On the side of the Tennessee River, over against Pittsburg Landing, are
some low bare hills, partly inclosed by a forest. In the dusk of the
evening of April 6 this open space, as seen from the other side of the
stream--whence, indeed, it was anxiously watched by thousands of eyes, to
many of which it grew dark long before the sun went down--would have
appeared to have been ruled in long, dark lines, with new lines being
constantly drawn across. These lines were the regiments of Buell's leading
division, which having moved up from Savannah through a country presenting
nothing but interminable swamps and pathless "bottom lands," with rank
overgrowths of jungle, was arriving at the scene of action breathless,
footsore and faint with hunger. It had been a terrible race; some
regiments had lost a third of their number from fatigue, the men dropping
from the ranks as if shot, and left to recover or die at their leisure.
Nor was the scene to which they had been invited likely to inspire the
moral confidence that medicines physical fatigue. True, the air was full
of thunder and the earth was trembling beneath their feet; and if there is
truth in the theory of the conversion of force, these men were storing up
energy from every shock that burst its waves upon their bodies. Perhaps
this theory may better than another explain the tremendous endurance of
men in battle. But the eyes reported only matter for despair.
Before us ran the turbulent river, vexed with plunging shells and obscured
in spots by blue sheets of low-lying smoke. The two little steamers were
doing their duty well. They came over to us empty and went back crowded,
sitting very low in the water, apparently on the point of capsizing. The
farther edge of the water could not be seen; the boats came out of the
obscurity, took on their passengers and vanished in the darkness. But on
the heights above, the battle was burning brightly enough; a thousand
lights kindled and expired in every second of time. There were broad
flushings in the sky, against which the branches of the trees showed
black. Sudden flames burst out here and there, singly and in dozens.
Fleeting streaks of fire crossed over to us by way of welcome. These
expired in blinding flashes and fierce little rolls of smoke, attended
with the peculiar metallic ring of bursting shells, and followed by the
musical humming of the fragments as they struck into the ground on every
side, making us wince, but doing little harm. The air was full of noises.
To the right and the left the musketry rattled smartly and petulantly;
directly in front it sighed and growled. To the experienced ear this meant
that the death-line was an arc of which the river was the chord. There
were deep, shaking explosions and smart shocks; the whisper of stray
bullets and the hurtle of conical shells; the rush of round shot. There
were faint, desultory cheers, such as announce a momentary or partial
triumph. Occasionally, against the glare behind the trees, could be seen
moving black figures, singularly distinct but apparently no longer than a
thumb. They seemed to me ludicrously like the figures of demons in old
allegorical prints of hell. To destroy these and all their belongings the
enemy needed but another hour of daylight; the steamers in that case would
have been doing him fine service by bringing more fish to his net. Those
of us who had the good fortune to arrive late could then have eaten our
teeth in impotent rage. Nay, to make his victory sure it did not need that
the sun should pause in the heavens; one of the many random shots falling
into the river would have done the business had chance directed it into
the engine-room of a steamer. You can perhaps fancy the anxiety with which
we watched them leaping down.
But we had two other allies besides the night. Just where the enemy had
pushed his right flank to the river was the mouth of a wide bayou, and
here two gunboats had taken station. They too were of the toy sort, plated
perhaps with railway metals, perhaps with boiler-iron. They staggered
under a heavy gun or two each. The bayou made an opening in the high bank
of the river. The bank was a parapet, behind which the gunboats crouched,
firing up the bayou as through an embrasure. The enemy was at this
disadvantage: he could not get at the gunboats, and he could advance only
by exposing his flank to their ponderous missiles, one of which would have
broken a half-mile of his bones and made nothing of it. Very annoying this
must have been--these twenty gunners beating back an army because a
sluggish creek had been pleased to fall into a river at one point rather
than another. Such is the part that accident may play in the game of war.
As a spectacle this was rather fine. We could just discern the black
bodies of these boats, looking very much like turtles. But when they let
off their big guns there was a conflagration. The river shuddered in its
banks, and hurried on, bloody, wounded, terrified! Objects a mile away
sprang toward our eyes as a snake strikes at the face of its victim. The
report stung us to the brain, but we blessed it audibly. Then we could
hear the great shell tearing away through the air until the sound died out
in the distance; then, a surprisingly long time afterward, a dull, distant
explosion and a sudden silence of small-arms told their own tale.