Bloody Pond, Shiloh National Military Park

The Battle of Shiloh, fought April 6–7, 1862, left more than 23,000 Union and Confederate soldiers killed, wounded or missing. Bloody Pond, a small pond on the battlefield, is remembered as a place where wounded men of both armies crawled to drink, and legend holds that its water ran red. Historians note there is little solid evidence of how the pond actually looked in 1862. Visitors and park lore describe phantom footsteps, voices and distant sounds across the field, accounts that remain unverified. Shiloh is a national military park and a burial ground, and the nearby Indian Mounds are sacred to Native communities; both deserve quiet respect.