Scenes in the Captured Fortress.
In the fort, the magazine was torn open, the guns completely shattered, and the ground stained with blood, brains, and fragments of flesh. Under gray blankets were six corpses, one with the head torn off and the trunk completely blackened with powder; others with legs severed and breasts opened in ghastly wounds. The survivors, stretched upon cots, rent the air with groans.
The captured Rebel officers, in a profusion of gold lace, were taken to Grant's head-quarters. Tilghman was good-looking, broad-shouldered, with the pompous manner of the South. Commodore Foote asked him:
"How could you fight against the old flag?"
"It was hard," he replied, "but I had to go with my people."
Presently a Chicago reporter inquired of him:
"How do you spell your name, General?"
"Sir," replied Tilghman, with indescribable pomposity, "if General Grant wishes to use my name in his official dispatches, I have no objection; but, sir, I do not wish to appear at all in this matter in any newspaper report."
"I merely asked it," persisted the journalist, "for the list of prisoners captured."
Tilghman, whose name should have been Turveydrop, replied, with a lofty air and a majestic wave of the hand:
"You will oblige me, sir, by not giving my name in any newspaper connection whatever!"
One of the Rebel officers was reminded of the predominance of Union sentiments among the people about Fort Henry.
"True, sir," was his reply. "It is always so in these hilly countries. You see, these d-----d Hoosiers don't know any better. For the genuine southern feeling, sir, you must go among the gentlemen—the rich people. You won't find any Tories there."
Commodore Foote in the Pulpit.
The gunboats returned to Cairo for repairs. On the next Sunday morning, the pastor of the Cairo Presbyterian Church failing to arrive, Commodore Foote was induced to conduct the services. From the text:
"Let not your hearts be troubled; ye believe in God; believe also in me,"
"Let not your hearts be troubled; ye believe in God; believe also in me,"
he preached an excellent practical discourse, urging that human happiness depends upon integrity, pure living, and conscientious performance of duty.
The land forces remained near Fort Henry. A few days after the battle, I stepped into General Grant's head-quarters to bid him good-by, as I was about starting for New York.
"You had better wait a day or two," he said.
"Why?"
"Because I am going over to capture Fort Donelson to-morrow."
"How strong is it?"
"We have not been able to ascertain exactly, but I think we can take it. At all events, we can try."
The hopelessly muddy roads and the falling snow were terrible to our troops, who had no tents; but Grant marched to the fort. On Wednesday he skirmished and placed his men in position; on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, he fought from daylight until dark. On Saturdaynight, the sanguine General Pillow telegraphed to Nashville:
"The day is ours. I have repulsed the enemy at all points, but I want re-enforcements."
"The day is ours. I have repulsed the enemy at all points, but I want re-enforcements."
The Capture of Fort Donelson.
Before dawn on Sunday, the negro servant of a Confederate staff officer escaped into our lines, and was taken to General Grant. He insisted that the Rebel commanders were consulting about surrender, and that Floyd's men were already deserting the fort. A few hours later came a letter from Buckner, suggesting the appointment of commissioners to adjust terms of capitulation. Grant wrote in answer:
"I have no terms but unconditional surrender. I propose to move immediately upon your works."
"I have no terms but unconditional surrender. I propose to move immediately upon your works."
Buckner's response, exquisitely characteristic of the Rebels, regretfully accepted what he described as Grant's "ungenerous and unchivalrous terms!" So the North was electrified by a success which recalled the great battles of Napoleon.
Grant first invested the garrison with thirteen thousand men. The enemy's force was twenty-two thousand. For two days, Grant's little command laid siege to this much larger army, which was protected by ample fortifications. At the end of the second day, Grant received re-enforcements, swelling his forces to twenty-six thousand.
From three to four thousand Rebels, of Floyd's command, escaped from the fort; others escaped on the way to Cairo, and several thousand were killed or wounded; but Grant delivered, at Cairo, upward of fifteen thousand eight hundred prisoners.
I was in Chicago when these captives, on their wayto Camp Douglas, passed through the streets in sad procession. Motley was the only wear. A few privates had a stripe on the pantaloons and wore gray military caps; but most, in slouched hats and garments of gray or butternut, made no attempt at uniform. Some had the long hair and cadaverous faces of the extreme South; but under the broad-brimmed hats of the majority, appeared the full, coarse features of the working classes of Missouri, Tennessee, and Arkansas. The Chicago citizens, who crowded the streets, were guilty of no taunts or rude words toward the prisoners.
