_Wherein Captain Galligasken views the illustrious Soldier in the
Battle of Shiloh, and corrects some popular Errors in regard to
that savage Fight._
In approaching the battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburg Landing, I find
myself coming to a point which envy, jealousy, and misrepresentation
have battered against with the utmost fury. No action of the war
has been so little understood, none so grossly misstated, none so
thoroughly and maliciously criticised. It was one of the severest,
if not the severest conflict of the whole war; but more doubt and
uncertainty seem to hang over it than over any other event connected
with the history of the national arms during the rebellion. There is no
good reason that its facts should be so grossly perverted, nor that any
of its details should be concealed, or apologized for.
Viewing General Grant as the central figure in this tremendous
conflict, every word he spoke was the right word, every movement he
made was the right one. I find nothing in his conduct that needs to
be excused, nothing to be explained, and nothing to be undone. As in
every other battle of the war in which he was engaged, he was heroic,
self-possessed, skilful, and, by his personal influence and exertions,
saved the hard-fought field on the first day. I do not mean to say
that no mistakes were made; only that Grant did not make them. It is
one of his crowning triumphs that he counteracted the errors of others,
that he saved the army from the full consequences of the blunders,
disobedience, and tardiness of subordinates, and of the partial
demoralization among the raw troops. I am only surprised that we were
not overwhelmed and driven into the Tennessee, instead of holding the
ground at the end of that awful fight, which began at daylight and
continued until night.
The national troops were posted on a line three miles in length,
extending from a creek on the right to another on the left, each of
which had overflowed its banks and effectually protected the flanks
of the army. The Union troops numbered at the beginning of the battle
thirty-three thousand men. At Crump's Landing, four miles distant, was
General Lew Wallace's division of five thousand more.
The rebel troops were reported by Beauregard to be over forty thousand;
but there were some discrepancies in his statements which render it
probable that he magnified the results of the first day by understating
his force. The forward movement of the Union army into the first
heart of the Confederacy had startled the rebel leaders, and they had
decided to make a gigantic effort to overwhelm the daring invaders.
For this purpose General A.S. Johnston, the most accomplished soldier
in the enemy's ranks, was sent to the scene of operations, with the
most reliable troops in their army. Beauregard, who, in spite of his
sensational style, was a very able soldier, whose name carried a
prestige no other rebel chief had won, was the leading spirit of the
battle, while Hardee, Bragg, and Polk, all educated military men, were
in command of divisions. On the other side, only Grant and Sherman were
trained soldiers.
The Confederacy was smarting under its overwhelming defeat at Donelson.
The boasted superiority of Southern soldiers had been disproved,
and, in addition to the necessity of saving the rebel cause from the
disaster of having its railway communications severed, lost honor and
lost prestige were to be recovered. Never was an army more thoroughly
stimulated to valor and desperation than that which was hurled upon the
national lines at Pittsburg Landing. A stirring appeal had been issued
by General Johnston, in which he inflamed the zeal of the soldiers to
the highest pitch, pointing out to them the bitter results of defeat,
all of which were fully realized in the ultimate issue. Everything
which could rouse the men to desperation in the approaching fight was
done with unsparing energy. Thus goaded to madness by the hopes and
fears of the future, the confident army of the Mississippi marched out
of Corinth, under Johnston, three days before the great battle.
The Union generals were on the alert, and during the three days that
the armies confronted each other there was much heavy skirmishing.
On the morning of Sunday, the first day of the battle, Prentiss,
in the centre of the line, sent out a regiment at three o'clock to
reconnoitre the position of the enemy. He had doubled his pickets on
Saturday, thus carefully guarding himself against the possibility of a
surprise. On Friday, the day on which he was injured by the fall of
his horse, Grant was at the front with Sherman, to make sure that every
preparation had been made to receive a sudden attack, though none was
yet expected.
At five o'clock in the morning the regiment Prentiss had sent out
engaged the advance pickets of the rebels, which Beauregard declares
was the commencement of the fight, when Johnston gave orders to begin
the movement. My excellent friend Mr. Pollard, in "The Lost Cause,"
says, "The magnificent army was moving forward to the deadly conflict;
but the enemy"--the national troops--"scarcely gave time to discuss the
question of attack, for soon after dawn he commenced a rapid fire on
the Confederate pickets."
