THE ENEMY'S RECONNOISSANCE, APRIL 4TH--THE ALARM 5TH
APRIL--THE BATTLE OF SHILOH--THE SOLDIER'S IMPRESSION
OF A BATTLE--STRAGGLERS AND THEIR SHAMEFUL CONDUCT--THE
DIFFERENT MOVEMENTS AND POSITIONS OF OUR DIVISION
AND BRIGADE IN THE BATTLE--APPEARANCE OF GENERAL
GRANT--GALLANT CHARGE AND REPULSE OF A REBEL BRIGADE.
On the evening of the 4th of April, while a heavy thunderstorm was
raging, we heard dull sounds in advance like the firing of infantry.
It was the 5th Ohio Cavalry encountering a reconnoitering force
of the enemy. These sounds created little alarm until, when both
they and the storm had ceased, the long-roll began to beat in the
different camps. But for some reason the drums of the Third Iowa were
silent, until General Hurlbut rode through our camp and impatiently
ordered them to beat. When the long-roll had ceased beating, there
arose a noise throughout the camps which sounded more like the ghost
of a battle than any thing to which it can be likened. It was the men
bursting caps to clear out the tubes of their guns. General Hurlbut
hurried his troops forward to the support of Sherman. The regiments
joined one after another in the column as they took the road. The mud
was deep, the artillery wheels sinking nearly to the hubs, and what
made it worse, it was already getting quite dark.
When we had advanced about three-quarters of a mile, General Hurlbut
received orders to turn back. This put the boys in great glee; for
we did not at all relish the idea of sleeping in the mud without
blankets, and we had no expectation of a fight. The dullest soldier
now found occasion to explode a little wit, and numerous and loud
were the jokes and retorts that passed from mouth to mouth, as the
column straggled through the deep mud. The general himself did not
escape being holloaed at ever and anon by some graceless wag. We went
to sleep that night without any apprehensions in consequence of the
alarm, although we had heard General Hurlbut say that the enemy was
either evacuating Corinth or moving against us; and that this cavalry
movement was either a feint to deceive us, or a reconnoissance to
discover our position.
The following day, all was quiet throughout the camps. No one seemed
to think of such a thing as the immediate presence of the enemy.
Several boats arrived loaded with troops, among which were the 16th
Iowa, 18th Wisconsin, and Madison's battery of siege guns. Madison's
men had been with us in Missouri, and we greeted them almost as
friends. These two infantry regiments were undrilled and had just
received their arms. They were sent forward to Prentiss in the
advance.
There were rumors among us that Buell had arrived at Savannah; but no
one seemed to feel certain that it was so. From the front there were
no tidings of any thing unusual--not an intimation of the nearness of
the enemy. Over all was settled a frightful calm. It was that which
indicates the gathering storm. Within an hour's march of us the enemy
was taking his positions for battle. What a whirlwind was preparing
for the morrow!
We have reached a day when history pauses and hesitates. It began in
astonishment and cloud and mystery. It developed into a tempest. It
ended in disaster and wreck. Officers and men alike it blinded. It is
doubtful whether the commanding general, once on the field, succeeded
in comprehending it. The soldier that fights in a battle neither
sees, hears nor understands it. It is a confusion, an infinitude
of noises, an earthquake of jarring multitudes. A man plunges into
it, and the fountains of his emotions are broken up. He endeavors
to hear and see and realize all that is taking place around him;
but his faculties recoil exhausted. The situation masters him. He
yields himself to it, and sees himself drifted on like a grain of
sand in a tornado. A thousand sights and sounds and emotions rush
upon him; but he does not comprehend them. Nevertheless there are
certain bold outlines that imprint themselves on his memory. When
the storm is over, he closes his eyes and senses to see again this
indistinguishable spectral train of terrible images. All reappear
before him,--lines of battle advancing and retreating, infantry
rushing, and batteries galloping to and fro;--over all, the smoke of
battle, as if endeavoring to shut out the gaze of Heaven, and amid
all a deafening crash of sounds, as if it were feared some higher
voice than man's would be heard forbidding.
