Читать книгу Civil War Live - Charles Carleton Coffin - Страница 12

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On the 6th and 7th of April, 1862, one of the greatest battles of the war was fought near Pittsburg Landing in Tennessee, on the west bank of the Tennessee River, about twelve miles from the northeast corner of the State of Mississippi. The Rebels call it the battle of Shiloh, because it was fought near Shiloh Church. I did not see the terrible contest, but I reached the place soon after the fight, in season to see the guns, cannon, wagons, knapsacks, cartridge-boxes, which were scattered over the ground, and the newly-made graves where the dead had just been buried. I was in camp upon the field several weeks, and saw the woods, the plains, hills, ravines. Officers and men who were in the fight pointed out the places where they stood, showed me where the Rebels advanced, where their batteries were, how they advanced and retreated, how the tide of victory ebbed and flowed. Having been so early on the ground, and having listened to the stories of a great many persons, I shall try to give you a correct account. It will be a difficult task, however, for the stories are conflicting. No two persons see a battle alike; each has his own stand-point. He sees what takes place around him. No other one will tell a story like his. Men have different temperaments. One is excited, and another is cool and collected. Men live fast in battle. Every nerve is excited, every sense intensified, and it is only by taking the accounts of different observers that an accurate view can be obtained.

After the capture of Fort Donelson, you remember that General Johnston retreated through Nashville towards the South. A few days later the Rebels evacuated Columbus on the Mississippi. They were obliged to concentrate their forces. They saw that Memphis would be the next point of attack, and they must defend it. All of their energies were aroused. The defeat of the Union army at Bull Run, you remember, caused a great uprising of the North, and so the fall of Donelson stirred the people of the South.

If you look at the map of Tennessee, you will notice, about twenty miles from Pittsburg Landing, the town of Corinth. It is at the junction of the Memphis and Charleston and the Mobile and Ohio Railroads, which made it an important place to the Rebels.

“Corinth must be defended,” said the Memphis newspapers.

Pittsburg Landing and Vicinity.

Governor Harris of Tennessee issued a proclamation calling upon the people to enlist.

“As Governor of your State, and Commander-in-Chief of its army, I call upon every able-bodied man of the State, without regard to age, to enlist in its service. I command him who can obtain a weapon to march with our armies. I ask him who can repair or forge an arm to make it ready at once for the soldier.”

General Beauregard was sent in great haste to the West by Jeff Davis, who hoped that the fame and glory which he had won by attacking Fort Sumter and at Bull Run would rouse the people of the Southwest and save the failing fortunes of the Confederacy.

To Corinth came the flower of the Southern army. All other points were weakened to save Corinth. From Pensacola came General Bragg and ten thousand Alabamians, who had watched for many months the little frowning fortress on Santa Rosa Island. The troops which had been at Mobile to resist the landing of General Butler from Ship Island were hastened north upon the trains of the Mobile and Ohio road. General Beauregard called upon the Governors of Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana for additional troops.

General Polk, who had been a bishop before the war, sent down two divisions from Columbus on the Mississippi. General Johnston with his retreating army hastened on, and thus all the Rebel troops in the Southwestern States were mustered at Corinth.

The call to take up arms was responded to everywhere; old men and boys came trooping into the place. They came from Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri. Beauregard labored with unremitting energy to create an army which would be powerful enough to drive back the Union troops, recover Tennessee, and invade Kentucky.

General Grant, after the capture of Donelson, moved his army, on steamboats, down the Cumberland and up the Tennessee, to Pittsburg Landing. He made his head-quarters at Savannah, a small town ten miles below Pittsburg Landing, on the east side of the river.

General Buell, who had followed General Johnston through Nashville with the army of the Ohio, was slowly making his way across the country to join General Grant. The Rebel generals had the railroads, by which they could rapidly concentrate their troops, and they determined to attack General Grant at Pittsburg, with their superior force, before General Buell could join him. Beauregard had his pickets within four miles of General Grant’s force, and he could move his entire army within striking distance before General Grant would know of his danger. He calculated that he could annihilate General Grant, drive him into the river, or force him to surrender, capture all of his cannon, wagons, ammunition, provisions, steamboats, — everything, — by a sudden stroke. If he succeeded, he could then move against General Buell, destroy his army, and not only recover all that had been lost, but he would also redeem Kentucky and invade Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.