Columbus, Kentucky, twenty miles below Cairo, on the highest bluffs of the Mississippi, was called the Gibraltar of the West, and expected to be the scene of a great battle.
On the 4th of March, a naval and land expedition was ready to attack it. Before leaving Cairo, hundreds of workmen crowded the gunboats, repairing damages received on the Tennessee River—
"With busy hammers closing rivets up, And giving dreadful notes of preparation."
"With busy hammers closing rivets up, And giving dreadful notes of preparation."
Commodore Foote, lame from his Donelson wound, hobbled on board upon crutches. A great National flag was taken along.
"Don't forget that," said the commodore. "Fight or no fight, we must raise it over Columbus!"
Army and Navy Officers Contrasted.
The leading commanders of the flotilla were from the regular navy—quiet and unassuming, with no nonsense about them. They were far freer from envy and jealousy than army officers. Before the war, the latter had been stationed for years at frontier posts, hundreds of miles beyond civilization, with no resources exceptdrinking and gambling, nothing to excite National feeling or prick the bubble of their State pride. Naval officers, going all over the world, had acquired the liberality which only travel imparts, and learned that, abroad, their country was not known as Virginia or Mississippi, but theUnitedStates of America. With them, it was the Nation first, and the State afterward. Hence, while nearly all southerners holding commissions in the regular army joined the Rebellion, the navy almost unanimously remained loyal.
The low, flat, black iron-clads crept down the river like enormous turtles. Each had attending it a little pocket edition of a steamboat, in the shape of a tug, capable of carrying fifty or sixty men, and moving up the strong current twelve miles an hour. They were constantly puffing about among the unwieldy vessels like a breathless little errand-boy.
The "Gibraltar of the West."
Nearing Columbus, we found that the Rebels had evacuated it twelve hours before. The town was already held by an enterprising scouting party of the Second Illinois Cavalry, who had unearthed and raised an old National flag. Our colors waved from the Rebel Gibraltar, and the last Confederate soldier had abandoned Kentucky.
The enemy left in hot haste. Half-burned barracks, chairs, beds, tables, cooking-stoves, letters, charred gun-carriages, bent musket-barrels, bayonets, and provisions were promiscuously lying about.
The main fortifications, on a plateau one hundred and fifty feet high, mounted eighty-three guns, commanding the river for nearly three miles. Here, and in the auxiliary works, we captured one hundred and fifty pieces of artillery.
Scenes in Columbus, Kentucky.
Fastened to the bluff, we found one end of a greatchain cable, composed of seven-eighths inch iron, which the brilliant Gideon J. Pillow had stretched across the river, to prevent the passage of our gunboats! It was worthy of the man who, in Mexico, dug his ditch on the wrong side of the parapet. The momentum of an iron-clad would have snapped it like a pipe-stem, had not the current of the river broken it long before.
We found, also, enormous piles of torpedoes, which the Rebels had declared would annihilate the Yankee fleet. They became a standing jest among our officers, who termed them original members of the Peace Society, and averred that the rates of marine insurance immediately declined whenever the companies learned that torpedoes had been planted in the waters where the boats were to run!
In the abandoned post-office I collected a bushel of Rebel newspapers, dating back for several weeks. At first the Memphis journals extravagantly commended the South Carolina planters for burning their cotton, after the capture of Port Royal, and urged universal imitation of their example. They said:—
"Let the whole South be made a Moscow; let our enemies find nothing but blackened ruins to reward their invasion!"
"Let the whole South be made a Moscow; let our enemies find nothing but blackened ruins to reward their invasion!"
Extracts from Rebel Newspapers.
But when the capture of Donelson rendered the early fall of Memphis probable, the same journals suddenly changed their tone. They argued that Moscow was not a parallel case; that it would be highly injudicious to fire their city, as the Yankees, if they did take it, would hold it only for a short time; that those who urged applying the torch should be punished as demagogues and public enemies! But they abounded in frantic appeals like the following fromThe Avalanche:
"For the sake of honor and manhood, we trust no young unmarriedman will suffer himself to be drafted. He would become a by-word, a scoff, a burning shame to his sex and his State. If young men in pantaloons will sit behind desks, counters, and molasses-barrels, let the girls present them with the garment proper to their peaceable spirits. He that would go to the field, but cannot, should be aided to do so; he that can go, but will not, should be made to do so."
