Long before baseball became America’s pastime, soldiers carried the game with them into war. On the battlefield of Battle of Shiloh, one of the bloodiest clashes of the American Civil War, a forgotten baseball was discovered years later buried amid the history of combat and sacrifice.
Our American Stories regular contributor Ashley Hlebinsky shares the remarkable story of the Civil War-era baseball found at Shiloh and what it reveals about the soldiers who fought, the game they loved, and the unexpected ways Americans carried pieces of home onto the battlefield.
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