SHILOH AND STONE RIVER.
My first battle, and how I felt--Wounded and left on the
field--Disasters of first day and final triumph--Return home--In
the field again--Battle of Stone River--Wounded again--Appearance
of the country.
My first battle! What a strange sensation it was when I knew that
I must soon engage in the deadly strife! The thoughts came thick
and fast--thoughts of home, friends, and loved ones crowded upon
me with a vividness and distinctness I had never known before. My
past life came up in review, and the anxiety to know the result of
the next few hours was painful. Should I fall on my first field, or
should I escape? Should I share the joy of victory, or experience
the sadness of defeat? be a prisoner in the hands of the foe, or,
wounded, lie helpless among the slain and dying? make myself a
name, or fill a nameless grave, were questions that would force
themselves upon my attention. Fearful I was not, but excited, as
every one doubtless is when about to enter for the first time the
field of carnage and blood.
I can imagine a young soldier gradually becoming accustomed to
warfare by engaging at first in slight skirmishes at long range,
then in closer encounters, till he is, in a measure, prepared for a
general engagement; but my first battle was none of those, but one
of the great conflicts of the war, in which thousands went in tyros
in the art of war, and came out heroes, ever after confident and
bold--it was the bloody field of Shiloh.
It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to describe a battle; one pair
of eyes can see but little of a conflict ranging over miles of
territory; but there is something common to all battles which every
brave man sees and hears, such as the shrieking of the shells,
the blaze which accompanies the explosion, the whistling of minie
balls, the clash and clang of steel, the roar of the artillery,
the rattle of musketry, comrades falling, riderless steeds dashing
hither and thither, the shout of officers, the hurrah of the
charging line, the ghastly forms of the dead, the piteous cries of
the wounded, the clouds of smoke pierced by the quick flashes of
flame--with all these every true soldier is familiar.
Our regiment was not in the battle the first day, but came up the
following night, and found Gen. Grant, who had been hard pressed
the preceding day, in grim silence awaiting the coming light to
renew the contest. Early in the morning we were engaged, and the
battle raged with great fury till the middle of the afternoon, when
the enemy, after a stubborn resistance, were routed, and a shout
of triumph went up from the victors who had changed threatened
disaster into glorious success.
In that shout of joy I took no part--nay, I heard it as if in a
dream; for about twelve or one o'clock a minie ball, striking me
on the left cheek, passing through and coming out an inch behind
and below the ear, laid me for a time unconscious on the field
amid the dead and the dying. Reviving after awhile I slowly made
my way to the rear amid a shower of leaden and iron hail. The
loss in my company was one killed and fifteen or sixteen wounded,
several of them mortally. This battle, as most readers are aware,
began on Sunday, the 6th of April. Early in the morning the
Confederate forces, in greatly-superior numbers, under Generals A.
S. Johnston and Beauregard, attacked Gen. Grant with great fury,
the divisions of Sherman, M'Clernand, and Prentiss were driven
back, and their respective camps fell into the hands of the enemy.
They were stubbornly resisted, however, by Gen. Wallace's division,
already weakened by having sent a brigade to assist in another
portion of the field. These brave fellows nobly repulsed four
different attacks made upon them, each time inflicting a heavy
loss on the foe; but when night fell much ground had been lost,
and many a heart was anxious concerning the morrow. During the
night, however, Buell came up, a heavy burden was removed from many
minds; for those who had hitherto contemplated nothing more than a
stubborn resistance now felt confident of victory. Nor were they
disappointed; the arrival of new troops infused fresh vigor into
those wearied with the desperate struggle of the preceding day, and
ere the sun had set the enemy had scattered before their resistless
advance, the lost ground was all recovered, the lost camps retaken,
and the roads southward thronged with a fleeing foe. Johnston, the
rebel commander-in-chief, was killed upon the field on the first
day; and though Beauregard claimed a complete victory on the 6th,
and the rebel capital was wild with joy on the reception of his
bulletin, he was compelled the next day to retire in disorder and
seek safety within his fortifications at Corinth.
As soon as I was sufficiently recovered to be removed, I was sent
home to Kentucky for treatment. I reached there faint and weary,
was seized with typhoid fever, which, together with wounds, came
very near terminating my life. My first battle, however, was
not destined to be my last, and, by skillful treatment, careful
nursing, and the interposition of a kind Providence, I was finally
restored.
As soon as I was able I rejoined my company; was with it during
Buell's march through Tennessee and Kentucky to Louisville; bore
its privations well; was in hearing of the battle of Perryville,
but our regiment was not engaged. From Perryville we marched
through Danville, skirmishing with Bragg's rear-guard; thence to
Crab Orchard and Stanford; harassed him as far as London, Laurel
county--turned back, marched to Glasgow, thence to Nashville, where
we arrived about the 1st of December, 1862.