"For the sake of honor and manhood, we trust no young unmarriedman will suffer himself to be drafted. He would become a by-word, a scoff, a burning shame to his sex and his State. If young men in pantaloons will sit behind desks, counters, and molasses-barrels, let the girls present them with the garment proper to their peaceable spirits. He that would go to the field, but cannot, should be aided to do so; he that can go, but will not, should be made to do so."
The Avalanchewas a great advocate of what is termed the "aggressive policy," declaring that:
"The victorious armies of the South should be precipitated upon the North.IIerHerchief cities should be seized or reduced to ashes; her armies scattered, her States subjugated, and her people compelled to defray the expenses of a war which they have wickedly commenced and obstinately continued. * * * Fearless and invincible, a race of warriors rivaling any that ever followed the standard of an Alexander, a Cæsar, or a Napoleon, the southerners have the power and the will to carry this war into the enemy's country. Let, then, the lightnings of a nation's wrath scathe our foul oppressors! Let the thunder-bolts of war be hurled back upon our dastardly invaders, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, until the recognition of southern independence shall be extorted from the reluctant North, and terms of peace be dictated by a victorious southern army at New York or Chicago."
"The victorious armies of the South should be precipitated upon the North.IIerHerchief cities should be seized or reduced to ashes; her armies scattered, her States subjugated, and her people compelled to defray the expenses of a war which they have wickedly commenced and obstinately continued. * * * Fearless and invincible, a race of warriors rivaling any that ever followed the standard of an Alexander, a Cæsar, or a Napoleon, the southerners have the power and the will to carry this war into the enemy's country. Let, then, the lightnings of a nation's wrath scathe our foul oppressors! Let the thunder-bolts of war be hurled back upon our dastardly invaders, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, until the recognition of southern independence shall be extorted from the reluctant North, and terms of peace be dictated by a victorious southern army at New York or Chicago."
General Jeff. Thompson, a literary Missouri bushwhacker, was termed the "Swamp Fox" and the "Marion of the Southern Revolution." I found one of his effusions, entitled "Home Again," in that once decorous journal,The New Orleans Picayune. Its transition from the pathetic to the profane is a curious anticlimax.
"My dear wife waits my coming,My children lisp my name,And kind friends bid me welcomeTo my own home again.My father's grave lies on the hill,My boys sleep in the vale;I love each rock and murmuring rill,Each mountain, hill, and dale.I'll suffer hardships, toil, and pain,For the good time sure to come;I'll battle long that I may gainMy freedom and my home.I will return, though foes may standDisputing every rod;My own dear home, my native land,I'll win you yet, by ---!"
"My dear wife waits my coming,My children lisp my name,And kind friends bid me welcomeTo my own home again.My father's grave lies on the hill,My boys sleep in the vale;I love each rock and murmuring rill,Each mountain, hill, and dale.
I'll suffer hardships, toil, and pain,For the good time sure to come;I'll battle long that I may gainMy freedom and my home.I will return, though foes may standDisputing every rod;My own dear home, my native land,I'll win you yet, by ---!"
Inmates of the Union Hospitals.
Our hospitals at Mound City, Illinois, contained fourteen hundred inmates. A walk along the double rows of cots in the long wards revealed the sadder phase of war. Here was a typhoid-fever patient, motionless and unconscious, the light forever gone out from his glazed eyes; here a lad, pale and attenuated, who, with a shattered leg, had lain upon this weary couch for four months. There was a Tennessean, who, abandoning his family, came stealthily hundreds of miles to enlist under the Stars and Stripes, with perfect faith in their triumph, and had lost a leg at Donelson; an Illinoisan, from the same battle, with a ghastly aperture in the face, still blackened with powder from his enemy's rifle; a young officer in neat dressing-gown, furnished by the United States Sanitary Commission, sitting up reading a newspaper, but with the sleeve of his left arm limp and empty; marines terribly scalded by the bursting boiler of the Essex at Fort Henry, some of whose whole bodies were one continuous scar. Sick, wounded, and convalescent were alike cheerful; and twenty-five Sisters of Mercy, worthy of their name, moved noiselessly among them, ministering to their wants.
Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground. The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death.Tempest.If it should thunder as it did before, I know not where to lay my head.Ibid.
Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground. The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death.Tempest.If it should thunder as it did before, I know not where to lay my head.Ibid.
Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground. The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death.
Tempest.
If it should thunder as it did before, I know not where to lay my head.
Ibid.
Starting down the Mississippi.