All but one division of General Grant’s army was at Pittsburg. Two miles above the Landing the river begins to make its great eastern bend. Lick Creek comes in from the west, at the bend. Three miles below Pittsburg is Snake Creek, which also comes in from the west. Five miles further down is Crump’s Landing. General Lewis Wallace’s division was near Crump’s, but the other divisions were between the two creeks. The banks of the river are seventy-five feet high, and the country is a succession of wooded hills, with numerous ravines. There are a few clearings and farm-houses, but it is nearly all forest, — tall oak-trees, with here and there thickets of underbrush. The farmers cultivate a little corn, cotton, and tobacco. The country has been settled many years, but is almost as wild as when the Indians possessed the land.

Pittsburg is the nearest point to Corinth on the river. The road from the Landing winds up the bank, passes along the edge of a deep ravine, and leads southwest. As you go up the road, you come to a log-cabin about a mile from the river. There is a peach-orchard near by. There the roads fork. The left-hand road takes you to Hamburg, the middle one is the Ridge road to Corinth, and the third is the road to Shiloh Church, called also the Lower Corinth road. There are other openings in the woods, — old cotton-fields. Three miles out from the river you come to Shiloh Church. A clear brook, which is fed by springs, gurgles over a sandy bed, close by the church. You fill your canteen, and find it excellent water. On Sunday noons, the people who come to church sit down beneath the grand old trees, eat their dinners, and drink from the brook.

It is not such a church as you see in your own village. It has no tall steeple or tapering spire, no deep-toned bell, no organ, no singing-seats or gallery, no pews or carpeted aisles. It is built of logs. It was chinked with clay years ago, but the rains have washed it out. You can thrust your hand between the cracks. It is thirty or forty feet square. It has places for windows, but there are no sashes, and of course no glass. As you stand within, you can see up to the roof, supported by hewn rafters, and covered with split shingles, which shake and rattle when the wind blows. It is the best-ventilated church you ever saw. It has no pews, but only rough seats for the congregation. A great many of the churches of this section of the country are no better than this. Slavery does not build neat churches and school-houses, as a general thing. Around this church the battle raged fearfully.

Not far from the church, a road leads northeast towards Crump’s Landing, and another northwest towards the town of Purdy. By the church, along the road leading down to the Landing, at the peach-orchard, and in the ravines you find the battle-ground.

General Johnston was senior commander of the Rebel army. He had Beauregard, Bragg, Polk, Hardee, Cheatham, — all Major-Generals, who had been educated at West Point, at the expense of the United States. They were considered to be the ablest generals in the Rebel service. General Breckenridge was there. He was Vice-President under Buchanan, and was but a few weeks out of his seat in the Senate of the United States. He was, you remember, the slaveholders’ candidate for President in 1860. Quite likely he felt very sour against the Northern people, because he was not elected President.

The Rebel army numbered between forty and fifty thousand men. General Johnston worked with all his might to organize into brigades the troops which were flocking in from all quarters. It was of the utmost importance that the attack should be made before General Buell joined General Grant. The united and concentrated forces of Beauregard, Bragg, and Johnston outnumbered Grant’s army by fifteen thousand. General Van Dorn, with thirty thousand men, was expected from Arkansas. They were to come by steamboat to Memphis, and were to be transported to Corinth by the Memphis and Charleston Railroad; but Van Dorn was behind time, and, unless the attack was made at once, it would be too late, for the combined armies of Grant and Buell would outnumber the Rebels. At midnight, on the 1st of April, Johnston learned that General Buell’s advance divisions were within two or three days’ march of Savannah. He immediately issued his orders to his corps commanders, directing the routes which each was to take in advancing towards Pittsburg.

The troops began their march on Thursday morning. They were in excellent spirits. They cheered, swung their hats, and marched with great enthusiasm. The Rebel officers, who knew the situation, the ground where General Grant was encamped, believed that his army would be annihilated. They assured the troops it would be a great and glorious victory.

The distance was only eighteen miles, and General Johnston intended to strike the blow at daylight on Saturday morning, but it rained hard Friday night, and the roads in the morning were so muddy that the artillery could not move. It was late Saturday afternoon before his army was in position. It was too near night to make the attack. He examined the ground, distributed ammunition, posted the artillery, gave the men extra rations, and waited for Sunday morning.

The Union army rested in security. No intrenchments were thrown up on the hills and along the ridges. No precautions were taken against surprise. The officers and soldiers did not dream of being attacked. They were unprepared. The divisions were not in order for battle. They were preparing to advance upon Corinth, and were to march when General Halleck, who was at St. Louis, commanding the department, should take the field.

