"AGATE'S" STORY OF SHILOH.
THE SITUATION BEFORE THE BATTLE--THE FIRST SKIRMISH--PLANS OF
THE REBEL LEADERS--THE SCENE ON SUNDAY MORNING--TROOPS IN
DISORDER--ANALYSIS OF THE SITUATION--FAULTY DISPOSITION OF THE
FEDERAL TROOPS--ARRANGEMENT OF SHERMAN'S DIVISION--THE REBEL
PLAN OF ATTACK--SHERMAN'S OLD FRIEND BRAGG AMONG THE REBEL
LEADERS.
In the records of the Rebellion, written amid the actual roar of the
conflict or years afterward amid the calm of reestablished peace, no
chapter is more noteworthy than the story of Shiloh, written for _The
Cincinnati Gazette_ by its correspondent "Agate," who has since become
famous throughout the world for his work as a journalist, historian and
statesman. No record of Sherman's campaigns would be complete without
it, and no other pen could write a chapter worthy to replace it. So it
is given here in full, as it was written from the "Field of Battle,
Pittsburgh Landing, Tenn., April 9th:"
Fresh from the field of the great battle, with its pounding and roaring
of artillery, and its keener-voiced rattle of musketry still sounding
in my wearied ears; with all its visions of horror still seeming seared
upon my eyeballs, while scenes of panic-stricken rout and brilliant
charges, and obstinate defences, and succor, and intoxicating success
are burned alike confusedly and indelibly upon the brain, I essay to
write what I know of the battle of Pittsburgh Landing.
Yet how bring order out of such a chaos? How deal justly, writing
within twenty-four hours of the closing of the fight, with all the
gallant regiments, of the hundred present, that bravely won or as
bravely lost, and with all that ignobly fled in panic from the field?
How describe, so that one man may leisurely follow, the simultaneous
operations of a hundred and fifty thousand antagonists, fighting
backward and forward for two long days, in a five miles' line and over
four miles' retreat and advance, under eight Division Commanders on one
side, and an unknown number on the other? How, in short, picture on a
canvas so necessarily small a panorama, so grandly great? The task is
impossible.
But what one man, diligently using all his powers of observation
through those two days, might see, I saw, and that I can faithfully set
down. For the rest, after riding carefully over and over the ground,
asking questions innumerable of those who knew, and sifting consistent
truth from the multiplicity of replies with whatever skill some
experience may have taught, I can only give the concurrent testimony of
the actors.
Our great Tennessee Expedition had been up the river some four weeks.
We had occupied Pittsburgh Landing for about three; had destroyed one
railroad connection, which the Rebels had restored in a day or two, and
had failed in a similar but more important attempt on another. Beyond
this we had engaged in no active operations. The Rebels, alarmed by our
sudden appearance, began massing their troops under our eyes. Presently
they had more in the vicinity than we had. Then we waited for Buell,
who was crossing the country from Nashville by easy marches. The
Rebels had apparently become restive under our slow concentrations, and
General Grant had given out that an attack from them seemed probable.
Yet we had lain at Pittsburgh Landing, within twenty miles of the
Rebels, that were likely to attack us in superior numbers, without
throwing up a single breastwork or preparing a single protection for a
battery, and with the brigades of one division stretched from extreme
right to extreme left of our line, while four other divisions had been
crowded in between, as they arrived.
On the evening of Friday, April 4th, there was a preliminary skirmish
with the enemy's advance. Rumors came into camp that some of our
officers had been taken prisoners by a considerable Rebel force, near
our lines, and that pickets had been firing. A brigade, the Seventieth,
Seventy-second, and Forty-eighth Ohio, was sent out to see about it.
They came upon a party of Rebels, perhaps a thousand strong, and after
a sharp little action drove them off, losing Major Crocket, of the
Seventy-second Ohio, and a couple of lieutenants from the Seventieth,
prisoners, taking in return some sixteen, and driving the Rebels back
to a battery they were found to have already in position, at no great
distance from our lines. General Lew. Wallace's troops, at Crump's
Landing, were ordered out under arms, and they marched to Adamsville,
half-way between the river and Purdy, to take position there and resist
any attack in that direction. The night passed in dreary rain, but
without further Rebel demonstration; and it was generally supposed
that the affair had been an ordinary picket-fight, presaging nothing
more. Major-General Grant had indeed said there was great probability
of a Rebel attack, but there were no appearances of his making any
preparations for such an unlooked-for event, and so the matter
was dismissed. Yet on Saturday there was more skirmishing along our
advanced lines.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL SLOCUM.]