On the 14th of March, the flotilla again started down the Mississippi, steaming slowly by Columbus, where Venus followed close upon Mars, in the form of two women disbursing pies and some other commodities to sailors and soldiers. The next day we anchored above Island Number Ten, where Beauregard had built formidable fortifications.
A fast little Rebel gunboat, called the Grampus, ran screeching away from the range of our guns. Below her we could read with glasses the names painted upon the many steamers lying in front of the enemy's works, and see the guns upon a great floating battery.
Our gunboats fired one or two experimental shots, and the mortar-rafts, with tremendous explosions, began to throw their ten-inch shells, weighing two hundred and fifty pounds each. Great results were expected from these enormous mortars, but they proved inaccurate. Our shots fell among the batteries and steamboats of the enemy, throwing up clouds of dirt and sheets of water. The Rebel guns replied with great puffs of smoke; but their missiles, bounding along the river, fell three-quarters of a mile short.
Light skirmishing in closer range continued for several days. My own quarters were on the Benton, Commodore Foote's flagship. She was the largest of the iron-clads,one hundred and eighty-three feet by seventy, and contained quite a little community of two hundred and forty men.
Standing upon the hurricane roof, directly over our bow-guns, we caught the first glimpse of each shot, a few feet from the muzzle, and watched it rushing through the air like a round, black meteor, till it exploded two or three miles away. After we saw the warning puff of smoke, the time seemed very long before each Rebel shot struck the water near us; but no more than ten or fifteen seconds ever elapsed.
When ready to attack the batteries, Commodore Foote said to me:
"You had better take your place with the other correspondents, upon a transport in the rear, out of range. Should any accident befall you here, censure would be cast upon me for permitting you to stay."
Haunted by a resistless curiosity to learn exactly how one feels under fire, I persuaded him to let me remain.
Bombardment of Island Number Ten.
Two other iron-clads, the St. Louis and the Cincinnati, were lashed upon either side of the Benton. Hammocks were taken down and piled in front of the boilers to protect them; the hose was attached to reservoirs of hot water, designed for boarders in close conflict; surgeons scrutinized the edges of their instruments, while our triple floating battery moved slowly down, with the other iron-clads a short distance in the rear. We opened fire, and the balls of the enemy soon replied, now and then striking our boats.
A deafening noise from the St. Louis shook every plank beneath our feet. A moment after, a dozen men rushed upon her deck, their faces so blackened by powder that they would have been taken for negroes. Two were carrying the lifeless form of a third; severalothers were wounded. Through the din of the cannonade, one of her crew shouted to us from a port-hole that an old forty-two pounder had exploded, killing and mutilating several men.
"Here comes another Shot."
We obtained the best view from the hurricane deck of the Benton, where there could be no special danger from splinters. While we stood there, one of the party was constantly on the look-out, and, seeing a puff of smoke curl up from the Rebel battery, he would shout:
"Here comes another!"
Then we all dropped upon our faces behind the iron-plated pilot-house, which rose from the deck like a great umbrella. The screaming shot would sometimes strike our bows, but usually pass over, falling into the water behind us.
While the Rebels fired from one battery, there was just sufficient excitement to make it interesting; but when they opened with two others, stationed at different points in the bend of the river, their range completely covered the pilot-house. Dropping behind that shelter to avoid the missiles in front, we were exposed to a hail of shot from the side. Thereupon the commodore peremptorily ordered us below, and we went down upon the gun-deck.
A correspondent ofThe Chicago Times, who chanced to be on board, took a position in the stern of the boat, under the impression that it was entirely safe. A moment after he came rushing in with blanched face and dripping clothing. A shot had struck within three feet of him, glancing into the river, and drenching every thing in the vicinity.
That long gun-deck was alive with action. The executive officer, Lieutenant Bishop, a gallant young fellow,fresh from the naval school, superintended every thing. Swarthy gunners manned the pieces; little powder-boys rushed to and fro with ammunition, and hurrying men crowded the long compartment.
There came a tremendous crashing of glass, iron, and wood! An eight-inch solid shot, penetrating the half-inch iron plating and the five-inch timber, near the bows, as if they were paper, buried itself in the deck, and rebounded, striking the roof. In that manner it danced along the entire length of the boat, through the cabin, the ward-room, the machinery, the pantry—where it smashed a great deal of crockery—until, at the extreme stern, it fell and remained upon the commodore's writing-desk, crushing in the lid.
