The Guns of Shiloh: A Story of the Great Western Campaign

THE DARK EVE OF SHILOH

Dick noticed as they went further into the forest how complete was the concealment of a great army, possible only in a country wooded so heavily, and in the presence of a careless enemy.  The center was like the front of the Southern force.  Not a fire burned, not a torch gleamed.  The horses were withdrawn so far that stamp or neigh could not be heard by the Union pickets.

“We’ll stop here,” said Robertson at length.  “As you’re a Kentuckian, I thought it would be pleasanter for you to be handed over to Kentuckians.  The Orphan Brigade to which I belong is layin’ on the ground right in front of us, an’ the first regiment is that of Colonel Kenton.  I’ll hand you over to him, an’—­not ’cause I’ve got anything ag’inst you—­I’ll be mighty glad to do it, too, ’cause my back is already nigh breakin’ with the responsibility.”

Dick started violently.

“What’s hit you?” asked Robertson.

“Oh, nothing.  You see, I’m nervous.”

“You ain’t tellin’ the truth.  But I don’t blame you an’ it don’t matter anyway.  Here we are.  Jump down.”

Dick sprang to the ground, and the others followed.  While they held the reins they stood in a close circle about him.  He had about as much chance of escape as he had of flying.

Robertson walked forward, saluted some one who stood up in the dark, and said a few words in a low tone.

“Bring him forward,” said a clear voice, which Dick recognized at once.

The little group of men opened out and Dick, stepping forth, met his uncle face to face.  It was now the time of Colonel George Kenton to start violently.

“My God!  You, Dick!” he exclaimed.  “How did you come here?”

“I didn’t come,” replied the boy, who was now feeling more at ease.  “I was brought here by four scouts of yours, who I must say saw their duty and did it.”

Colonel Kenton grasped his hand and shook it.  He was very fond of this young nephew of his.  The mere fact that he was on the other side did not alter his affection.

“Tell me about it, Dick,” he said.  “And you, Sergeant Robertson, you and your men are to be thanked for your vigilance and activity.  You can go off duty.  You are entitled to your rest.”

As they withdrew the sergeant, who passed by Dick and who had not missed a word of the conversation between him and his uncle, said to him: 

“At least, young sir, I’ve returned you to your relatives, an’ you’re a minor, as I can see.”

“It’s so,” said Dick as the sergeant passed on.

“They have not ill treated you?” said Colonel Kenton.

“No, they’ve been as kind as one enemy could be to another.”

“It is strange, most strange, that you and I should meet here at such a time.  Nay, Dick, I see in it the hand of Providence.  You’re to be saved from what will happen to your army tomorrow.”

“I’d rather not be saved in this manner.”

“I know it, but it is perhaps the only way.  As sure as the stars are in Heaven your army will be destroyed in the morning, an’ you’d be destroyed with it.  I’m fond of you, Dick, and so I’d rather you’d be in our rear, a prisoner, while this is happening.”

“General Grant is a hard man to crush.”

“Dick!  Dick, lad, you don’t know what you’re talking about!  Look at the thing as it stands!  We know everything that you’re doing.  Our spies look into the very heart of your camp.  You think that we are fifty miles away, but a cannon shot from the center of our camp would reach the center of yours.  Why, while we are here, ready to spring, this Grant, of whom you think so much, is on his way tonight to the little village of Savannah to confer with Buell.  In the dawn when we strike and roll his brigades back he will not be here.  And that’s your great general!”

Dick knew that his uncle was excited.  But he had full cause to be.  There was everything in the situation to inflame an officer’s pride and anticipation.  It was not too dark for Dick to see a spark leap from his eyes, and a sudden flush of red appear in either tanned cheek.  But for Dick the chill came again, and once more his hair prickled at the roots.  The ambush was even more complete than he had supposed, and General Grant would not be there when it was sprung.

“Dick,” said Colonel Kenton, “I have talked to you as I would not have talked to anyone else, but even so, I would not have talked to you as I have, were not your escape an impossibility.  You are unharmed, but to leave this camp you would have to fly.”

“I admit it, sir.”

“Come with me.  There are men higher in rank than I who would wish to see a prisoner taken as you were.”

Dick followed him willingly and without a word.  Aware that he was not in the slightest physical danger he was full of curiosity concerning what he was about to see.  The words, “men higher in rank than I,” whipped his blood.