There can be no doubt the plan of the Rebel leaders was to attack and
demolish Grant's army before Buell's reinforcements arrived. There were
rumors, indeed, that such a movement had been expressly ordered from
headquarters at Richmond, as being absolutely necessary, as a last bold
stroke, to save the falling fortunes of the Confederacy in the West;
though of that, no one, I presume, knows anything.
But the Rebel leaders at Corinth were fully aware that they largely
outnumbered Grant, and that no measures had been taken to strengthen
the position at Pittsburgh Landing; while they knew equally well that
when Buell's entire Kentucky army arrived, and was added to Grant's
forces, they could not possibly expect to hold their vitally important
position at Corinth against us. Their only hope, therefore, lay in
attacking Grant before Buell arrived, and so defeating us in detail.
Fortunately they timed their movements a day too late.
The sun never rose on a more beautiful morning than that of Sunday,
April 6th. Lulled by the general security, I had remained in pleasant
quarters at Crump's, below Pittsburgh Landing, on the river. By sunrise
I was roused by the cry: "They're fighting above." Volleys of musketry
could sure enough be distinguished, and occasionally the sullen boom
of artillery came echoing down the stream. Momentarily the volume of
sound increased, till it became evident it was no skirmish that was in
progress, and that a considerable portion of the army must be already
engaged. Hastily springing on the guards of a passing steamboat, I
hurried up.
The sweet Spring sunshine danced over the rippling waters, and softly
lit up the green of the banks. A few fleecy clouds alone broke the
azure above. A light breeze murmured among the young leaves; the
blue-birds were singing their gentle treble to the stern music that
still came louder and deeper to us from the bluffs above, and the frogs
were croaking their feeble imitation from the marshy islands that
studded the channel.
Even this early the west bank of the river was lined with the usual
fugitives from action, hurriedly pushing onwards, they knew not where,
except down stream away from the fight. An officer on board hailed
numbers of them and demanded their reason for being there; but they all
gave him the same response: "We're clean cut to pieces, and every man
must save himself."
At the landing appearances became still more ominous. Our two
Cincinnati wooden gunboats, Tyler and Lexington, were edging uneasily
up and down the banks, eager to put in their broadsides of heavy guns,
but unable to find where they could do it. The roar of battle was
startlingly close, and showed that the Rebels were in earnest attempt
to carry out their threat of driving us into the river. The landing and
bluff above were covered with cowards, who had fled from their ranks to
the rear for safety, and who were telling the most fearful stories of
the Rebel onset and the sufferings of their own particular regiments.
Momentarily fresh fugitives came back, often guns in hand, and all
giving the same accounts of thickening disasters in front.
Hurrying out toward the scene of action, I was soon convinced that
there was too much foundation for the tales of the runaways. Sherman's
and Prentiss' entire divisions were falling back in disorder, sharply
pressed by the Rebels in overwhelming numbers, at all points.
McClernand's had already lost part of its camps, and it, too, was
falling back. There was one consolation--only one--I could see just
then; history, so the divines say, is positive on the point that
no attack ever made on the Sabbath was eventually a success to the
attacking party. Nevertheless, the signs were sadly against the
theologians.
Let me return--premising that I have thus brought the reader into the
scene near the close of the first act in our Sunday's tragedy--to the
preliminaries of the opening of the assault.
And first, of our positions. Let the reader understand that the
Pittsburgh Landing is simply a narrow ravine, down which a road passes
to the river bank, between high bluffs on either side. There is no town
at all--two log huts comprise all the improvements visible. Back from
the river is a rolling country, cut up with numerous ravines, partially
under cultivation, but perhaps the greater part thickly wooded with
some underbrush. The soil clayey, and roads on Sunday morning were
good. From the Landing a road leads direct to Corinth, twenty miles
distant. A mile or two out, this road forks, one branch is the lower
Corinth road, the other the ridge Corinth road. A short distance out
another road takes off to the left, crosses Lick Creek, and leads
back to the river at Hamburgh, some miles further up. On the right,
two separate roads lead off to Purdy, and another, a new one, across
Snake Creek to Crump's Landing on the river below. Besides these, the
whole country inside our lines is cut up with roads leading to our
different camps; and beyond the lines is the most inextricable maze of
crossroads, intersecting everything and leading everywhere, in which it
was ever my ill-fortune to become entangled.
On and between these roads, at distances of from two to four or five
miles from Pittsburgh Landing, lay five divisions of Major-General
Grant's army that Sunday morning. The advance line was formed by three
divisions--Brigadier-General Sherman's, Brigadier-General Prentiss's
and Major-General McClernand's. Between these and the Landing lay the
two others--Brigadier-General Hurlbut's and Major-General Smith's,
commanded, in the absence (from sickness) of that admirable officer, by
Brigadier-General W. H. L. Wallace.