A moment before the noisy, agile visitor arrived, the whole deck seemed crowded with busy men. A moment after, I looked again. A score of undismayed fellows were comfortably blowing splinters from their mouths and beards, and brushing them from their hair and faces; but, by a fortunate accident, not a single one of them was hurt.
How Onefeels underFeels UnderFire.
As the shot screamed along very near me, my curiosity diminished. I had a dim perception that nothing in this gunboat life could become me like the leaving of it. A mulatto cabin-boy, whose face turned almost white when the missile tore through the boat, shared my sensations.
"I wish that I was out of it," he said, confidentially; "but I put my own neck into this yoke, and I have got to wear it."
Toward evening, some of the enemy's batteries were silent, and we idlers once more sought the hurricane deck, dodging behind the pilot-house whenever the smoke puffed from the hostile guns. Once, some onecried, "There she comes!" and we dropped as usual. Looking up, I noticed a second engineer standing beside me.
"Lie down, Blakely!" I said, sharply.
He replied laughingly, with his hands in his pockets:
"O no, there is no need of it; one is just as safe here."
While he spoke, the Rebel shot passed within fifteen inches of his bloodless face, shaved a sheet-iron ventilator, tore through the chimney, severed a large wrought-iron rod, struck the deck, plowed through a half-inch iron plate, neatly cutting it in two, passed under the next plate, and then came out again, with its force spent, and rolled languidly against a sky-light. When he felt the rush of air, Blakely bent back almost double, and thereafter he was among the first to seek the shelter of the pilot-house.
Fifty Shots to the Minute.
From the mortars and the guns on both sides, there were sometimes fifty shots to the minute. The jarrings and explosions induced head-ache for hours afterward. The results of the day's bombardment were not very sanguinary. Our iron-clads were struck scores of times, but few men were injured. This desultory fighting was kept up for two or three weeks.
Meanwhile, General Pope, moving across the country from Cairo with great enterprise and activity, had defeated the Rebels and captured their forts at New Madrid, on the Missouri shore of the Mississippi, eight miles below Island Number Ten. He thus held the river in the rear of the enemy, preventing steamboats from ascending to them; but he had not even a skiff or a raft in which he could cross to the Tennessee bank, and reach the rear of the fortifications. How to supply him with boats was the great problem.
Pope was anxious that the commodore should sendone of the iron-clads to him, past the Rebel fortifications. Foote hesitated, as running batteries was then an untried experiment.
Pope had an active, hard-working Illinois engineer regiment, which began cutting a canal, to open communication between the flotilla and New Madrid; and we waited for results.
Daily Life on a Gunboat.
I found life on the Benton full of novelty. More than half of her crew were old salts, and the discipline was the same as on a man-of-war. Half-hour bells marked the passage of time. Every morning the deck was holystoned to its utmost possibilities of whiteness. Through each day we heard the shrill whistle of the boatswain, amid hoarse calls of "All hands to quarters," "Stand by the hammocks!" etc.
Even the negro servants caught the naval expressions. One of them, playing on the guitar and singing, broke down from too high a pitch.
"Too much elevation there," said he. "I must depress a little."
"Yes," replied another. "Start again on the gun-deck."
Exchanging shots with the enemy grew monotonous. Reading, writing, or playing chess in the ward-room, we carelessly noted the reports from the Rebel batteries, and some officer from the deck walked in, saying:
"There's another!"
"Where did it strike?" asked some one, quitecare lesslycarelessly.
"Near us," or "Just over us in the woods," would be the reply; and the idlers returned to their employments.
My own state-room was within six feet of a thirty-two pounder, which fired every fifteen minutes duringthe day. The explosions in no wise disturbed my afternoon naps.
On Sunday mornings, after the weekly muster, the men in clean blue shirts and tidy clothing, and the officers, in full uniform, with all their bravery of blue and gold, assembled on the gun-deck for religious service. Hat in hand, they stood in a half circle around the commodore, who, behind a high stool, upon which the National flag was spread, read the comprehensive prayer for "All who are afflicted in mind, body, or estate," or acknowledged that "We have done the things which we ought not to have done, and left undone the things which we ought to have done."
Among the groups of worshipers were seen the gaping mouths of the black guns, and the pyramidal piles of grape and canister ready for use. During prayer, the boat was often shaken by the discharge of a mortar, which made the neighboring woods resound with its long, rolling echoes. The commodore extemporized a brief, simple address on Christian life and duty; then the men were "piped down" and dispersed.
The Carondelet Runs the Batteries.
