struggles raged, where brother fought brother, and father against son, I feel that somewhere in time, I too, was there. As I walk past the Hornet’s Nest and Bloody Pond, and the Peach Orchard, I feel that I am in familiar surroundings. And I feel relieved and am glad that I came here once more.

I know too, that regardless of the times in the past that I’ve been here, I will return again each chance I get to Shiloh, when the dogwoods bloom.

(Singleton, the author of the 1991 book “Of Foxfire and Phantom Soldiers,” passed away at the age of 79 on July 19, 2007. A longtime resident of Monroeville, he was born to Vincent William Singleton and Frances Cornelia Faile Singleton, during a late-night thunderstorm, on Dec. 14, 1927 in Marengo County, graduated from Sweet Water High School in 1946, served as a U.S. Marine paratrooper in the Korean War, worked as a riverboat deckhand, lived for a time among Apache Indians, moved to Monroe County on June 28, 1964 and served as the administrator of the Monroeville National Guard unit from June 28, 1964 to Dec. 14, 1987. He was promoted from the enlisted ranks to warrant officer in May 1972. For years, Singleton’s columns, titled “Monroe County history – Did you know?” and “Somewhere in Time” appeared in The Monroe Journal, and he wrote a lengthy series of articles about Monroe County that appeared in Alabama Life magazine. It’s believed that his first column appeared in the March 25, 1971 edition of The Monroe Journal. He also helped organize the Monroe County Museum and Historical Society and was also a past president of that organization. He is buried in Pineville Cemetery in Monroeville. The column above and all of Singleton’s other columns are available to the public through the microfilm records at the Monroe County Public Library in Monroeville. Singleton’s columns are presented here each week for research and scholarship purposes and as part of an effort to keep his work and memory alive.)