Colonel Kenton led through the darkness to a deep and broad ravine, into which they descended.  The sides and bottom of this ravine were clothed in bushes, and they grew thick on the edges above.  It was much darker here, but Dick presently caught ahead of him the flicker of the first light that he had seen in the Southern army.

The boy’s heart began to beat fast and hard.  All the omens foretold that he was about to witness something that he could never by any possibility forget.  They came nearer to the flickering light, and he made out seated figures around it.  They were men wrapped in cavalry cloaks, because the night air had now grown somewhat chill, and Dick knew instinctively that these were the Southern generals preparing for the hammer-stroke at dawn.

A sentinel, rifle in hand, met them.  Colonel Kenton whispered with him a moment, and he went to the group.  He returned in a moment and escorted Dick and his uncle forward.  Colonel Kenton saluted and Dick involuntarily did the same.

It was a small fire, casting only a faint and flickering light, but Dick, his eyes now used to the dusk, saw well the faces of the generals.  He knew at once which was Johnston, the chief.  He seemed older than the rest, sixty at least, but his skin was clear and ruddy, and the firm face and massive jaw showed thought and power.  Yet the countenance appeared gloomy, as if overcast with care.  Perhaps it was another omen!

By the side of Johnston sat a small but muscular man, swarthy, and in early middle years.  His face and gestures when he talked showed clearly that he was of Latin blood.  It was Beauregard, the victor of Bull Run, now second in command here, and he made a striking contrast to the stern and motionless Kentuckian who sat beside him and who was his chief.  There was no uneasy play of Johnston’s hands, no shrugging of the shoulders, no jerking of the head.  He sat silent, his features a mask, while he listened to his generals.

On the other side was Braxton Bragg, brother-in-law of Jefferson Davis, who could never forget Bragg’s kinship, and the service that he had done fifteen years before at Buena Vista, when he had broken with his guns the last of Santa Anna’s squares, deciding the victory.  By the side of him was Hardee, the famous tactician, taught in the best schools of both America and Europe.  Then there was Polk, who, when a youth, had left the army to enter the church and become a bishop, and who was now a soldier again and a general.  Next to the bishop-general sat the man who had been Vice-President of the United States and who, if the Democracy had held together would now have been in the chair of Lincoln, John C. Breckinridge, called by his people the Magnificent, commonly accounted the most splendid looking man in America.

“Bring the prisoner forward, Colonel Kenton,” said General Johnston, a general upon whom the South, with justice, rested great hopes.

Dick stepped forward at once and he held himself firmly, as he felt the eyes of the six generals bent upon him.  He was conscious even at the moment that chance had given him a great opportunity.  He was there to see, while the military genius of the South planned in the shadow of a dark ravine a blow which the six intended to be crushing.

“Where was the prisoner taken?” said Johnston to Colonel Kenton.

“Sergeant Robertson and three other men of my command seized him as he was about to enter the Northern lines.  He was coming from the direction of Buell, where it is likely that he had gone to take a dispatch.”

“Did you find any answer upon him.”

“My men searched him carefully, sir, but found nothing.”

“He is in the uniform of a staff officer.  Have you found to what regiment in the Union army he belongs?”

“He is on the staff of Colonel Arthur Winchester, who commands one of the Kentucky regiments.  I have also to tell you, sir, that his name is Richard Mason, and that he is my nephew.”

“Ah,” said General Johnston, “it is one of the misfortunes of civil war that so many of us fight against our own relatives.  For those who live in the border states yours is the common lot.”

But Dick was conscious that the six generals were gazing at him with renewed interest.

“Your surmise about his having been to Buell is no doubt correct,” said Beauregard quickly and nervously.  “You left General Buell this morning, did you not, Mr. Mason?”

Dick remained silent.

“It is also true that Buell’s army is worn down by his heavy march over muddy roads,” continued Beauregard as if he had not noticed Dick’s failure to reply.

Dick’s teeth were shut firmly, and he compressed his lips.  He stood rigidly erect, gazing now at the flickering flames of the little fire.

“I suggest that you try him on some other subject than Buell, General Beauregard,” said the bishop-general, a faint twinkle appearing in his eyes.  Johnston sat silent, but his blue eyes missed nothing.

“It is true also, is it not,” continued Beauregard, “that General Grant has gone or is going tonight to Savannah to meet General Buell, and confer with him about a speedy advance upon our army at Corinth?”

Dick clenched his teeth harder than ever, and a spasm passed over his face.  He was conscious that six pairs of eyes, keen and intent, ready to note the slightest change of countenance and to read a meaning into it, were bent upon him.  It was only by a supreme effort that he remained master of himself, but after the single spasm his countenance remained unmoved.