On a dark April night, during a terrific thunder-shower, the iron-clad Carondelet started to run the gantlet. The undertaking was deemed hazardous in the extreme. The commodore gave to her commander written instructions how to destroy her, should she become disabled; and solemnly commended him to the mercy and protection of Almighty God.
The Carondelet crept noiselessly down through the darkness. When the Rebels discovered her, they opened with shot, shell, and bullets. All her ports were closed, and she did not fire a gun. It was too dark to guide her by the insufficient glimpses of the shore obtained from the little peep-holes of her pilot-house. Mr. D. R. Hoell, anold river pilot, volunteered to remain unprotected on the open upper deck, among the rattling shots and the singing bullets, to give information to his partners within. His daring was promptly rewarded by an appointment as lieutenant in the navy.
Upon the flag-ship above intense anxiety prevailed. After an hour, which seemed a day, from far down the river boomed two heavy reports; then there was silence, then two shots again. All gave a sigh of relief. This was the signal that the Carondelet had lived through the terrible ordeal!
Wonderful Feat of Pope's Engineers.
The Rebels had made themselves very merry over Pope's canal. But, at daylight on the second morning after this feat of the iron-clad, they saw four little stern-wheel steamboats lying in front of Pope's camps. The canal was a success! In two weeks the indefatigable engineers had brought these steamers from Foote's flotilla, sixteen miles, through corn-fields, woods, and swamps, cutting channels from one bayou to another, and felling heavy timber all the way. They were compelled to saw off hundreds of huge trees, three feet below the water's edge. It was one of the most creditable feats of the war.
"Let all the world take notice," said a Confederate newspaper, "that the southern troops are gentlemen, and must be subjected to no drudgery."
"Let all the world take notice," said a Confederate newspaper, "that the southern troops are gentlemen, and must be subjected to no drudgery."
The loyal troops, like these Illinois engineers, were men of skilled industry, proud to know themselves "kings of two hands."
The Confederates felt that Birnam wood had come to Dunsinane. Declaring that it was useless to fight men who would deliberately float gunboats by the very muzzles of their heavy guns, and could run steamers sixteenmiles over dry land, they began to evacuate Island Number Ten. But Pope had already ferried the greater part of his army across the river, and he replied to my inquiries:
"I will have every mother's son of them!"
The Rebels Effectively Caged.
He kept his promise. The Rebels were caged. They fled in haste across the country to Tiptonville, where they supposed their steamboats awaited them. Instead, they found two of our iron-clads lying in front of the town, and learned that Pope held the river even ten miles below. The trap was complete. On their front was Tiptonville, with the cavernous eyes of the Carondelet and the Pittsburgh ominously scrutinizing them. At their left was an impassable line of lake and slough; at their right a dry region, bounded by the river, and held by our troops; in their rear, Pope's army was hotly pursuing them. Some leaped into the lake or plunged into the swamps, trying to escape. Three times the Rebel forces drew up in line of battle; but they were too much demoralized to fight, and, after a weary night, they surrendered unconditionally.
At sunrise, long files of stained, bedraggled soldiers, in butternut and jeans, began to move sadly into a great corn-field, and stack their arms. The prisoners numbered twenty-eight hundred. We captured upward of a hundred heavy guns, twenty-five field-pieces, half a dozen steamboats, and immense supplies of provisions and ammunition. The victory was won with trifling loss of life, and reflected the highest credit both upon the land and water forces. The army and the navy, fitting together like the two blades of the scissors, had cut the gordian knot.
Pope telegraphed to Halleck that, if steamboats could be furnished him, in four days he would plant theStars and Stripes in Memphis. Halleck, as usual, engrossed in strategy, declined to supply the transportation.
The Northern Flood Rolling on.
But the great northern flood rolled on toward the Gulf, and in its resistless torrent was no refluent wave.
Of sallies and retires; of trenches, tents,Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets;Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin;And all the currents of a heady fight.King Henry IV.
Of sallies and retires; of trenches, tents,Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets;Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin;And all the currents of a heady fight.King Henry IV.
Of sallies and retires; of trenches, tents,Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets;Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin;And all the currents of a heady fight.
King Henry IV.
The Battle of Shiloh.
Simultaneously with the capture of Island Number Ten occurred the battle of Shiloh. The first reports were very wild, stating our loss at seventeen thousand, and asserting that the Union commander had been disastrously surprised, and hundreds of men bayoneted in their tents. It was even added that Grant was intoxicated during the action. This last fiction showed the tenacity of a bad name. Years before, Grant was intemperate; but he had abandoned the habit soon after the beginning of the war.