Our advance line, beginning at the extreme left, was thus formed. On
the Hamburgh road, just this side the crossing of Lick Creek and under
bluffs on the opposite bank that commanded the position, lay Colonel
D. Stuart's Brigade of General Sherman's Division. Some three or four
miles distant from this Brigade, on the lower Corinth road and between
that and the one to Purdy, lay the remaining Brigades of Sherman's
Division, McDowell's forming the extreme right of our whole advance
line, Buckland's coming next to it, and Hildebrand's next. To the left
of Hildebrand's Brigade, though rather behind a portion of Sherman's
line, lay Major-General McClernand's Division, and between it and
Stuart's Brigade, already mentioned as forming our extreme left, lay
Brigadier-General Prentiss' Division, completing the front.
Back of this line, within a mile of the Landing, lay Hurlbut's
Division, stretching across the Corinth road, and W. H. L. Wallace's to
his right.
Such was the position of our troops at Pittsburgh Landing, at daybreak
Sunday morning. Major-General Lew. Wallace's Division lay at Crump's
Landing, some miles below, and was not ordered up till about half-past
seven o'clock that day.
It is idle to criticise arrangements now--it is so easy to be wise
after a matter is over--but the reader will hardly fail to observe
the essential defects of such disposition of troops for a great
battle. Nearly four miles intervened between the different parts of
Sherman's Division. Of course to command the one, he must neglect the
other. McClernand's lay partially behind Sherman, and therefore, not
stretching far enough to the left, there was a gap between him and
Prentiss, which the Rebels did not fail speedily to find. Our extreme
left was commanded by unguarded heights, easily approachable from
Corinth. And the whole arrangement was confused and ill-adjusted.
Confusion was not the only glaring fault. General Sherman's camps, to
the right of the little log-cabin called Shiloh Church, fronted on a
descending slope of a quarter to a half mile in breadth, mostly covered
with woods and bounded by a ravine. A day's work of his troops would
have covered that slope with an impenetrable abattis, thrown a line of
breastworks to the front of the camps, and enabled General Sherman to
sweep all approaches with artillery and musketry, and hold his position
against any force that was brought against it. But for three weeks
he had lain there, declaring the position dangerous, and predicting
attack; yet absolutely without making the slightest preparation for the
commonest means of defense.
During Friday and Saturday the Rebels had marched out of Corinth, about
sixty thousand strong, in three great divisions. Sidney Johnston had
general command of the whole army. Beauregard had the centre; Braxton
Bragg and Hardee the wings. Polk, Breckinridge, Cheatham and others
held subordinate commands. On Thursday Johnston issued a proclamation
to the army, announcing to them in grandiloquent terms that he was
about to lead them against the invaders, and that they would soon
celebrate the great decisive victory of the war, in which they had
repelled the invading column, redeemed Tennessee, and preserved the
Southern Confederacy.
Their general plan of attack is said by prisoners to have been to
strike our centre first, (composed, as the reader will remember, of
Prentiss's and McClernand's Divisions,) pierce the centre, and then
pour in their troops to attack on each side the wings into which they
would thus cut our army.
To accomplish this, they should have struck the left of the three
brigades of Sherman's Division which lay on our right and the left
of McClernand's, which came to the front on Sherman's left. By some
mistake, however, they struck Sherman's left alone, and that a few
moments after a portion of their right wing had swept up against
Prentiss.
The troops thus attacked, by six o'clock, or before it, were as
follows: The left of Sherman's Brigades, that of Colonel Hildebrand,
was composed of the Fifty-ninth Ohio, Colonel Pfyffe; Seventy-seventh
Ohio, Lieutenant-Colonel commanding Fifty-third Ohio, Colonel Appler,
and Fifty-third Illinois.
To the right of this was Colonel Buckland's Brigade, composed of the
Seventy-second Ohio, Lieutenant-Colonel Canfield; Forty-eighth Ohio,
Colonel Sullivan, and Seventieth Ohio, Colonel Cockerell.
And on the extreme right, Colonel McDowell's Brigade, Sixth Iowa,
(Colonel McDowell--Lieutenant-Colonel commanding;) Fortieth Illinois,
Colonel Hicks, Forty-sixth Ohio, Colonel Thomas Worthington.
General Prentiss's Division was composed of the Twelfth Michigan,
Sixteenth Wisconsin, Eighteenth Wisconsin, Eighteenth Missouri,
Twenty-third Missouri, Twenty-fifth Missouri, and Sixty-first Illinois.