But there are times in battle when the chaotic whole resolves
itself into definite shapes, some of which we see clearly. What we
see of the great tempest at these times, together with the myriad
rushing shapes of which we form no definite conception, form our
recollections of a great battle. He alone who views it at a distance
can be its historian. Those who participate in it can only contribute
items.
With us the battle of Shiloh was not a battle. It was merely a
resistance--a planless, stubborn resistance. After the first onset
of the enemy, which was to the whole army, if not to General Grant
himself, a complete surprise, the field was contested by our troops
with a heroism which will forever redound to their honor. Divisions,
brigades, regiments, men, fought recklessly, but no one could tell
how; such was the tumult without and within. Such was the obscurity
we can scarcely affirm with certainty what we believe we saw.
Facts confronted each other and became uncertainties; certainties
contradicted each other; impossibilities became certainties. This is
why history hesitates.
I do not undertake a general description of the battle of Shiloh.
I can only tell how the part of the conflict I saw appeared to me;
how my regiment went through it; what it did and what it attempted
to do. Beyond this, I can only sum up the general phases. Surprised
at seven, and our front line broken; reinforced and confident at
ten; stubborn at twelve; desperate at two; our lines crumbling away
at three; broken at four; routed and pulverized at five; at six,
rallying for a last desperate stand; at which time a third army
appears on the field and a new battle properly commences.
At about an hour of sun, while we were eating our breakfasts, vollies
of musketry were heard in advance. We remarked, "they are skirmishing
pretty sharply in front." By degrees the firing grew steadier and
nearer. "If," said we, "it is a reconnoissance of the enemy, it is
a bold one; for he is certainly pushing back our advanced troops."
Suddenly set in the noise of cannon--jar after jar--quicker and
quicker, announcing too truly that the enemy was attacking us in
force. Many instinctively buckled on their accoutrements and took
their guns. Others continued to manifest the utmost indifference,
and some laughed at the vollies which announced the slaughter of
comrades. These manifestations were counterfeits. They lied about
the real feelings within. A man may put on the outward appearance of
indifference or mirth; but when fortune begins to play freaks with
all he has or hopes for, he is seldom mirthful, never indifferent.
And now the long roll began to beat. The soldiers flew to their arms
and canteens, the officers to their swords and men, the wagoners to
their mules and wagons, the surgeons to their tools and ambulances,
the sutlers to their books and goods. Our regiment was promptly
formed and moved to the front and left. Passing the 32d Illinois
in line, we heard a field officer tell them that any one guilty of
straggling from the ranks should be court-martialed for cowardice and
shot. They cheered the announcement, and our voices loudly responded.
Meanwhile stragglers in wagons with wounded men, and in squads with
and without arms, began to pour down the road. To our questions
they answered that they had fought an hour without support(!); that
the enemy was in their camps; that their regiments were all cut to
pieces; to all of which ridiculous stories we paid no attention,
but passed on. About a mile in advance the battle was now raging
with fury. Our regiment moved by the flank, taking direction to the
southwest and diverging to the left from the main road on which we
had marched the previous Friday evening. We moved in this way through
tangled woods for perhaps half a mile, when we filed to the right
and shifted by the left flank into line, in which manner we advanced
perhaps a quarter of a mile. Among so many obstacles of logs, trees
and underbrush, it was impossible to move in line with any degree of
steadiness. Our line wavered, sometimes opening into great gaps, and
sometimes closing so as to crowd the men together into several ranks,
if indeed it can be said that we maintained any ranks at all. Before
leaving our camp we had been ordered to load. As soon as we began to
advance in line we were ordered to fix bayonets. This increased our
confusion, because it increased our expectations, and because it was
much more difficult to march through the thick brush with bayonets
fixed. At the same time, whose fault it was I do not know, we did not
have a skirmisher between us and the enemy.