“You do not choose to answer,” said Bragg, always a stern and ruthless man, “but we can drag what you know from you.”

“I am a prisoner of war,” replied Dick steadily.  “I was taken in full uniform.  I am no spy, and you cannot ill treat me.”

“I do not mean that we would inflict any physical suffering upon you,” said Bragg.  “The Confederacy does not, and will never resort to such methods.  But you are only a boy.  We can question you here, until, through very weakness of spirit, you will be glad to tell us all you know about Buell’s or any other Northern force.”

“Try me, and see,” said Dick proudly.

The blue eye of the silent Johnston flickered for an instant.

“But it is true,” said Beauregard, resuming his role of cross-examiner, “that your army, considering itself secure, has not fortified against us?  It has dug no trenches, built no earthworks, thrown up no abatis!”

The boy stood silent with folded arms, and Colonel George Kenton, standing on one side, threw his nephew a glance of sympathy, tinged with admiration.

“Still you do not answer,” continued Beauregard, and now a strong note of irony appeared in his tone, “but perhaps it is just as well.  You do your duty to your own army, and we miss nothing.  You cannot tell us anything that we do not know already.  Whatever you may know we know more.  We know tonight the condition of General Grant’s army better than General Grant himself does.  We know how General Buell and his army stand better than General Buell himself does.  We know the position of your brigades and the missing links between them better than your own brigade commanders do.”

The eyes of the Louisianian flashed, his swarthy face swelled and his shoulders twitched.  The French blood was strong within him.  Just so might some general of Napoleon, some general from the Midi, have shown his emotion on the eve of battle, an emotion which did not detract from courage and resolution.  But the Puritan general, Johnston, raised a deprecatory hand.

“It is enough, General Beauregard,” he said.  “The young prisoner will tell us nothing.  That is evident.  As he sees his duty he does it, and I wish that our young men when they are taken may behave as well.  Mr. Mason, you are excused.  You remain in the custody of your uncle, but I warn you that there is none who will guard better against the remotest possibility of your escape.”

It was involuntary, but Dick gave his deepest military salute, and said in a tone of mingled admiration and respect: 

“General Johnston, I thank you.”

The commander-in-chief of the Southern army bowed courteously in return, and Dick, following his uncle, left the ravine.

The six generals returned to their council, and the boy who would not answer was quickly forgotten.  Long they debated the morrow.  Several have left accounts of what occurred.  Johnston, although he had laid the remarkable ambush, and was expecting victory, was grave, even gloomy.  But Beauregard, volatile and sanguine, rejoiced.  For him the triumph was won already.  After their great achievement in placing their army, unseen and unknown, within cannon shot of the Union force, failure was to him impossible.

Breckinridge, like his chief, Johnston, was also grave and did not say much.  Hardee, as became one of his severe military training, discussed the details, the placing of the brigades and the time of attack by each.  Polk, the bishop-general, and Bragg, also had their part.

As they talked in low tones they moved the men over their chessboard.  Now and then an aide was summoned, and soon departed swiftly and in silence to move a battery or a regiment a little closer to the Union lines, but always he carried the injunction that no noise be made.  Not a sound that could be heard three hundred yards away came from all that great army, lying there in the deep woods and poised for its spring.

Meanwhile security reigned in the Union camp.  The farm lads of the west and northwest had talked much over their fires.  They had eaten good suppers, and by and by they fell asleep.  But many of the officers still sat by the coals and discussed the march against the Southern army at Corinth, when the men of Buell should join those of Grant.  The pickets, although the gaps yet remained between those of the different brigades, walked back and forth and wondered at the gloom and intensity of the woods in front of them, but did not dream of that which lay in the heart of the darkness.

The Southern generals in the ravine lingered yet a little longer.  A diagram had been drawn upon a piece of paper.  It showed the position of every Southern brigade, regiment, and battery, and of every Northern division, too.  It showed every curve of the Tennessee, the winding lines of the three creeks, Owl, Lick, and Snake, and the hills and marshes.

The last detail of the plan was agreed upon finally, and they made it very simple, lest their brigades and regiments should lose touch and become confused in the great forest.  They were to attack continually by the right, press the Union army toward the right always, in order to rush in and separate it from Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee, and from the fleet and its stores.  Then they meant to drive it into the marshes enclosed by the river and Snake Creek and destroy it.

