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

THE FIERCE FINISH OF SHILOH

Dick, who had been lying under cover just behind the crest of one of the low ridges, suddenly heard the loud beating of his heart.  He did not know, for a moment or two, that the sound came so distinctly because the mighty tumult which had been raging around him all day had ceased, as if by a concerted signal.  Those blinding flashes of flame no longer came from the forest before him, the shot and shell quit their horrible screaming, and the air was free from the unpleasant hiss of countless bullets.

He stretched himself a little and stood up.  The lads all around him were standing up, and were beginning to talk to each other in the high-pitched, shouting voices that they had been compelled to use all day long, not yet realizing to the full that the tumult of the battle had ceased.  The boy felt stiff and sore in every bone and muscle, and, although the cannon and rifles were silent, there was still a hollow roaring in his ears.  His eyes were yet dim from the smoke, and his head felt heavy and dull.  He gazed vacantly at the forest in front of him, and wondered dimly why the Southern army was not still there, attacking, as it had attacked for so many hours.

But the deep woods were silent and empty.  Coils and streamers of smoke floated about among the trees, and suddenly a gray squirrel hopped out on a bough and began to chatter wildly.  Dick, despite himself, laughed, but the laugh was hysterical.  He could appreciate the feelings of the squirrel, which probably had been imprisoned in a hollow of the tree all day long, listening to this tremendous battle, and squirrels were not used to such battles.  It was a trifle that made him laugh, but everything was out of proportion now.  Life did not go on in the usual way at all.  The ordinary occupations were gone, and people spent most of their time trying to kill one another.

He rubbed his hands across his eyes and cleared them of the smoke.  The battle was certainly over for the day at least, and neither he nor his comrades had sufficient vitality yet to think of the morrow.  The twilight was fast deepening into night.  The last rosy glow of the sun faded, and thick darkness enveloped the vast forest, in which twenty thousand men had fallen, and in which most of them yet lay, the wounded with the dead.

There was presently a deep boom from the river, and a shell fired by one of the gunboats curved far over their heads and dropped into the forest, where the Southern army was encamped.  All through the night and at short but regular intervals the gunboats maintained this warning fire, heartening the Union soldiers, and telling them at every discharge that however they might have to fight for the land, the water was always theirs.

Dick saw Colonel Winchester going among his men, and pulling himself together he saluted his chief.

“Any orders, sir?” he said.

“No, Dick, my boy, none for the present,” replied the colonel, a little sadly.  “Half of my poor regiment is killed or wounded, and the rest are so exhausted that they are barely able to move.  But they fought magnificently, Dick!  They had to, or be crushed!  It is only here that we have withstood the rush of the Southern army, and it is probable that we, too, would have gone had not night come to our help.”

“Then we have been beaten?”

“Yes, Dick, we have been beaten, and beaten badly.  It was the surprise that did it.  How on earth we could have let the Southern army creep upon us and strike unaware I don’t understand.  But Dick, my boy, there will be another battle tomorrow, and it may tell a different tale.  Some prisoners whom we have taken say that Johnston has been killed, and Beauregard is no such leader as he.”

“Will the army of General Buell reach us tonight?”

“Buell, himself, is here.  He has been with Grant for some time, and all his brigades are marching at the double quick.  Lew Wallace arrived less than half an hour ago with seven thousand men fresh and eager for battle.  Dick!  Dick, my boy, we’ll have forty thousand new troops on the field at the next dawn, and before God we’ll wipe out the disgrace of today!  Listen to the big guns from the boats as they speak at intervals!  Why, I can understand the very words they speak!  They are saying to the Southern army:  ’Look out!  Look out!  We’re coming in the morning, and it’s we who’ll attack now!’”

Dick saw that Colonel Winchester himself was excited.  The pupils of his eyes were dilated, and a red spot glowed in either cheek.  Like all the other officers he was stung by the surprise and defeat, and he could barely wait for the morning and revenge.

Colonel Winchester walked away to a council that had been called, and Dick turned to Pennington and Warner, who were not hurt, save for slight wounds.  Warner had recovered his poise, and was soon as calm and dry as ever.

“Dick,” he said, “we’re some distance from where we started this morning.  There’s nothing like being shoved along when you don’t want to go.  The next time they tell me there’s nothing in a thicket I expect to search it and find a rebel army at least a hundred thousand strong right in the middle of it.”

“How large do you suppose the Southern army was?” asked Pennington.