We had not marched far this way before we met scattered stragglers
pouring through the woods. We at length halted, dressed our line,
and other regiments of the 1st Brigade formed on our left. At this
time a mass of stragglers hurried pell mell past our right, whom
a field officer was trying to rally. It proved to be what was left
of a regiment of Sherman's division, led, or rather followed, by a
lieutenant colonel. By mingled entreaties and threats he succeeded
in inducing a few of them to form and close up the interval between
our regiment and the one on our left. A sergeant of one of our
companies took occasion to speak depreciatingly of their courage; but
Major Stone rebuked him, telling him it was no time for crimination
now. The Major evidently believed as did most of his men, that the
situation was a precarious one, and that we, too, might be likewise
routed.
It is a literal fact that some of the regiments of Sherman's and
Prentiss' divisions were pulverized by the first onset of the enemy.
They fled through the woods in panic, like sheep pursued by wolves.
Neither commands, threats nor entreaties were of any avail to check
them. They could hear behind them the enemy's musketry and his
shout of triumph; but they could not see before them, the revolvers
presented to their breasts by their officers, who demanded of them
to turn back and face the enemy. Idle waste of words! Honor, glory,
country, liberty; defeat, captivity, humiliation, shame;--all were
alike to them. You shouted these words to them, but they did not
understand you. It was no time for them to think of such things now.
They had but one thought, to save themselves from the enemy's balls
and bayonets. Of all their hearts cherished, nothing was so dear to
them as their worthless carcasses. You shouted "coward!" "dastard!"
in their ears. They admitted it and rushed on. They had no colonels,
no captains, no country; no firesides, no honor, no future. What was
more discouraging than all, officers were sometimes seen to lead in
these shameless stampedes.
At this very time regiments and battalions were hurrying forward to
reinforce them and close up the breaches caused by their ignoble
flight. We could look back and see them coming. It was a glorious,
an all-cheering sight, battalion after battalion moving on in
splendid order, stemming the tide of these broken masses; not a man
straggling; regiments seeming to be animated by one soul. These were
the troops of the Fourth Division, and this was the splendid manner
in which their general led them against the enemy.
While in this position, where the First Brigade formed its first line
at half past eight in the morning, the enemy advanced his batteries
and began to shell us vigorously. Before us was a gentle ridge
covered with dense woods and brush. The enemy fired at random. We lay
flat on the ground and laughed at his shells exploding harmlessly in
the tops of the trees above us. Our regiment shifted position two or
three times here; but the whole brigade was soon ordered forward to
take a position in a cotton field where one of our batteries had been
planted. Beyond this field, we for the first time caught sight of the
enemy, his regiments with their red banners flashing in the morning
sun marching proudly and all undisturbed through the abandoned camps
of Prentiss. To him as suddenly appeared the 1st Brigade, widely
deployed upon the open field, the ground sloping toward him and not
a brush to conceal us from his view; a single blue line, compact
and firm, crowned with a hedge of sparkling bayonets, our flags and
banners flapping in the breeze; and in our center a battery of six
guns, whose dark mouths scowled defiance at him. The enemy's infantry
fronted toward us and stood. Ours kneeled and brought their pieces to
the ready. Thus for some moments the antagonists surveyed each other.
He was on the offensive; we on the defensive. We challenged him to
the assault; but he moved not. He was partly masked in the woods and
the smoothbore muskets of our regiment could not reach him. But a
regiment on the left of the brigade opened fire. The others followed,
and the fire was caught up and carried along the entire line. It was
some moments before our officers could make the men desist from the
useless waste of powder. The enemy's infantry did not reply; but
no sooner had our foolish firing ceased than one of his batteries,
completely masked, opened upon ours with canister. His first shots
took effect. Ours replied a few times, when its officers and men
disgracefully fled, leaving two guns in battery on the field.
Having driven off this battery, the enemy turned his guns upon the
infantry. But most of his discharges flew over our heads and rattled
harmlessly through the tops of the dry trees. He soon, however,
obtained our range more perfectly, and we began to suffer from his
fire. We were thus a target for his artillery, and could not at that
range give him an effective return. Major Stone protested against his
men being kept in a position where they were so uselessly exposed;
and soon after the brigade abandoned the field, our regiment taking
position to the right of it in front of the 17th Kentucky.