Some envious, hypercritical Union men made the astonishing discovery
that Sherman, the old soldier, who had been skirmishing for three days
with the enemy, was surprised; but happily the rebels themselves have
not found it out to this day. If ever an army was wide awake at an
early hour in the morning, that army was Grant's at Shiloh. When the
enemy came, they found the nationals in force at the camps, and in
their advanced positions, and "in strong force along almost the entire
line," according to their own acknowledgment.
The onslaught was as fierce and terrible as the zeal of Johnston's
inflammatory appeal. The troops of Prentiss were raw and inexperienced;
they gave way, but formed again within their camp. Sherman's troops
were also new, and failed him in the critical moment, though it was
hardly to be wondered at that any troops should yield before that
impetuous assault of superior numbers. But the weak places in the line
were strengthened, and the ground was doggedly disputed, after the
recoil of the first tremendous shock. The battle raged with horrid fury
along the entire line.
Grant himself was at Savannah, in accordance with his engagement.
He was taking an early breakfast with his staff in order to be in
readiness to ride out and meet the commander of the army of the Ohio.
The scene of hostilities was nine miles distant, and the sound of the
booming guns reached his anxious ears. He wrote a hasty note to Buell,
informing him that the battle had begun, and that, instead of meeting
him, he must hasten up the river to join his forces.
Taking a steamer at the shore, he sped on his way to the scene of the
strife, only stopping a moment at Crump's Landing, to leave his orders
with General Lew Wallace, in anticipation of an emergency. Hurrying on,
he arrived at Pittsburg Landing at eight o'clock, and instantly dashed
to the front, as fast as horse could carry him. The condition of the
battle was not hopeful, but Grant went to work with his accustomed zeal
and energy. Messages were sent to Wallace and Nelson to hasten forward
their troops; wagon loads of ammunition were ordered up to the front,
stragglers and panic-stricken files of men were reorganized, and every
effort made to save the day.
Some six or eight thousand men were demoralized by the savageness of
the conflict; but in spite of this mortifying fact, the line remained
unbroken: indeed, only once during the day was it penetrated. Thinned
as it was by the misconduct of a fourth part of the troops, it
still permitted no opening for the enemy. The contest had become a
hand-to-hand fight, in which personal prowess and valor were to win
the day. It was only a question of pluck and endurance. Grant was
everywhere, encouraging the faithful, and stimulating the recreant.
Anxiously did the hard-pressed line wait the coming of the expected
reenforcements; but neither Nelson nor Wallace appeared in season to
render any efficient service. Step by step, inch by inch, the national
line was forced back, until darkness suspended the conflict. Johnston
had fallen; Beauregard was in command; and again and again did he hurl
his forces against the Union line: still it remained firm to the last,
and still it held the battle-field in spite of the ground it had lost.
My friend Pollard almost curses Beauregard for not striking the final
blow in this sharp battle; but doubtless that distinguished rebel knew
what he was about better than any civilian could teach him. He was fond
enough of display and sensation to finish up the battle if it had been
possible. He had found, after fighting the national forces from early
dawn, what it was made of, and, with the remotest hope of driving the
army of Grant into the river, he would not have given the order to
withdraw beyond the enemy's fire.
Though a portion of the army of the Tennessee misbehaved before the
enemy, it was not routed, nor, as an army, demoralized. Technically,
according to Sherman, it had gained the victory: it had certainly
repulsed the attack. It had not been driven into the river, and there
was no thought of surrender. No transports were sent for; no attempt to
bridge the river was made, in order to retreat and escape. The fiery
zeal, the mad enthusiasm, of the Confederates had carried them through
one of the severest fights of the war. The advantage, but not the
victory, was with them. It was a drawn battle.
As the conflict was suspended, Grant gave orders for his army to attack
on the following morning. Before Buell's main army was heard from, even
before Nelson's division had crossed the river, he had decided to renew
the fight at an early hour the next day, making the attack himself! It
was wicked for my friend Pollard to reproach his friend Beauregard for
not annihilating such a man; for not giving the finishing blow to an
army which was at that moment making its calculations to attack with
the next daylight.
