DOINews: NPS: Shiloh Then-and-Now Photo Goes Viral

Above are then-and-now photos of the Fifth Ohio Cavalry monument's placement in the field in 1902 and March 2015. Photo by law enforcement ranger Dwight Paulk appears on Shiloh National Military Park's Facebook page here.

Shiloh National Military Park recently experienced its most popular Facebook posting since joining the social media site in 2011. The post, featuring a then-and-now photograph of the Fifth Ohio Cavalry monument on the battlefield, reached more than 135,000 people in less than 24 hours, far surpassing any of the park's previous posts.


In addition to the large number of reached individuals, the posts also garnered more than 7,000 collective “likes,” hundreds of comments, and generated almost 200 more “fans” of the Shiloh page.


“As the National Park Service begins its Centennial celebration, social media will allow us to engage our audience in new and exciting ways,” said Superintendent Dale Wilkerson. “We normally see 80,000 people in the visitor center every year, and this one post touched more people than we have ever collectively addressed. The response was fantastic.”


The image, taken by law enforcement ranger Dwight Paulk, features a 1902 photograph of the newly-placed Fifth Ohio Cavalry monument, overlaid with its appearance today. The Fifth Ohio had three battalions of troopers on the field at Shiloh – the First and Second Battalions attached to Brig. Gen. Stephen Hurlbut's Division and Third Battalion with Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace's Division during the battle.


Ohio was the first state to erect and dedicate monuments on Shiloh Battlefield. They would place 34 monuments in total, at a cost of $45,140 in 1902. The dedication took place on June 6 of that year with Judge David Pugh, a veteran of the 46th Ohio Infantry, officially turning over the monuments to the federal government in front of a crowd of 2,000 spectators.


The monuments themselves are constructed of Barre granite and were built by the Hughes Granite Co. of Clyde, Ohio. Today the battlefield contains around 800 state monuments, mortuary monuments, headquarters monuments, position markers, and camp tablets.

By: Chris Mekow, NPS

March 31, 2015


Related Links:

NPS-Shiloh National Military Park
NPS-The Morning Report