“I had a number of looks at it,” replied Warner, “and I should say from the way it acted that it numbered at least three million men.  I know that at times not less than ten thousand were aiming their rifles at my own poor and unworthy person.  What a waste of energy for so many men to shoot at me all at once.  I wish the Johnnies would go away and let us alone!”

The last words were high-pitched and excited.  His habitual self-control broke down for a moment, and the tremendous excitement and nervous tension of the day found vent in his voice.  But in a few seconds he recovered himself and looked rather ashamed.

“Boys,” he said, “I apologize.”

“You needn’t,” said Pennington.  “There have been times today when I felt brave as a lion, and lots of other times I was scared most to death.  It would have helped me a lot then, if I could have opened my mouth and yelled at the top of my voice.”

Sergeant Daniel Whitley was leaning against a stump, and while he was calmly lighting a pipe he regarded the three boys with a benevolent gaze.

“None of you need be ashamed of bein’ scared,” he said.  “I’ve been in a lot of fights myself, though all of them were mere skirmishes when put alongside of this, an’ I’ve been scared a heap today.  I’ve been scared for myself, an’ I’ve been scared for the regiment, an’ I’ve been scared for the whole army, an’ I’ve been scared on general principles, but here we are, alive an’ kickin’, an’ we ought to feel powerful thankful for that.”

“We are,” said Dick.  Then he rubbed his head as if some sudden thought had occurred to him.

“What is it, Dick?” asked Warner.

“I’ve realized all at once that I’m tremendously hungry.  The Confederates broke up our breakfast.  We never had time to think of dinner, and now its nothing to eat.”

“Me, too,” said Pennington.  “If you were to hit me in the stomach I’d give back a hollow sound like a drum.  Why don’t somebody ring the supper bell?”

But fires were soon lighted along their whole front, and provisions were brought up from the rear and from the steamers.  The soldiers, feeling their strength returning, ate ravenously.  They also talked much of the battle.  Many of them were yet under the influence of hysterical excitement.  They told extraordinary stories of the things they had seen and done, and they believed all they told were true.  They ate fiercely, at first almost like wolves, but after a while they resolved into their true state as amiable young human beings and were ashamed of themselves.

All the while Buell’s army of the Ohio was passing over the river and joining Grant’s army of the Tennessee.  Regiment after regiment and brigade after brigade crossed.  The guns that Nelson had been forced to leave behind were also brought up and were taken over with the other batteries.  While the shattered remnants of the army of the Tennessee were resting, the fresh army of the Ohio was marching by it in the late hours of the night in order to face the Southern foe in the morning.

The Southern army itself lay deep in the woods from which it had driven its enemy.  Always the assailant through the day, its losses had been immense.  Many thousands had fallen, and no new troops were coming to take their place.  Continual reinforcements came to the North throughout the night, not a soldier came to the South.  Beauregard, at dawn, would have to face twice his numbers, at least half of whom were fresh troops.

Another conference was held by the Southern generals in the forest, but now the central figure, the great Johnston, was gone.  The others, however, summoned their courage anew, and passed the whole night arranging their forces, cheering the men, and preparing for the morn.  Their scouts and skirmishers kept watch on the Northern camp, and the Southerners believed that while they had whipped only one army the day before, they could whip two on the morrow.

Dick and his friends meanwhile were lying on the earth, resting, but not able to sleep.  The nerves, drawn so tightly by the day’s work, were not yet relaxed wholly.  A deep apathy seized them all.  Dick, from a high point on which he lay, saw the dark surface of the Tennessee, and the lights on the puffing steamers as they crossed, bearing the Army of the Ohio.  His mind did not work actively now, but he felt that they were saved.  The deep river, although it was on their flank, seemed to flow as a barrier against the foe, and it was, in fact, a barrier more and more, as without its command the second Union army could never have come to the relief of the first.

Dick, after a while, saw Colonel Winchester, and other officers near him.  They were talking of their losses.  They gave the names of many generals and colonels who had been killed.  Presently they moved away, and he fell into an uneasy sleep, or rather doze, from which he was awakened after a while by a heavy rumbling sound of a distant cannonade.

The boy sprang up, wondering why any one should wish to renew the battle in the middle of the night, and then he saw that it was no battle.  The sound was thunder rolling heavily on the southern horizon, and the night had become very dark.  Vivid flashes of lightning cut the sky, and a strong wind rushed among the trees.  Heavy drops of water struck him in the face and then the rain swept down.

Dick did not seek protection from the storm, nor did any of those near him.  The cool drops were grateful to their faces after the heat and strife of the day.  Their pulses became stronger, and the blood flowed in a quickened torrent through their veins.  They let it pour upon them, merely seeking to keep their ammunition dry.