On the evening of Friday the pickets on the Corinth road, two miles out from Shiloh Church, were fired upon. A body of Rebels rushed through the woods, and captured several officers and men. The Seventieth, Seventy-second, and Forty-eighth Ohio, of General Sherman’s division, were sent out upon a reconnoissance. They came upon a couple of Rebel regiments, and, after a sharp action, drove them back to a Rebel battery, losing three or four prisoners and taking sixteen. General Lewis Wallace ordered out his division, and moved up from Crump’s Landing a mile or two, and the troops stood under arms in the rain, that poured in torrents through the night, to be ready for an attack from that direction; but nothing came of it. There was more skirmishing on Saturday, — a continual firing along the picket lines. All supposed that the Rebels were making a reconnoissance. No one thought that one of the greatest battles of the war was close at hand. General Grant went down the river to Savannah on Saturday night. The troops dried their clothes in the sun, cooked their suppers, told their evening stories, and put out their lights at tattoo, as usual.

To get at the position of General Grant’s army, let us start from Pittsburg Landing. It is a very busy place at the Landing. Forty or fifty steamboats are there, and hundreds of men are rolling out barrels of sugar, bacon, pork, beef, boxes of bread, bundles of hay, and thousands of sacks of corn. There are several hundred wagons waiting to transport the supplies to the troops. A long train winds up the hill towards the west.

Ascending the hill, you come to the forks of the roads. The right-hand road leads to Crump’s Landing. You see General Smith’s old division, which took the rifle-pits at Donelson, on the right-hand side of the road in the woods. It is commanded now by W. H. L. Wallace, who has been made a Brigadier-General for his heroism at Donelson. There have been many changes of commanders since that battle. Colonels who commanded regiments there are now brigade commanders.

Keeping along the Shiloh road a few rods, you come to the road which leads to Hamburg. Instead of turning up that, you keep on a little farther to the Ridge road, leading to Corinth. General Prentiss’s division is on that road, two miles out, towards the southwest. Instead of taking that road, you still keep on the right-hand one, travelling nearly west all the while, and you come to McClernand’s division, which is encamped in a long line on both sides of the road. Here you see Dresser’s, Taylor’s, Schwartz’s, and McAllister’s batteries, and all those regiments which fought so determinedly at Donelson. They face northwest. Their line is a little east of the church.

Passing over to the church, you see that a number of roads centre there, — one coming in from the northwest, which will take you to Purdy; one from the northeast, which will carry you to Crump’s Landing; the road up which you have travelled from Pittsburg Landing; one from the southeast, which will take you to Hamburg; and one from the southwest, which is the lower road to Corinth.

You see, close by the church, on both sides of this lower road to Corinth, General Sherman’s division, not facing northwest, but nearly south. McClernand’s left and Sherman’s left are close together. They form the two sides of a triangle, the angle being at the left wings. They are in a very bad position to be attacked.

Take the Hamburg road now, and go southeast two miles and you come to the crossing of the Ridge road to Corinth, where you will find General Prentiss’s division, before mentioned. Keeping on, you come to Lick Creek. It has high, steep banks. It is fordable at this point, and Colonel Stuart’s brigade of Sherman’s division is there, guarding the crossing. The brook which gurgles past the church empties into the creek. You see that Prentiss’s entire division, and the left wing of McClernand’s, is between Stuart’s brigade and the rest of Sherman’s division. There are detached regiments encamped in the woods near the Landing, which have just arrived, and have not been brigaded. There are also two regiments of cavalry in rear of these lines. There are several pieces of siege artillery on the top of the hill near the Landing, but there are no artillerists or gunners to serve them.

You see that the army does not expect to be attacked. The cavalry ought to be out six or eight miles on picket; but they are here, the horses quietly eating their oats. The infantry pickets ought to be out three or four miles, but they are not a mile and a half advanced from the camp. The army is in a bad position to resist a sudden attack from a superior force. McClernand ought not to be at right angles with Sherman, Stuart ought not to be separated from his division by Prentiss, and General Lewis Wallace is too far away to render prompt assistance. Besides, General Grant is absent, and there is no commander-in-chief on the field. You wonder that no preparations have been make to resist an attack, no breastworks thrown up, no proper disposition of the forces, no extended reconnoissances by the cavalry, and that, after the skirmishing on Friday and Saturday, all hands should lie down so quietly in their tents on Saturday night. They did not dream that fifty thousand Rebels were ready to strike them at daybreak.

