CHAPTER VI.
In the evening of April 6 a few of Gen. Buell’s troops had arrived and were placed in position. During the night the boats brought the balance of Buell’s army across the Tennessee River and they were in line of battle ere the break of day.
Volumes have been written about the battle of Shiloh. Some think Buell’s army saved us. Of course, they helped to win the second day’s battle; still there is nothing to prove that Gen. Grant’s army would not have won without their assistance on the next day.
Let me quote what I wrote over fifty years ago, when it was fresh in my mind:
“Some think it was Buell’s army that saved the army of Gen. Grant from total destruction. I think otherwise, and my reason is this: we had been driven back so near the river that our lines were concentrated as before they were scattered. During the night Gen. Grant andhis aides had perfected their line of battle, and Gen. Lew Wallace’s division had arrived from Crump’s Landing, and every man left in the line knew that to retreat another foot meant total annihilation, and the words: ‘We must whip them in the morning,’ were upon every man’s lips.”
The enemy was badly hurt, and Gen. Grant knew it and felt confident that victory must be ours on the morrow.
The morning light had scarcely come on the 7th of April when the roar of artillery announced the opening of the second day’s battle. The command, “Forward,” was given and the entire line moved forward. We were the aggressors today, and made the first attack.
Fighting continued steadily, the enemy yielding every foot with great reluctance, stubbornly holding their ground, until 12 o’clock, when a general charge was made, and the tide of battle was turned in favor of the Union forces.During this charge, Will fell to the ground, thinking he was shot through the leg, for it hurt so badly he couldn’t stand up; he pulled up his trousers to see where the minie-ball had struck him, to find that the ball had only grazed his shinbone, cutting a nice clean hole through his pants, but not bringing a drop of blood. Will was disgusted, that he should fall out with just a bruised shinbone, and jumping up he went limping after his company.
By 3 o’clock Gen. Beauregard, who was now in command of the Confederate forces, gave the order for a retreat. They kept up a fight to cover their retreat until night, but when darkness came we were in possession of our old camps, where we bivouacked, filled as they were with the dead of both armies. We had no difficulty in sleeping well, even though the silent dead lay all about us. The dead do not disturb us; it is the living we should be afraid of. We built fires and cooked our frugal meal, and,after eating, we gathered ’round the camp fire and recounted the deeds of valor done during the great battle, speaking kind words of our brave comrades who had fallen.
A few Sibley tents, torn and riddled by shot and shell, were all we had left. I lost my shirts, blankets, letters from home, my testament (mother’s gift) and a picture of the “girl I left behind me.” I was more indignant over the loss of my girl’s picture then I was over the other articles.
On Tuesday I was detailed with others to bury the dead lying within our camp and a distance of two hundred yards in advance. I had charge of digging the grave, if a trench over sixty feet long and four feet deep, can be called a grave.
The weather was hot, and most of the dead had been killed early Sunday morning, and dissolution had already commenced. The soldiers gathered the bodies up and placed them inwagons, hauling them near to the trench, and piling them up like cord wood.
We were furnished with plenty of whiskey, and the boys believed that it would have been impossible to have performed the job without it.
When the grave was ready, we placed the bodies therein, two deep; the father, brother, husband and lover, all to lie till Gabriel’s trumpet shall sound. All the monument reared to those brave men was a board, nailed to a tree at the head of the trench, upon which I cut with my pocket knife, the words: “125 rebels.”
We buried our Union boys in a separate trench, and on another board were these words: “35 Union.” Many of our men had been taken away and buried separately by their comrades. It was night when we finished the task, some of the squad, “half seas over” with liquor, but they could not be blamed, for it was a hard job. The next day we burned the dead horses and mules.
A few words about the great battle of Shiloh, as an old veteran views it, as well as some words deduced from history.
It has often been told that the enemy surprised us at Shiloh; that the men were asleep in their tents and were even bayoneted there. This most certainly is erroneous. The Confederate officers report that early Sunday morning, while they were planning the attack, their discussion was abruptly brought to an end by the Union out posts commencing an attack on them.
Our soldiers werenot surprisedin the sense of being taken off their guard.
It was a surprise in the sense, that Gen. Grant and his officers did not expect an attack in force by the enemy, or if they did, they made a great mistake in not being prepared. The fact remains, we were not ready to receive the enemy; not a shovelfull of earth had been thrown up for protection, and the several divisions were scattered so as not to form a continuous battle line.If mistake it was on the part of Gen. Grant, he profited by it, for such a thing did not happen ever afterward. That the first day’s battle of Shiloh was a stubborn and desperate battle cannot be denied. Badeau, in his military history of Gen. Grant, says: “For several hours of the first day there was as desperate fighting as was ever seen on the American Continent, and that, in proportion to the number engaged, equaled any contest during the rebellion.”
Gen. W. T. Sherman said: “I never saw such terrible fighting afterward.”
Gen. Grant has said: “Shiloh was the severest battle fought in the west during the war, and but few in the east equaled it for hard, determined fighting.” Again he says in his Memoirs, speaking of Shiloh: “I saw an open field the second day, over which the Confederates had made repeated charges, so covered with dead that it would have been possible to walk across the clearing in any direction, steppingon dead bodies without the foot touching the ground.”
Gen. McClernand and his division have never received their just meed of praise for his and their part in the battle of Shiloh.
Gen. Grant in his later life says this: “The heaviest loss sustained by the enemy was in front of Sherman’s and McClernand’s divisions.”
The official records show that on April 5, 1862, Gen. Grant had 39,830 men and officers for the first day’s battle, and Gen. Johnston of the Confederates had 43,968 when we started the battle of Shiloh.
The loss of the Confederates was 24⅓ per cent; the loss of Grant’s five divisions present for duty on Sunday was 26¾ per cent. The loss of the Army of the Tennessee under Grant at Shiloh was 10,944; the loss of the Army of the Ohio under Buell was 2,103. Only a few regiments of Buell’s army got into action late inthe evening of the first day. Total Union loss 13,047, but this includes 2,314 Union prisoners of Gens. Prentiss’ and Wallace’s divisions; the loss of the Confederates was 10,699.
I remember no amusing incidents during the battle, save that of one of my company, who was shot through the mouth in such a way as to knock out all of his front teeth. He was a German, who spoke English brokenly, and swore like a trooper; he would spit blood and then curse the enemy with great vehemence, and loading his gun and firing, would exclaim: “D— ’em, dey tinks dey vill spile me so I can’t eat hard tack, d— ’em, I’ll show dem!” And so he fought while his comrades cheered him on.
It has been said that war is grand and heroic; that fighting is a glorious thing; so it is to read about, but the veterans of fifty years ago have seen war; they know what a horrible thing it is, and I believe that every old veteran whohas stood in the battle front, has it in his heart to say: “God grant that wars may cease, and that universal peace may come to this world of ours.”
Shiloh was a terrible battle, and now after fifty years have slipped by, I sit in my easy chair and occasionally dream of the past. I seem to hear again as vividly as then, the booming of cannon, the rattle of musketry and the whiz of the minie-ball, amid the cries and groans of my comrades who touched elbows with me, and I ask myself: “Can it be? Was I there, or is it a wild fancy of the brain?” The scenes come too vividly before my memory to doubt it, and I thank God that I was able with my comrades to bear a humble part in saving to those who come after us, this grand nation, and in helping to perpetuate but one flag, the Stars and Stripes—the “Heaven-born banner”—to float over a reunited land and people.