Chapter XVI. The Fierce Finish of Shiloh

The Guns of Shiloh

by Joseph A. Altsheler

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.