General Albert Sydney Johnson was killed, and Beauregard ultimately driven back, leaving his dead and wounded in our hands; but Jefferson Davis, with the usual Rebel policy, announced in a special message to the Confederate Congress:
"It has pleased Almighty God again to crown the Confederate arms with a glorious and decided victory over our invaders."
"It has pleased Almighty God again to crown the Confederate arms with a glorious and decided victory over our invaders."
I went up the Tennessee River by a boat crowded with representatives—chiefly women—of the Sanitary Commissions of Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Chicago.
The Reverend Robert Colyer.
One evening, religious services were held in thecabin. A clergyman exhorted his hearers, when they should arrive at the bloody field, to minister to the spiritual as well as physical wants of the sufferers. With special infelicity, he added:
"Many of them have doubtless been wicked men; but you can, at least, remind them of divine mercy, and tell them the story of the thief on the cross."
The next speaker, a quiet gentleman, wearing the blouse of a private soldier, after some remarks about practical religion, added:
"I can not agree with the last brother. I believe we shall best serve the souls of our wounded soldiers by ministering, for the present, simply to their bodies. For my own part, I feel that he who has fallen fighting for our country—for your Cause and mine—is more of a man than I am. He may have been wicked; but I think room will be found for him among the many mansions above. I should be ashamed to tell him the story of the thief on the cross."
Hearty, spontaneous clapping of hands through the crowded cabin followed this sentiment—a rather unusual demonstration for a prayer-meeting. The speaker was the Rev. Robert Colyer, of Chicago.
With officers who had participated in the battle, I visited every part of the field. The ground was broken by sharp hills, deep ravines, and dense timber, which the eye could not penetrate.
The reports of a surprise were substantially untrue. No man was bayoneted in his tent, or anywhere else, according to the best evidence I could obtain.
But the statements, said to come from Grant and Sherman, that they could not have been better prepared, had they known that Beauregard designed to attack, were also untrue. Our troops were not encamped advantageouslyfor battle. Raw and unarmed regiments were on the extreme front, which was not picketed or scouted as it should have been in the face of an enemy.
Beauregard attacked on Sunday morning at daylight. The Rebels greatly outnumbered the Unionists, and impetuously forced them back. Grant's army was entirely western. It contained representatives of nearly every county in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin.
Partially unprepared, and steadily driven back, often ill commanded and their organizations broken, the men fought with wonderful tenacity. It was almost a hand-to-hand conflict. Confederates and Loyalists, from behind trees, within thirty feet of each other, kept up a hot fire, shouting respectively, "Bull Run!" and "Donelson!"
Prentiss' shattered division, in that dense forest, was flanked before its commander knew that the supporting forces—McClernand on his right and Hurlbut on his left—had been driven back. Messengers sent to him by those commanders were killed. During a lull in the firing, Prentiss was lighting his cigar from the pipe of a soldier when he learned that the enemy was on both sides of him, half a mile in his rear. With the remnant of his command he was captured.
A Union Orator Captured.
Remaining in Rebel hands for six months, he was enabled to indulge in oratory to his heart's content. Southern papers announced, with intense indignation, that Prentiss—occupying, with his officers, an entire train—called out by the bystanders, was permitted to make radical Union speeches at many southern railway stations. Removed from prison to prison, the Illinois General continued to harangue the people, and his men to sing the "Star-Spangled Banner," until at last the Rebels were glad to exchange them.
Grant and Sherman in Battle.
Throughout the battle, Grant rode to and fro on the front, smoking his inevitable cigar, with his usual stolidity and good fortune. Horses and men were killed all around him, but he did not receive a scratch. On that wooded field, it was impossible for any one to keep advised of the progress of the struggle. Grant gave few orders, merely bidding his generals do the best they could.
Sherman had many hair-breadth 'scapes. Hisbriddlebridle-rein was cut off by a bullet within two inches of his fingers. As he was leaning forward in the saddle, a ball whistled through the top and back of his hat. His metallic shoulder-strap warded off another bullet, and a third passed through the palm of his hand. Three horses were shot under him. He was the hero of the day. All awarded to him the highest praise for skill and gallantry. He was promoted to a major-generalship, dating from the battle. His official report was a clear, vivid, and fascinating description of the conflict.