The other regiments formed in rear of the field. We were soon after
moved to the rear and placed in position in the third reserve line.
In this position we were more exposed to the enemy's artillery, his
shells passing over the advance lines and bursting frequently over
our heads, but generally far in our rear. Soon it was rumored down
the ranks that Colonel Williams was wounded. A solid shot had passed
through his horse in rear of his saddle, killing the animal and
stunning the Colonel so badly that he had to be taken to the rear.
Colonel Pugh, of the 41st Illinois, announced that he assumed command
of the brigade.
Meantime the battle rose with great fury to our right. The firing
grew into a deafening and incessant roar. For an hour we lay in this
position, listening to the exploding shells around us; to the noises
of battle to our right, and to reports that came in from different
parts of the field. The day now seemed to be everywhere going well.
It was ten o'clock. The battle had raged for three hours. But on
the left of the army the enemy was making no serious attempts; the
center, though furiously assailed, held its ground; and it was
reported that on the right we were driving the enemy.
About this time General Grant, with two or three staff officers, rode
up from the rear. We were about to raise a shout, but our officers
ordered us to be silent. An Illinois regiment in front of us cheered
lustily as he passed. The General's countenance wore an anxious look,
yet bore no evidence of excitement or trepidation. He rode leisurely
forward to the front line. We did not see him again till night, and
then he was on the bluffs near the river endeavoring to rally his
dispirited troops, and General Buell was with him.
About 11 o'clock, our regiment moved so far to the left that our
left wing rested behind the cotton field. Looking forward we could
see the two abandoned pieces. Side by side, like faithful comrades,
they faced the foe, as if ashamed to fly like the ignoble men who had
left them to their fate. But why were those guns left thus? We had
remained on the field some time after they were abandoned, and had
suffered little loss. After we had abandoned the field, volunteers
had gone forward and spiked them. Why then could they not have been
brought away? To see our cannon abandoned when the enemy could not
come and take them away, was discouraging enough. It was an enigma
which we did not wish to solve. Beyond the field we could now see the
enemy distinctly, and some of the time his movements were plain to
us. But he was beyond our range, and our officers would not allow us
to fire. This was an excellent position for artillery, the open field
affording free range and a fair view of the enemy to the right and
left as well as to the front. Our duty was now to support the several
batteries which were successively ordered to take position here,
and which were successively either ordered away or disabled by the
superior practice of the enemy. His artillery kept up a most vigorous
fire. The air was full of his screeching missiles, and his shells
burst over our heads continually. His canister reached us spent and
only capable of afflicting with bruises; his ordinary shells did
little mischief; his case shot had the most effect. But rapid as was
his firing, when lying down, we suffered comparatively little.
Meanwhile the battle commenced furiously immediately to the right
of the field and in front of the position from which we had just
moved. A fierce yell of the enemy mingled with the increasing din
of musketry announced the approach of his assailing columns. And
now, as though a thousand angry thunders were joining their voices,
the incessant jar grated horribly upon the ear, drowning all other
sounds. The discharge of our artillery could scarcely be heard. Dense
clouds of smoke lifted themselves above the combatants. We listened
breathless with expectation. Suddenly the firing ceased, and a wild
shout of triumph caught up by listening comrades, borne far along the
line, announced that the assault had been repulsed. And now in the
storm a few moments lull, and the assault was renewed with the same
fury as before and with the same result. And thus, after battering
those lines for two hours with his artillery, the enemy assailed them
for three hours with his infantry, his attacking columns withering
away each time before the well-directed fire of our heroic troops.
Nowhere on all the field of battle did the storm rage so fiercely.
Nowhere did the enemy assail and renew the assault with such rage,
and nowhere did our troops fight with such inspiring valor. Nor was
there a place on the field which after the battle showed so many
marks of conflict. At one point, where the underbrush was heavy,
it was for several rods around literally mowed down with rifle
balls. Saplings no larger than a man's wrist were struck as many as
seven times. The range of the balls seems to have been perfect, few
striking lower than two, or higher than five feet from the ground.