The six generals rose, leaving the little fire to sputter out.  General Johnston was very grave, and so were all the others as they started toward their divisions, except Beauregard, who said in sanguine tones: 

“Gentlemen, we shall sleep tomorrow night in the enemy’s camp.”

Word, in the mysterious ways of war, had slid through the camp that the generals were in council, and many soldiers, driven by overwhelming curiosity, had crept through the underbrush to watch the figures by the fire in the ravine.  They could not hear, they did not seek to hear, but they were held by a sort of spell.  When they saw them separate, every one moving toward his own headquarters, they knew that there was nothing to await now but the dawn, and they stole back toward their own headquarters.

Dick had gone with Colonel Kenton to his own regiment, in the very heart of the Orphan Brigade, and on his way his uncle said: 

“Dick, you will sleep among my own lads, and I ask you for your own sake to make no attempt to escape tonight.  You would certainly be shot.”

“I recognize that fact, sir, and I shall await a better opportunity.”

“What to do with you in the morning I don’t know, but we shall probably be able to take care of you.  Meanwhile, Dick, go to sleep if you can.  See, our boys are spread here through the woods.  If it were day you’d probably find at least a dozen among them whom you know, and certainly a hundred are of blood kin to you, more or less.”

Dick saw the dim forms stretched in hundreds on the ground, and, thanking his uncle for his kindness, he stretched himself upon an unoccupied bit of turf and closed his eyes.  But it was impossible for young Richard Mason to sleep.  He felt again that terrible thrill of agony, because he, alone, of all the score and more of Northern millions, knew that the Southern trap was about to fall, and he could not tell.

Never was he further from sleep.  His nerves quivered with actual physical pain.  He opened his eyes again and saw the dim forms lying in row on row as far in the forest as his eye could reach.  Then he listened.  He might hear the rifle of some picket, more wary or more enterprising than the others, sounding the alarm.  But no such sound came to his ears.  It had turned warmer again, and he heard only the Southern wind, heavy with the odors of grass and flower, sighing through the tall forest.

An anger against his own surged up in his breast.  Why wouldn’t they look?  How could they escape seeing?  Was it possible for one great army to remain unknown within cannon shot of another a whole night?  It was incredible, but he had seen it, and he knew it.  Fierce and bitter words rose to his lips, but he did not utter them.

Dick lay a long time, with his eyes open, and the night was passing as peacefully as if there would be no red dawn.  Occasionally he heard a faint stir near him, as some restless soldier turned on his side in his sleep, and now and then a muttered word from an officer who passed near in the darkness.

Hours never passed more slowly.  Colonel Kenton had gone back toward the Northern lines, and the boy surmised that he would be one of the first in the attack at dawn.  He began to wonder if dawn would ever really come.  Stars and a fair moon were out, and as nearly as he could judge from them it must be about three o’clock in the morning.  Yet it seemed to him that he had been lying there at least twelve hours.

He shut his eyes again, but sleep was as far from him as ever.  After another long and almost unendurable period he opened them once more, and it seemed to him that there was a faint tint of gray in the east.  He sat up, and looking a long time, he was sure of it.  The gray was deepening and broadening, and at its center it showed a tint of silver.  The dawn was at hand, and every nerve in the boy’s body thrilled with excitement and apprehension.

A murmur and a shuffling sound arose all around him.  The sleepers were awake, and they stood up, thousands of them.  Cold food was given to them, and they ate it hastily.  But they fondled their rifles and muskets, and turned their faces toward the point where the Northern army lay, and from which no sound came.

Dick shivered all over.  His head burned and his nerves throbbed.  Too late now!  He had hoped all through the long night that something would happen to carry a warning to that unsuspecting army.  Nothing had happened, and in five minutes the attack would begin.

He stood up at his full height and sought to pierce with his eyes the foliage in front of him, but the massed ranks of the Southerners now stood between, and the batteries were wheeling into line.

A great throb and murmur ran through the forest.  Dick looked upon faces brown with the sun, and eyes gleaming with the fierce passion of victory and revenge.  They were going to avenge Henry and Donelson and all the long and mortifying retreat from Kentucky.  Dick saw them straining and looking eagerly at their officers for the word to advance.

As if by a concerted signal the long and mellow peal of many trumpets came from the front, the officers uttered the shout to charge, the wild and terrible rebel yell swelled from forty thousand throats, and the Southern army rushed upon its foe.

The red dawn of Shiloh had come.