After dark, in the midst of a pelting storm, almost worn out by the
heavy burdens of that day, and still suffering from the injuries he
had received by the fall of his horse, Grant went to the headquarters
of each general of division, assigned to him his position, and gave
him particular orders for the resumption of the battle at daylight.
At midnight he had completed his rounds, and returned to the Landing,
where he lay down upon the soaked ground, with his head on a stump for
a pillow, and slept soundly till morning. He was completely drenched
with the rain, but he was confident of the victory on the morrow, and
no discomfort was too great for him to endure in the holy cause in
which he had embarked.
While he slept, the two gunboats in the river kept up their fire over
his head, throwing shells into the rebel lines. It is a popular idea
that these gunboats saved the Union army from total destruction; that
without them the heroes of that hard-fought battle would have been
obliged to surrender, or be driven into the river. The men saved and
protected themselves by their strong right hands, though doubtless the
gunboats rendered considerable assistance. Even Pollard, who generally
has a proper respect for these terrible engines of war, says their fire
was terrific in sound, but did no damage.
A mile from the camp the wounded of the army lay in the agony of their
suffering. Nothing could be done for them, for they were within the
enemy's line. The exhausted troops slept on their arms, pelted by
the fierce tempest of the elements at night, as they had been by the
bullets of a savage foe through all the long day. They were safe, or
they could not have slept. Most of them had performed miracles of
valor, in strong contrast with the cowards who had fled.
Sherman had been wounded several times, and had three horses shot
under him. He had fought his own division and that of an inexperienced
general near him. His personal influence, backed up by his personal
heroism, had kept the line firm and united under the fierce onslaughts
of the enemy. Grant commended him on the battle-field for his noble
exertions, and there can be no doubt that, in the morning, Sherman had
saved the day.
At half past four in the afternoon, after the conflict had been raging
almost incessantly for twelve hours, it reached the culminating point
of its fierceness. Grant sat on his horse, calm, unmoved, and grand in
his thoughtful silence. The cannon roared fearfully on the left, and
seemed to be approaching nearer, as though the rebels were successful
in their attempt to flank the entire position, so as to cut off the
retreat of the nationals.
"Doesn't the prospect begin to look gloomy?" said an officer at his
side, just as another was killed within a few feet of him.
"Not at all," replied Grant, quietly. "They can't force our lines
around these batteries to-night--it is too late. Delay counts
everything with us. Tomorrow we shall attack them with fresh troops,
and drive them, of course."
During the night, Buell's divisions arrived, were ferried over the
river, and placed in line for the battle of the next day. It is almost
a pity that it can never be known what Grant would have done without
these reënforcements, though, for my own part, I am entirely satisfied
that the result would have been the same. I am quite sure that he had
impressed himself upon his officers and men in such a manner as to win
the victory by the plan he had laid down. His genius would have found a
way to overcome all obstacles, for his will was as resolute at night as
in the morning.
After the battle, General Buell, in a kindly way, indulged in some
criticisms on Grant's policy of fighting with the Tennessee in his rear.
"Where could you have retreated if you had been beaten, general?" asked
Buell.
"I didn't mean to be beaten," replied Grant.
"But suppose you had been beaten in spite of all your exertions."
"Well, there were all the transports to convey the remains of the
command across the river."
"But, general, your whole number of transports would not accommodate
more than ten thousand men, and you had thirty thousand engaged,"
persisted Buell.
"Well, if I had been beaten, transportation for ten thousand would have
been abundant for all there would have been left of us."
Such was the spirit of the man in the midst of the gigantic
difficulties which surrounded him. Demoralized troops, the tardiness of
his reënforcements, and the incapacity of some of his officers, failed
to overwhelm him. He rose above all obstacles, and looked confidently
to victory, even in the darkest hour of that desperate fight.
It ought to be added, in justice to our army, that "straggling" was
not confined to their ranks. The enemy suffered quite as much from
this evil, in spite of Johnston's stirring appeal. Bragg, in his
report, mentions the fact that the rebel ranks "were thinned by killed,
wounded, and stragglers, amounting in the whole to nearly one half our
force." The unparalleled length and severity of the contest may, to
some extent, explain this defection on both sides. But the result of
the day proved that, in pluck and endurance, the Northern army was the
equal, if not the superior, of its rival.