Five bullets penetrated the clothing of an officer on McClernand's staff, but did not break the skin. A ball knocked out two front teeth of a private in the Seventeenth Illinois Infantry, but did him no further injury. A rifle-shot passed through the head of a soldier in the First Missouri Artillery, coming out just above the ear, but did not prove fatal. Dr. Cornyn, of St. Louis, told me that he extracted a ball from the brain of one soldier, who, three days afterward, was on duty, with the bullet in his pocket.
More than a year afterward, at the battle of Fredericksburg, Captain Richard Cross, of the Fifth New Hampshire Infantry, noticed one of his men whose skull had been cut open by the fragment of a shell, with a section of it standing upright, leaving the brain exposed. Cross shut the piece of skull down like the lid of a teapot,tied a handkerchief around it, and sent to the rear the wounded soldier, who ultimately recovered. The one truth, taught by field experience to army surgeons, was that few, if any, wounds are invariably fatal.
A Gallant Feat by Sweeney.
At Shiloh, Brigadier-General Thomas W. Sweeney, who had lost one arm in the Mexican War, received a Minié bullet in his remaining arm, and another shot in his foot, while his horse fell riddled with seven balls. Almost fainting from loss of blood, he was lifted upon another horse, and remained on the field through the entire day. His coolness and his marvelous escapes were talked of before many camp-fires throughout the army.
Once, during the battle, he was unable to determine whether a battery whose men were dressed in blue, was Rebel or Union. Sweeney, leaving his command, rode at a gentle gallop directly toward the battery until within pistol-shot, saw that it was manned by Confederates, turned in a half circle, and rode back again at the same easy pace. Not a single shot was fired at him, so much was the respect of the Confederates excited by this daring act. I afterward met one of them, who described with great vividness the impression which Sweeney's gallantry made upon them.
The steady determination of Grant's troops during that long April Sunday, was perhaps unequaled during the war. At night companies were commanded by sergeants, regiments by lieutenants, and brigades by majors. In several regiments, one-half the men were killed and wounded; and in some entire divisions the killed and wounded exceeded thirty-three per cent, of the numbers who went into battle.
I have seen no other field which gave indication of such deadly conflict as the Shiloh ridges and ravines,everywhere covered with a very thick growth of timber—
"Shot-sown and bladed thick with steel."
"Shot-sown and bladed thick with steel."
In one tree I counted sixty bullet-holes; another bore marks of more than ninety balls within ten feet of the ground. Sometimes, for several yards in the denseshubberyshrubbery, it was difficult to find a twig as large as one's finger, which had not been cut off by balls.
A friend of mine counted one hundred and twenty-six dead Rebels, lying where they fell, upon an area less than fifty yards wide and a quarter of a mile long. One of our details buried in a single trench one hundred and forty-seven of the enemy, including three lieutenant-colonels and four majors.
But our forces, overpowered by numbers, fell farther and further back, while the Rebels took possession of many Union camps. At night, our line, originally three miles in length, was shortened to three-quarters of a mile.
Buell's Opportune Arrival.
For weeks the inscrutable Buell had been leisurely marching through Kentucky and Tennessee, to join Grant. He arrived at the supreme moment. At four o'clock on that Sunday afternoon, General Nelson, of Kentucky, who commanded Buell's advance, crossed the Tennessee, and rode up to Grant and his staff when the battle was raging.
"Here we are, General," said Nelson, with the military salute, and pointing to long files of his well-clad, athletic, admirably disciplined fellows, already pouring on the steamboats, to be ferried across the river. "Here we are! We are not very military in our division. We don't know many fine points or nice evolutions; but if you want stupidity and hard fighting, I reckon we are the men for you."
That night both armies lay upon their guns, and the opposing pickets were often within a hundred yards of each other. The groans and cries of the dying rendered it impossible to sleep. Grant said:
"We must not give the enemy the moral advantage of attacking to-morrow morning. We must fire the first gun."
Just at day-break, the Rebels were surprised at all points of the line by assaults from the foe whom they had supposed vanquished. Grant's shattered troops behaved admirably, and Buell's splendid army won new laurels. The Confederates were forced back at all points. Their retreat was a stampede, leaving behind great quantities of ammunition, commissary stores, guns, caissons, small arms, supply-wagons and ambulances. They were not vigorously followed; but as no effective pursuit was made by either side during the entire war (until Sheridan, in one of its closing scenes, captured Lee), perhaps northern and southern troops were too equally matched for either to be thoroughly routed.