Shiloh National Military Park preserves the American Civil War Shiloh and Corinth battlefields. The main section of the park is in the unincorporated town of Shiloh, about nine miles (14 km) south of Savannah, Tennessee, with an additional area located in the city of Corinth, Mississippi, 23 miles (37 km) southwest of Shiloh. The Battle of Shiloh (April 6–7, 1862) began a six-month struggle for the key railroad junction at Corinth. Afterward, Union forces marched from Pittsburg Landing to take Corinth in a May siege, then withstood an October Confederate counter-attack. The visitor center provides exhibitions, films and a self-guided auto-tour. Shiloh battlefield The Battle of Shiloh was one of the first major battles in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. The two-day battle, April 6–7, 1862, involved about 65,000 Union troops under Ulysses S. Grant and Don Carlos Buell and 44,000 Confederates under Albert Sidney Johnston (killed in the battle) and P.G.T. Beauregard. The battle resulted in nearly 24,000 killed, wounded, and missing. The two days of fighting did not end in a decisive tactical victory for either side—the Union held the battlefield but failed to pursue the withdrawing Confederate forces. However, it was a decisive strategic defeat for the Confederate forces that had massed to oppose Grant's and Buell's invasion through Tennessee. After the Battle of Shiloh, the Union forces proceeded to capture Corinth and the critical railroad junction there. The battlefield is named after Shiloh Methodist Church, a small log church near Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee. Pittsburg Landing is the point on the Tennessee River where the Union forces landed for the battle; they referred to the battle as "The Battle of Pittsburg Landing". Park information Total area: 3,997 acres (16.18 km2) Federal area: 3,942 acres (15.95 km2) Nonfederal area: 55 acres (0.22 km2) The Shiloh National Military Park was established on December 27, 1894. In 1904, Basil Wilson Duke was appointed commissioner of Shiloh National Military Park by President Theodore Roosevelt. There were requests of local farmers who had grown tired of their pigs rooting up the remains of soldiers that had fallen during the battle, insisting that the federal government do something about it. The park was transferred from the War Department to the National Park Service on August 10, 1933. As with all historic areas administered by the National Park Service, the military park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places