Ten thousand wounded were yet lying untouched in the forest, but the rain was grateful to them, too.  When they could they turned their fevered faces up to it that it might beat upon them and bring grateful coolness.

Deep in the night a council like that of the Southern generals was held in the Northern camp, also.  Grant, his face an expressionless mask, presided, and said but little.  Buell, Sherman, McClernand, Nelson, Wallace and others, were there, and Buell and Sherman, like their chief, spoke little.  The three men upon whom most rested were very taciturn that night, but it is likely that extraordinary thoughts were passing in the minds of every one of the three.

Grant, after a day in which any one of a dozen chances would have wrecked him, must have concluded that in very deed and truth he was the favorite child of Fortune.  When one is saved again and again from the very verge he begins to believe that failure is impossible, and in that very belief lies the greatest guard against failure.

It is said of Grant that in the night after his great defeat around the church of Shiloh, he was still confident, that he told his generals they would certainly win on the morrow, and he reminded them that if the Union army had suffered terribly, the Southern army must have suffered almost equally so, and would face them at dawn with numbers far less than their own.  He had not displayed the greatest skill, but he had shown the greatest moral courage, and now on the night between battles it was that quality that was needed most.

Dick, not having slept any the night before, and having passed through a day of fierce battle, was overcome after midnight, and sank into a sleep that was mere lethargy.  He awoke once before dawn and remembered, but vaguely, all that had happened.  Yet he was conscious that there was much movement in the forest.  He heard the tread of many feet, the sound of commands, the neigh of horses and the rumbling of cannon wheels.  The Army of the Ohio was passing to the exposed flank of the Army of the Tennessee and at dawn it would all be in line.  He also caught flitting glimpses of the Tennessee, and of the steamers loaded with troops still crossing, and he heard the boom of the heavy cannon on the gunboats which still, at regular and short intervals, sent huge shells curving into the forest toward the camp of the Southern army.  He also saw near him Warner and Pennington sound asleep on the ground, and then he sank back into his own lethargic slumber.

He was awakened by the call of a trumpet, and, as he rose, he saw the whole regiment or rather, what was left of it, rising with him.  It was not yet dawn, and a light rain was falling, but smoldering fires disclosed the ground for some distance, and also the river on which the gunboats and transports were now gathered in a fleet.

Colonel Winchester beckoned to him.

“All right this morning, Dick?” he said.

“Yes, sir; I’m ready for my duty.”

“And you, too, Warner and Pennington?”

“We are, sir,” they replied together.

“Then keep close beside me.  I don’t know when I may want you for a message.  Daybreak will be here in a half hour.  The entire Army of the Ohio, led by General Buell in person will be in position then or very shortly afterward, and a new, and, we hope, a very different battle will begin.”

Food and coffee were served to the men, and while the rain was still falling they formed in line and awaited the dawn.  The desire to retrieve their fortunes was as strong among the farmer lads as it was among the officers who took care to spread among them the statement that Buell’s army alone was as numerous as the Southern force, and probably more numerous since their enemy must have sustained terrible losses.  Thus they stood patiently, while the rain thinned and the sun at last showed a red edge through floating clouds.

They waited yet a little while longer, and then the boom of a heavy gun in the forest told them that the enemy was advancing to begin the battle afresh.  Again it was the Southern army that attacked, although it was no surprise now.  Yet Beauregard and his generals were still sanguine of completing the victory.  Their scouts and skirmishers had failed to discover that the entire army of Buell also was now in front of them.

Bragg was gathering his division on the left to hurl it like a thunderbolt upon Grant’s shattered brigades.  Hardee and the bishop-general were in the center, and Breckinridge led the right.  But as they moved forward to attack the Union troops came out to meet them.  Nelson had occupied the high ground between Lick and Owl Creeks, and his and the Southern troops met in a fierce clash shortly after dawn.

Beauregard, drawn by the firing at that point, and noticing the courage and tenacity with which the Northern troops held their ground, sending in volley after volley, divined at once that these were not the beaten troops of the day before, but new men.  This swarthy general, volatile and dramatic, nevertheless had great penetration.  He understood on the instant a fact that his soldiers did not comprehend until later.  He knew that the whole army of Buell was now before him.

For the moment it was Beauregard and Buell who were the protagonists, instead of Grant and Johnston as on the day before.  The Southern leader gathered all his forces and hurled them upon Nelson.  Weary though the Southern soldiers were, their attack was made with utmost fire and vigor.  A long and furious combat ensued.  A Southern division under Cheatham rushed to the help of their fellows.  Buell’s forces were driven in again and again, and only his heavy batteries enabled him to regain his lost ground.