When it is known that this storm must have showered through the
ranks of living multitudes, was anything more needed to account for
the immense number of dead that strewed this part of the field. The
troops that held this part of our line were the 3d Brigade of the
Fourth Division, commanded by Gen. Lauman.
Thus we lay behind this open field silent spectators of the battle.
Mann's Missouri battery was in position on the left of our regiment,
and fired with great rapidity and effect. General Hurlbut twice rode
up and complimented them, and his words moved the gallant Dutchmen
to tears. At times during the conflict around us we could hear its
noise on the more distant parts of the field. As far as we could
hear beyond the 3d Brigade to our right, the firing grew more and
more irregular, and farther and farther to the rear, which told us
too well that our right and center were being crowded back. Men that
came from our regimental camp reported that most of the forenoon the
enemy's shells had been falling there, and that now, at noon, his
infantry was very near. The 2d Brigade of the 4th Division which
had been sent early in the morning to support Sherman near the
center had been broken by overwhelming numbers and driven from its
positions with great loss. Everywhere, except on the left, our line
had crumbled before the enemy. Now, let it be said to the honor of
the 4th Division, he had found his Farm of Hougomont. The 1st and
3d Brigades of Hurlbut and the 2d Brigade of Sherman, commanded by
Colonel Dave Stuart, had held this position unshaken since morning,
and the enemy's assaults had only served to multiply his dead.
At length he lost his reason in his baffled rage; and failing in
his repeated efforts to break the 3d Brigade, and thus propagate
on our left the disorder of the center, he undertook to carry the
cotton field and capture the annoying battalions behind it by direct
assault. A brigade leaped the fence, line after line, and formed
on the opposite side of the field. It was a splendid sight, those
men in the face of death closing and dressing their ranks, hedges
of bayonets gleaming above them, and their proud banners waving in
the breeze; our guns, shotted with canister, made great gaps in
their ranks, which rapidly closed, not a man faltering in his place.
And now their field officers waved their hats. A shout arose, and
that column, splendidly aligned, took the double quick and moved
on magnificently. We could not repress exclamations of admiration.
There is a grandeur in heroism, even when connected with a bad cause.
We could not hate those men. Were they committing a crime? They
had been educated to love what we hated. They could not advance so
splendidly upon death itself, and imagine it was for aught but a
noble cause. Nevertheless, it seemed to us like the wrong assaulting
the right--like the night advancing upon the day; dark and gloomy,
it is true, but with all the majesty of night. We saw the truth; we
pitied the event, but recognized the inexorable necessity of firing
upon those men. Our officers ordered us to reserve our fire and wait
for the word. On, on came their unwavering line. Not a man faltered;
not a gun they fired. Not a gap occurred, save where our canister
went plunging through, and these were speedily closed. Suddenly a
few rifles were heard in the 32d Illinois on our left, and a field
officer was seen to fall. And then all along our regimental line a
crash of muskets maintained in a steady roar, followed by a cloud
of blinding smoke, through which we could see nothing. We knew not
whether they stood or fell, halted, retreated, or advanced. We only
knew that their bullets at times rattled through the fence, and that
some of our men were shot. We continued to load and fire until our
officers ordered us to cease firing, and then it was not without much
difficulty that they could make us understand and obey them. When the
smoke cleared away, we saw what was left of this splendid brigade,
retreating in good order by the right flank, by which movement they
placed a hill between them and us. Singular enough, many muskets
again commenced firing. The enemy's dead and wounded lay so thickly
upon the field where his charge was first checked, that they looked
like a line of troops lying down to receive our fire. It was some
time before we could believe that such was not the case. When we saw
our victory, there went up an exultant shout. It was a moment of
ineffable joy to us. No one who has not felt it knows how a soldier
feels in such a moment of triumph. We had served ten months, and
marched and watched and fought, and suffered, and this was our first
victory. But that single moment was sufficient to compensate us for
all we had endured to gain it.