How a bullet at the Battle of Shiloh shaped the future of Puget Sound

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Carr in uniform

In the spring of 1862, a volunteer infantryman with the Union Army began a long march into history, a journey that took him from one of the bloodiest battlefields in U.S. history to the shores of Puget Sound — where he would help decide the future of Washington state.

Job Carr stood out from his fellow soldiers of Company I of the 36th Indiana Volunteers for two reasons. He was 46 – whereas the average age of a Union soldier was 26. Then, there were his religious beliefs – Carr was a Quaker, a pacifist. But he "detested slavery more," enlisting in September of 1861, five months after the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter. As March of 1862 came to a close, Carr and the rest of the 36th found themselves marching from Nashville, Tennessee, with the rest of the Gen. Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio. The plan was to link up with Union forces led by future US President Ulysses S. Grant, and then continue to push into the Confederate heartland. Grant’s army, numbering around 49,000 troops, was camped along the Tennessee River at Pittsburgh Landing – about 3 miles down from a tiny log church named for a place of peace that would become synonymous with death: Shiloh.

South of Grant’s position, Confederate forces were massed around the strategic railroad town of Corinth, Mississippi – historians estimate that as many as 45,000 southern troops were on the field, under the command of General Albert Sidney Johnston. Confederate leaders realized they’d be badly outnumbered when Buell linked up with Grant, and so decided to stage a surprise attack that stepped off on the morning of April 6th, 1862. The savage fighting that came next would help decide the outcome of the Civil War.

Shiloh battlefield map

Both sides suffered from poor organization and coordination between units – by noon, the clashing armies had both suffered considerable losses but the Confederate army had the edge, pushing back Union forces on the left and right flanks of the line of battle. Thousands of Grant’s troops were captured as whole units decided to surrender; at sunset, Confederate Gen. P.T.G. Beauregard (who had assumed command after Johnston was killed leading a charge earlier that afternoon) felt confident enough in his position to send a telegram declaring victory to the Confederate capitol of Richmond.

Enter Job Carr, and the Indiana infantry. They were the only element of Buell’s forces to support Grant at his Last Line of defense, arriving "just in time to keep the left flank of General Grant's terrified and demoralized army from collapsing."

The next day, April 7, the 36th Indiana pushed forward as the left flank of the now strongly reinforced Union Army. After heavy fighting, the 36th Indiana ran out of ammunition and had to fall back briefly to obtain more. The Union Army pushed forward forcing the Confederates to retreat to Corinth, Mississippi.

Although technically a Union victory, both sides suffered huge casualties, with the number of men killed, wounded or missing on both sides totaling nearly 24,000. Being one of the first large-scale conflicts of the Civil War, it shocked the armies, leaders, and citizens of both sides into the realization of what this war would really mean. Today, a monument stands on the battlefield at Shiloh dedicated to the 36th Indiana Regiment.

Carr cabin

Carr took a bullet to the arm, either at the Battle of Shiloh proper or during the pursuit to Corinth. He was wounded a second time in September of 1863, and received an honorable discharge a few months after. "As a Civil War veteran, Job was entitled to a claim of 160 acres on the frontier … he left Indiana in the summer of 1864. He had decided to search for the place – somewhere on Puget Sound – that would become the western terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad." The place he picked in 1865: Commencement Bay, where he began work on his cabin, becoming the first, permanent white settler in Tacoma.

"Job understood that wherever that railroad ended, there would be great opportunity," said Mary Bowlby, The Job Carr Cabin Museum’s executive director, in a profile of Carr for the Tacoma News Tribune. "To go to a place no one had settled before would have been his intent."

The replica of the cabin now serves as home to the Carr museum in the heart of Tacoma’s Old Town; Carr would go on to become the first postmaster of Tacoma, followed by a term as president of the settlement’s board of trustees – effectively Tacoma’s first Mayor.

He died in 1887 and is buried at Tacoma Cemetery. But more than a dozen Carr family members are still found around Tacoma. Those thriving roots and Job’s personal story are what makes the Carr family such a unique addition to Washington’s history, according to Tacoma historian Michael Sullivan.

He told the News Tribune: "They weren’t here as religious zealots. They weren’t here as pre-financed industrialists like the Dennys who settled in Seattle. They weren’t here as military people. They were a family that had been divided by war and came out as future Westerners — with an idealism."