How use doth breed a habit in a man.--TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.
----But let me tell the world, If he outlive the envy of
this day, England did never owe so sweet a hope So much
misconstrued.--HENRY IV.
It was long after the battle of Shiloh before all the dead were buried.
Many were interred in trenches, scores together. A friend, who was
engaged in this revolting labor, told me that, after three or four
days, he found himself counting off the bodies as indifferently as he
would have measured cord-wood.
General Halleck soon arrived, assuming command of the combined forces
of Grant, Buell, and Pope. It was a grand army.
[Sidenote: GRANT UNDER A CLOUD.]
Grant nominally remained at the head of his corps, but was deprived
of power. He was under a cloud. Most injurious reports concerning his
conduct at Shiloh pervaded the country. All the leading journals were
represented in Halleck's army. At the daily accidental gatherings of
eight or ten correspondents, Grant was the subject of angry discussion.
The journalistic profession tends to make men oracular and severely
critical.
Several of these writers could demonstrate conclusively that Grant was
without capacity, but a favorite of Fortune; that his great Donelson
victory was achieved in spite of military blunders which ought to have
defeated him.
[Sidenote: HE SERENELY SMOKES AND WAITS.]
The subject of all this contention bore himself with undisturbed
serenity. Sherman, while constantly declaring that he cared nothing for
the newspapers, was foolishly sensitive to every word of criticism. But
Grant, whom they really wounded, appeared no more disturbed by these
paper bullets of the brain than by the leaden missiles of the enemy. He
silently smoked and waited. The only protest I ever knew him to utter
was to the correspondent of a journal which had denounced him with
great severity:
"Your paper is very unjust to me; but time will make it all right. I
want to be judged only by my acts."
When the army began to creep forward, I messed at Grant's
head-quarters, with his chief of staff; and around the evening
camp-fires I saw much of the general. He rarely uttered a word upon the
political bearings of the war; indeed, he said little upon any subject.
With his eternal cigar, and his head thrown slightly to one side, for
hours he would sit silently before the fire, or walk back and forth,
with eyes upon the ground, or look on at our whist-table, now and then
making a suggestion about the play.
Most of his pictures greatly idealize his full, rather heavy face. The
journalists called him stupid. One of my _confrères_ used to say:
"How profoundly surprised Mrs. Grant must have been, when she woke up
and learned that her husband was a great man!"
He impressed me as possessing great purity, integrity, and amiability,
with excellent judgment and boundless pluck. But I should never have
suspected him of military genius. Indeed, nearly every man of whom,
at the beginning of the war, I prophesied a great career, proved
inefficient, and _vice versâ_.
[Sidenote: JEALOUSIES OF MILITARY MEN.]
Military men seem to cherish more jealousies than members of any other
profession, except physicians and _artistes_. At almost every general
head-quarters, one heard denunciations of rival commanders. Grant was
above this "mischievous foul sin of chiding." I never heard him speak
unkindly of a brother officer. Still, the soldier's taint had slightly
poisoned him. He regarded Rosecrans with peculiar antipathy, and
finally accepted the command of our combined armies only on condition
that he should be at once removed.
Hooker once boasted that he had the best army on the planet. One
would have declared that Grant commanded the worst. There was little
of that order, perfect drill, or pride, pomp, and circumstance, seen
among Buell's troops and in the Army of the Potomac. But Grant's
rough, rugged soldiers would fight wonderfully, and were not easily
demoralized. If their line became broken, every man, from behind a
tree, rock, or stump, blazed away at the enemy on his own account. They
did not throw up their hats at sight of their general, but were wont to
remark, with a grim smile:
"There goes the old man. He doesn't say much; but he's a pretty hard
nut for Johnny Reb. to crack."
Unlike Halleck, Grant did not pretend to familiarity with the details
of military text-books. He could not move an army with that beautiful
symmetry which McClellan displayed; but his pontoons were always up,
and his ammunition trains were never missing.
Though not occupied with details, he must have given them close
attention; for, while other commanding generals had forty or fifty
staff-officers, brilliant with braid and buttons, Grant allowed himself
but six or seven.
[Sidenote: THE UNION AND REBEL WOUNDED.]
Within ten days after the battle of Shiloh, nineteen large steamers,
crowded with wounded, passed down the river. In the long rows of cots
which filled their cabins and crowded their guards, Rebel and Union
soldiers were lying side by side, and receiving the same attendance.
Scores of volunteer physicians aided the regular army surgeons.
Hundreds of volunteer nurses, many of them wives, sisters, and mothers,
came from every walk of life to join in the work of mercy. Hands
hardened with toil, and hands that leisure and luxury left white and
soft, were bathing fevered brows, supporting wearied heads, washing
repulsive wounds, combing matted and bloody locks.
Patient forms kept nightly vigils beside the couches; gentle tones
dropped priceless words of sympathy; and, when all was over, tender
hands closed the fixed eyes, and smoothed the hair upon the white
foreheads. Thousands of poor fellows carried to their homes, both
North and South, grateful memories of those heroic women; thousands
of hearts, wrung with the tidings that loved ones were gone, found
comfort in the knowledge that their last hours were soothed by those
self-denying and blessed ministrations.
One man, who had received several bullets, lay undiscovered for eight
days in a little thicket, with no nourishment except rain-water. After
discovery he lived nearly two weeks. At some points the ground was so
closely covered with mutilated bodies that it was difficult to step
between them. One soldier, rigid in death, was found lying upon the
back, holding in his fixed hand, and regarding with stony eyes, the
daguerreotype of a woman and child. It was terribly suggestive of the
desolate homes and bleeding hearts which almost force one to Cicero's
conclusion, that any peace is better than the justest war.