Buell led splendid troops that he had trained long and rigidly, and they had not been in the conflict the day before.  Fresh and with unbroken ranks, not a man wounded or missing, they had entered the battle and both Grant and Buell, as well as their division commanders, expected an easy victory where the Army of the Ohio stood.

Buell, to his amazement, saw himself reduced to the defensive.  He and Grant had reckoned that the decimated brigades of the South could not stand at all before him, but just as on the first day they came on with the fierce rebel yell, hurling themselves upon superior numbers, taking the cannon of their enemy, losing them, and retaking them and losing them again, but never yielding.

The great conflict increased in violence.  Buell, a man of iron courage, saw that his soldiers must fight to the uttermost, not for victory only, but even to ward off defeat.  The dawn was now far advanced.  The rain had ceased, and the sun again shot down sheaves of fiery rays upon a vast low cloud of fire and smoke in which thousands of men met in desperate combat.

Nine o’clock came.  It had been expected by Grant that Buell long before that time would have swept everything before him.  But for three hours Buell had been fighting to keep himself from being swept away.  The Southern troops seemed animated by that extraordinary battle fever and absolute contempt of death which distinguished them so often during this war.  Buell’s army was driven in on both flanks, and only the center held fast.  It began to seem possible that the South, despite her reduced ranks might yet defeat both Northern armies.  Another battery dashed up to the relief of the men in blue.  It was charged at once by the men in gray so fiercely that the gunners were glad to escape with their guns, and once more the wild rebel yell of triumph swelled through the southern forest.

Dick, standing with his comrades on one of the ridges that they had defended so well, listened to the roar of conflict on the wing, ever increasing in volume, and watched the vast clouds of smoke gathering over the forest.  He could see from where he stood the flash of rifle fire and the blaze of cannon, and both eye and ear told him that the battle was not moving back upon the South.

“It seems that we do not make headway, sir,” he said to Colonel Winchester, who also stood by him, looking and listening.

“Not that I can perceive,” replied the colonel, “and yet with the rush of forty thousand fresh troops of ours upon the field I deemed victory quick and easy.  How the battle grows!  How the South fights!”

Colonel Winchester walked away presently and joined Sherman, who was eagerly watching the mighty conflict, into which he knew that his own worn and shattered troops must sooner or later be drawn.  He walked up and down in front of his lines, saying little but seeing everything.  His tall form was seen by all his men.  He, too, must have felt a singular thrill at that moment.  He must have known that his star was rising.  He, more than any other, with his valor, penetrating mind and decision had saved the Northern army from complete destruction the first day at Shiloh.  He had not been able to avert defeat, but he had prevented utter ruin.  His division alone had held together in the face of the Southern attack until night came.

Sherman must have recalled, too, how his statement that the North would need 200,000 troops in the west alone had been sneered at, and he had been called mad.  But he neither boasted nor predicted, continuing to watch intently the swelling battle.

“I had enough fighting yesterday to last me a hundred years,” said Warner to Dick, “but it seems that I’m to have more today.  If the Johnnies had any regard for the rules of war they’d have retreated long ago.”

“We’ll win yet,” said Dick hopefully, “but I don’t think we can achieve any big victory.  Look, there’s General Grant himself.”

Grant was passing along his whole line.  While leaving the main battle to Buell he retained general command and watched everything.  He, too, observed the failure of Buell’s army to drive the enemy before them, and he must have felt a sinking of the heart, but he did not show it.  Instead he spoke only of victory, when he made any comment at all, and sent the members of his staff to make new arrangements.  He must bring into action every gun and man he had or he would yet lose.

It was now 10 o’clock and the new battle had lasted with the utmost fury and desperation for four hours.  Dick, after General Grant rode on, felt as if a sudden thrill had run through the whole army.  He saw men rising from the earth and tightening their belts.  He saw gunners gathering around their guns and making ready with the ammunition.  He knew the remains of Grant’s army were about to march upon the enemy, helping the Army of the Ohio to achieve the task that had proved so great.

Sherman, McClernand and other generals now passed among their troops, cheering them, telling them that the time had come to win back what they had lost the day before, and that victory was sure.  They called upon them for another great effort, and a shout rolled along the line of willing soldiers.

Sherman’s whole division now raised itself up and rushed at the enemy, Dick and his comrades in the front of their own regiment.  The whole Northern line was now engaged.  Grant, true to his resolution, had hurled every man and every gun upon his foe.

