Secessionism swept over Mississippi like a fever after the election of Abraham Lincoln to the White House, and Neshoba County was no exception.\u00a0Charles A. Nash\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0father, Ira Sr., strongly opposed secession despite the fact that he was a born-and-bred Southerner and wealthy slaveholder. The elder Nash had been a prominent leader in the county during the antebellum years, and he served in the state legislature in 1846. When Mississippi called for a secession convention in 1860, Ira Sr. ran as a Unionist and was soundly defeated by a margin of 601 to 58 votes. Unable to stop the \u201cirrepressible conflict,\u201d he watched his sons donned Confederate gray in nearby town of Philadelphia, and marched off to fight for the Confederacy with the 5th Mississippi Volunteer Infantry Regiment.<\/p>\n The youngest of Ira Nash, Sr.’s boys, Ira Jr., was 18, still unmarried, and living at home when he enlisted, but the older sons, John and Charles, 30 and 29 respectively, left behind young families when they joined the Confederate Army. This included Charles’s wife Eliza, who remained at home raising two young daughters and an infant son.<\/p>\n In February 1862, Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant captured the Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in Tennessee, which forced Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston\u2019s forces to retreat southward and leave the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers in Yankee hands. For decades, southern planters had relied on these great waterways to send their crops to distant markets and their loss left the heart of the Deep South exposed to economic peril and large-scale invasions from the north. To counter this threat, the 5th Mississippi was transferred home in early 1862 and assigned to General James Chalmers\u2019s Brigade in Johnston\u2019s newly organized Army of the Mississippi. Gathering near Corinth, Mississippi, the Nash boys joined some 55,000 men hoping to stop Federal forces from capturing the city\u2019s important rail-head.<\/p>\n On April 3, 1862, General Johnston moved his army\u2014including the 5th Mississippi\u2014 quietly across the border and into Tennessee, where he hoped to catch the Yankees in camp with their forces divided. Although he planned to attack Grant on April 4, Johnston lost two days due to torrential rains that turned roads to mud and soaked his men\u2019s gunpowder. His subordinate, Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard, feared the initiative was lost when men started firing their muskets to test their powder (and possibly revealing their position to the enemy), and worried about the Union army’s possible numerical superiority. Beauregard urged Johnston to abort the assault and withdraw back to Corinth, but Johnston refused and declared that \u201cI would fight them if they were a million.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite Beauregard\u2019s concerns, the Confederates had the advantage when the battle of Shiloh began on the morning of April 6, 1862. Federal commander Ulysses S. Grant had hoped to avoid any engagement until reinforcements arrived that would guarantee him a numerical advantage. Convinced rebels were preparing for a siege back in Corinth and hoping to avoid any interaction with Confederate patrols that would spark a fight, Grant did not order his men to build defensive entrenchments or deploy pickets to protect his camps. At about 5 a.m. a Union patrol encountered and engaged a force of Confederates in the woods south of Grant\u2019s position, but no alarms were raised. A few hours later, as Union soldiers were preparing breakfast, startled deer burst forth from the wood line with the bulk of the Confederate infantry in hot pursuit. By 9 a.m. rebels were assaulting Union regiments all along the length of Grant\u2019s line.<\/p>\n Albert Sidney Johnston\u2019s battle plan was simple. He assigned each of his corps commanders a sector, with Leonidas Polk on the Confederate left and William J. Hardee on the right, Braxton Bragg in the center, and John Breckinridge in reserve. By strengthening his right flank with Breckinridge’s reserve corps, Johnston hoped to cut off the Yankee\u2019s escape route and supply line on the Tennessee River. It was there, on the extreme right of the Confederate Army, where Chalmers\u2019s brigade<\/a> was located, including the 5th Mississippi and John and Ira Nash. Charles (as chance would have it) was not with his brothers at Shiloh, having returned home on leave a few weeks earlier to help his father with the family church. Moving forward across deep ravines, dense undergrowth, and muddy streams, Chalmer\u2019s men (supported by artillery) attacked a startled Union brigade under the command of\u00a0Colonel David Stuart<\/a>\u00a0 at 7:30 a.m.<\/p>\n