General Johnston’s plan of attack was submitted to his corps commanders and approved by them. It was to hurl the entire army upon Prentiss and Sherman. He had four lines of troops, extending from Lick Creek on the right to the southern branch of Snake Creek on the left, a distance of about two miles and a half.

The front line was composed of Major-General Hardee’s entire corps, with General Gladden’s brigade of Bragg’s corps added on the right. The artillery was placed in front, followed closely by the infantry. Squadrons of cavalry were thrown out on both wings to sweep the woods and drive in the Union pickets.

About five hundred yards in rear of Hardee was the second line, Bragg’s corps in the same order as Hardee’s. Eight hundred yards in rear of Bragg was General Polk, his left wing supported by cavalry, his batteries in position to advance at a moment’s notice. The reserve, under General Breckenridge, followed close upon Polk. Breckenridge’s and Polk’s corps were both reckoned as reserves. They had instructions to act as they thought best. There were from ten to twelve thousand men in each line.

The Rebel troops had received five days’ rations on Friday, — meat and bread in their haversacks. They were not permitted to kindle a fire except in holes in the ground. No loud talking was allowed; no drums beat the tattoo, no bugle-note rang through the forest. They rolled themselves in their blankets, knowing at daybreak they were to strike the terrible blow. They were confident of success. They were assured by their officers it would be an easy victory, and that on Sunday night they should sleep in the Yankee camp, eat Yankee bread, drink real coffee, and have new suits of clothes.

In the evening General Johnston called his corps commanders around his bivouac fire for a last talk before the battle. Although Johnston was commander-in-chief, Beauregard planned the battle. Johnston was Beauregard’s senior, but the battle-ground was in Beauregard’s department. He gave directions to the officers.

Mr. William G. Stevenson, of Kentucky, who was in Arkansas when the war broke out, was impressed into the Rebel service. He acted as special aide-de-camp to General Breckenridge in that battle. He escaped from the Rebel service a few months later, and has published an interesting narrative of what he saw.8 He stood outside the circle of generals waiting by his horse in the darkness to carry any despatch for his commander. He gives this description of the scene: —

“In an open space, with a dim fire in the midst, and a drum on which to write, you could see grouped around their ‘Little Napoleon,’ as Beauregard was sometimes fondly called, ten or twelve generals, the flickering light playing over their eager faces, while they listened to his plans, and made suggestions as to the conduct of the fight.

“Beauregard soon warmed with his subject, and, throwing off his cloak, to give free play to his arms, he walked about the group, gesticulating rapidly, and jerking out his sentences with a strong French accent. All listened attentively, and the dim light, just revealing their countenances, showed their different emotions of confidence or distrust of his plans.

“General Sidney Johnston stood apart from the rest, with his tall, straight form standing out like a spectre against the dim sky, and the illusion was fully sustained by the light-gray military cloak which he folded around him. His face was pale, but wore a determined expression, and at times he drew nearer the centre of the ring, and said a few words, which were listened to with great attention. It may be he had some foreboding of the fate he was to meet on the morrow, for he did not seem to take much part in the discussion.

“General Breckenridge lay stretched out on a blanket near the fire, and occasionally sat upright and added a few words of counsel. General Bragg spoke frequently, and with earnestness. General Polk sat on a camp-stool at the outside of the circle, and held his head between his hands, buried in thought. Others reclined or sat in various positions.

“For two hours the council lasted, and as it broke up, and the generals were ready to return to their respective commands, I heard General Beauregard say, raising his hand and pointing in the direction of the Federal camp, whose drums we could plainly hear, ‘Gentlemen, we sleep in the enemy’s camp to-morrow night.’”

The Confederate General, the same writer says, had minute information of General Grant’s position and numbers. This knowledge was obtained through spies and informers, some of whom lived in the vicinity, had been in and out of Grant’s camp again and again, and knew every foot of ground.

Under these circumstances, with a superior force, with accurate knowledge of the position of every brigade in General Grant’s army, with troops in the best spirits, enthusiastic, ardent, expecting a victory, stealing upon a foe unsuspicious, unprepared, with brigades and divisions widely separated, with General Grant, the commander-in-chief, ten miles away, and General Buell’s nearest troops twenty miles distant, the Rebel generals waited impatiently for the coming of the morning.