The Southern generals felt the immense weight of the numbers that were now driving down upon them.  Their decimated ranks could not withstand the charge of two armies.  In the center where Buell’s men, having stood fast from the first, were now advancing, they were compelled to give way and lost several guns.  On the wings the heavy Northern brigades were advancing also, and the whole Southern line was pushed back.  So much inferior was the South in numbers that her enemy began to overlap her on the flanks also.

A tremendous shout of exultation swept through the Northern ranks, as they felt themselves advancing.  The promises of their generals were coming true, and there is nothing sweeter than victory after defeat.  Fortune, after frowning upon her so long, was now smiling upon the North.  The exultant cheer swept through the ranks again, and back came the defiant rebel yell.

A young soldier often feels what is happening with as true instinct as a general.  Dick now knew that the North would recover the field, and that the South, cut down fearfully, though having performed prodigies of valor, must fight to save herself.  He felt that the resistance in front of them was no longer invincible.  He saw in the flash of the firing that the Southern ranks were thin, very thin, and he knew that there was no break in their own advance.

Now the sanguine Northern generals planned the entire destruction of the Southern army.  There was only one road by which Beauregard could retreat to Corinth.  A whole Northern division rushed in to block the way.  Sherman, in his advance, came again to the ground around the little Methodist chapel of Shiloh which he had defended so well the day before, and crowded his whole force upon the Southern line at that point.  Once more the primitive church in the woods looked down upon one of the most sanguinary conflicts of the whole war.  If Sherman could break through the Southern line here Beauregard’s whole army would be lost.

But the Southern soldiers were capable of another and a mighty effort.  Their generals saw the danger and acted with their usual promptness and decision.  They gathered together their shattered brigades and hurled them like a thunderbolt upon the Union left and center.  The shock was terrific.  Sherman, with all his staunchness and the valor of his men, was compelled to give way.  McClernand, too, reeled back, others were driven in also.  Whole brigades and regiments were cut to pieces or thrown in confusion.  The Southerners cut a wide gap in the Northern army, through which they rushed in triumph, holding the Corinth road against every attack and making their rear secure.

Sherman’s division, after its momentary repulse, gathered itself anew, and, although knowing now that the Southern army could not be entrapped, drove again with all its might upon the positions around the church.  They passed over the dead of the day before, and gathered increasing vigor, as they saw that the enemy was slowly drawing back.

Grant reformed his line, which had been shattered by the last fiery and successful attack of the South.  Along the whole long line the trumpets sang the charge, and brigades and batteries advanced.

But the end of Shiloh was at hand.  Despite the prodigies of valor performed by their men, the Southern generals saw that they could not longer hold the field.  The junction of Grant and Buell, after all, had proved too much for them.  The bugles sounded the retreat, and reluctantly they gave up the ground which they had won with so much courage and daring.  They retreated rather as victors than defeated men, presenting a bristling front to the enemy until their regiments were lost in the forest, and beating off every attempt of skirmishers or cavalry to molest them.

It was the middle of the afternoon when the last shot was fired, and the Southern army at its leisure resumed its march toward Corinth, protected on the flanks by its cavalry, and carrying with it the assurance that although not victorious over two armies it had been victorious over one, and had struck the most stunning blow yet known in American history.

When the last of the Southern regiments disappeared in the deep woods, Dick and many of those around him sank exhausted upon the ground.  Even had they been ordered to follow they would have been incapable of it.  Complete nervous collapse followed such days and nights as those through which they had passed.

Nor did Grant and Buell wish to pursue.  Their armies had been too terribly shaken to make another attack.  Nearly fifteen thousand of their men had fallen and the dead and wounded still lay scattered widely through the woods.  The South had lost almost as many.  Nearly a third of her army had been killed or wounded in the battle, and yet they retired in good order, showing the desperate valor of these sons of hers.

The double army which had saved itself, but which had yet been unable to destroy its enemy, slept that night in the recovered camp.  The generals discussed in subdued tones their narrow escape, and the soldiers, who now understood very well what had happened, talked of it in the same way.

“We knew that it was going to be a big war,” said Dick, “but it’s going to be far bigger than we thought.”

“And we won’t make that easy parade down to the Gulf,” said Warner.  “I’m thinking that a lot of lions are in the path.”

“But we’ll win!” said Dick.  “In the end we’ll surely win!”

Then after dreaming a little with his eyes open he fell asleep, gathering new strength for mighty campaigns yet to come.