SHILOH, Tenn. — The Hornet's Nest looks much like it did on those two bloody days in 1862.

A wooden split-rail fence lines the sunken dirt lane at the edge of a dense oak thicket that has become an icon of the American Civil War, right up there with Bloody Lane at Antietam, the Stone Wall at Fredricksburg and Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg.

But the nearby Peach Orchard at Shiloh National Military Park in southwest Tennessee requires a little imagination.

Peach blossoms cut down by heavy gunfire fell like snow in Sarah Bell's orchard on April 6-7, 1862, according to witnesses.

The old, twisted fruit-bearing trees have died and been replaced with pencil-thin seedlings that stand four to five feet tall. The three-year-old saplings are surrounded by wire mesh to keep away hungry white-tailed deer.

Today, the 6,000-acre military park remains one of the best-preserved and uncluttered Civil War battlefields in the U.S.

Shiloh is not Gettysburg, where the battlefield overflows with grandiose monuments. It is not Manasses or Bull Run or the Richmond battlefields, with highways and subdivisions nearby.

Over the years, Shiloh was preserved by its isolation and the surrounding rural character of southwest Tennessee.

Most of the battlefield is intact, looking like it did in 1862. Only two fields covering about 250 acres have changed, after becoming overgrown perhaps 60 years ago.

The battlefield lies west of the Tennessee River and nine miles southwest of Savannah, Tenn., in largely undeveloped Hardin County.

The federal military park, established in 1894, features 151 monuments, 217 cannons and 600 troop-movement markers that are coded by color and shape.

The battlefield has 200 historic structures and nearly 23 miles of roads. Some 133,000 artifacts have been recovered.

It seemed that cannons are everywhere on the battlefield and are its most distinguishing feature.

That is, in part, because Shiloh is one of five original Civil War parks, along with Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Antietam and Chickamauga-Chattanooga. They were created in the 1890s when surplus cannons were readily available.

At Shiloh, the federal government owns 4,000 acres with another 2,000 acres within the boundaries privately owned.

Shiloh is a battlefield with a strong Ohio flavor from Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman to Ohio troops.

It was the first major battle in the western theater during the Civil War.

Shiloh pitted 65,000 Union troops led by Grant against 44,000 Confederates led by Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston and Gen. Pierre G.T. Beauregard.

In a successful surprise attack at dawn, the Confederates pushed Grant's forces back the first day. But the Union army regrouped, and with Buell's reinforcements regained the lost ground on the second day.

The battle was a major blow to Confederate hopes in the West.

Johnston himself was one of the casualties. The spot where he was shot in the leg is marked by a tree stump, according to one of the battlefield historical signs.

Today the Shiloh battlefield gets between 350,000 and 400,000 visitors a year, said Superintendent Woody Harrell.

The battlefield tour begins at the Visitor Center with a 25-minute film.

Shiloh features a 14-stop, 10-mile, drive-it-yourself tour of the battlefield. It takes you to Pittsburg Landing, Shiloh Church, Ruggles Battery and Bloody Pond, as well as the Hornet's Nest and Peach Orchard.

Hornet's Nest lies in the center of the battlefield and was part of the fighting both days.

The term refers to a 600-yard section of the Sunken Road, an old wagon road that ran for just more than a half mile past the J.R. Duncan land and the William Manse George cabin. It was defended by 5,700 Union troops and 25 cannons.

On April 6, Union troops from Iowa and Illinois at Hornet's Nest stymied eight Confederate assaults across a cotton field.

Some historians, however, are questioning whether the fighting at Hornet's Nest was as intense as old-timers reported. The national military park also includes the Shiloh National Cemetery and well-preserved Indian mounds near the river.

The cemetery holds the remains of 3,584 Civil War soldiers. Tall cemetery stones mark graves of known soldiers. Short, square stones mark graves of unknown soldiers.

Five mass graves hold remains of 1,728 Confederates killed at Shiloh.