My first battle, as I have already stated, was under Grant and
Buell, against Johnston and Beauregard; my second was against
Bragg at Stone River, under Rosecrans. Here, again, it was my fate
or fortune to be wounded--this time in three places; but none of
my wounds were severe enough to make me leave the field. Both my
arms were bruised by fragments of bombshells, another piece struck
my pistol which hung by my side, tearing the stock to atoms and
bending the iron nearly double. I was knocked down by the violence
of the blow, and received a pretty severe wound in my side, and I
have no doubt but the pistol saved my life. I had my blanket over
my shoulders during the engagement, and at its close I found that
four or five balls had passed through it, several bullets also had
pierced my coat, and in looking at them I seemed to realize how
near to death I had been, and felt devoutly thankful that I had
escaped the dangers of another fierce struggle. Soldiers look with
pride at the flag, pierced by the bullets of the foe, which they
have proudly borne through the din and smoke of battle, and in
that feeling I have often partaken; but I shall ever feel grateful
to a kind Providence whenever I look at my bullet-pierced blanket
and coat; and if I fall before the war closes, I wish no more
fitting and honorable shroud than these will afford; if I survive,
they shall be preserved as relics of that eventful day, as silent
monitors to teach me thankfulness to Him whose hand protected me in
the hour of danger.
The battle of Stone River began on the 31st of December, 1862, and
continued till the evening of the 2d of January. On the first day
our left wing was driven back, and we lost about thirty pieces of
artillery; but the attack of the enemy on our center was repelled
with fearful slaughter, being subjected to a terrible cross-fire
of double-shotted canister from two batteries, and the day closed
with the contest undecided. The next day the battle was renewed,
our line being restored to the position it had occupied on the
morning of the previous day, but without any very decisive result,
the spirit of our forces remaining unbroken. On the third day
attempts were made by the enemy along our whole line, but it was
not till about the middle of the afternoon, however, that the
crisis of the battle came; both sides were using their artillery
with terrible effect; at last the line of the enemy began to give
way; Gen. Davis was ordered to charge across the stream from which
the battle takes its name; the Colonel of the 78th Pennsylvania,
with his hat on the point of his sword, led the way with a hurrah,
a charge perfectly irresistible was made, the enemy's line was
broken, the divisions of Beatty and Negley came up rapidly, our
whole line advanced and the day was won.
My wounds gave me some inconvenience for a few days; but as I had
been much more severely wounded before, I did not regard them much,
having learned to look upon them as the necessary accompaniments of
a soldier's life; indeed, they were soon forgotten, and I was soon
again ready for the duties of my position. It is truly wonderful
with what facility man adapts himself to circumstances; one would
think that such constant exposure to danger and to death would
beget great seriousness in every mind, and yet the reverse seems
to be the case; after having been under fire a few times, the
soldier goes into battle with an alacrity and cheerfulness that is
astonishing; he becomes inured to the sight of wounds and death,
and though his comrades fall on either side, and he has a sigh for
them, he thinks not that he, like them, may fall. On the march,
however, sad thoughts often come.
The country between Murfreesboro and Nashville is a beautiful
one, but the rude hand of war has despoiled it of much of its
loveliness. Fire is a necessity to the soldier, and no fuel is so
ready to his hand as fence-rails, and wherever the army marches
the fences rapidly disappear; thousands upon thousands of fertile
acres are thus left without any protection, beautiful shrubbery
and choice fruit trees are ruined, every green thing is taken
from the gardens, fowls and domestic animals are killed, and the
country which lately bloomed like a garden becomes as desolate as a
barren desert. Little mounds by the roadside tell that those dear
to some hearts are buried there; dead horses, broken wagons tell
of the waste of war; traces of fire and solitary chimney-stacks
bring up images of homes once pleasant, and cause the wish and
prayer for the return of peace. Soldiers are sometimes thought to
exaggerate the scenes through which they pass; but let any one
who has seen Tennessee in the days of its prosperity travel from
Nashville to Chattanooga now, and he will confess that no pen can
describe, much less exaggerate, the scenes everywhere presented
to the eye. But a truce to moralizing. After the retreat of the
foe the monotony of camp life began to be oppressive; a desire
for active operations, no matter by what dangers attended, became
general, and in this feeling I confess I shared. The desired change
came at length, and with it a disaster greater far than sickness
or wounds--the sufferings of a long and painful captivity, such
captivity as the dwellers in that synonym for all that is foul and
loathsome--Libby Prison--alone have known.