Chapter XV. The Red Dawn of Shiloh

The Guns of Shiloh

by Joseph A. Altsheler

Dick stood appalled when he heard that terrible shout in the
dawn, and the crash of cannon and rifles rolling down upon the Union
lines. It was already a shout of triumph and, as he gazed, he saw
through the woods the red line of flame, sweeping on without a
halt.

The surprise had been complete. Hardee, leading the Southern
advance, struck Peabody's Northern brigade and smashed it up
instantly. The men did not have time to seize their rifles. They
had no chance to form into ranks, and the officers themselves, as
they shouted commands, were struck down. Men killed or wounded were
falling everywhere. Almost before they had time to draw a free
breath the remnants of the brigade were driven upon those behind
it.

Hardee also rushed upon Sherman, but there he found a foe of
tough mettle. The man who had foreseen the enormous extent of the
war, although taken by surprise, too, did not lose his courage or
presence of mind. His men had time to seize their arms, and he
formed a hasty line of battle. He also had the forethought to send
word to the general in his rear to close up the gap between him and
the next general in the line. Then he shifted one of his own
brigades until there was a ravine in front of it to protect his men,
and he hurried a battery to his flank.

Never was Napoleon's maxim that men are nothing, a man is
everything, more justified, and never did the genius of Sherman
shine more brilliantly than on that morning. It was he, alone, cool
of mind and steady in the face of overwhelming peril, who first
faced the Southern rush. He inspired his troops with his own
courage, and, though pale of face, they bent forward to meet the red
whirlwind that was rushing down upon them.

Like a blaze running through dry grass the battle extended in
almost an instant along the whole front, and the deep woods were
filled with the roar of eighty thousand men in conflict. And Grant,
as at Donelson, was far away.

The thunder and blaze of the battle increased swiftly and to a
frightful extent. The Southern generals, eager, alert and full of
success, pushed in all their troops. The surprised Northern army
was giving away at all points, except where Sherman stood. Hardee,
continuing his rush, broke the Northern line asunder, and his
brigades, wrapping themselves around Sherman, strove to destroy
him.

Although he saw his lines crumbling away before him, Sherman
never flinched. The ravine in front of him and rough ground on one
side defended him to a certain extent. The men fired their rifles
as fast as they could load and reload, and the cannon on their
flanks never ceased to pour shot and shell into the ranks of their
opponents. The gunners were shot down, but new ones rose at once in
their place. The fiercest conflict yet seen on American soil was
raging here. North would not yield, South ever rushed anew to the
attack, and a vast cloud of mingled flame and smoke enclosed them
both.

Dick had stood as if petrified, staring at the billows of
flame, while the thunder of great armies in battle stunned his ears.
He realized suddenly that he was alone. Colonel Kenton had said
the night before that he did not know what to do with him, but that
he would find a way in the morning. But he had been forgotten, and
he knew it was natural that he should be. His fate was but a trifle
in the mighty event that was passing. There was no time for any one
in the Southern army to bother about him.

Then he understood too, that he was free. The whole Orphan
Brigade had passed on into the red heart of the battle, and had left
him there alone. Now his mind leaped out of its paralysis. All his
senses became alert. In that vast whirlwind of fire and smoke no
one would notice that a single youth was stealing through the forest
in an effort to rejoin his own people.

Action followed swift upon thought. He curved about in the
woods and then ran rapidly toward the point where the fire seemed
thinnest. He did not check his pace until he had gone at least a
mile. Then he paused to see if he could tell how the battle was
going. Its roar seemed louder than ever in his ears, and in front
of him was a vast red line, which extended an unseen distance
through the forest. Now and then the wild and thrilling rebel yell
rose above the roar of cannon and the crash of rifles.

Dick saw with a sinking of the heart--and yet he had known
that it would be so--that the red line of flame had moved deeper
into the heart of the Northern camp. It had passed the Northern
outposts and, at many points, it had swept over the Northern center.
He feared that there was but a huddled and confused mass beyond
it.

He saw something lying at his feet. It was a Confederate
military cloak which some officer had cast off as he rushed to the
charge. He picked it up, threw it about his own shoulders, and then
tossed away his cap. If he fell in with Confederate troops they
would not know him from one of their own, and it was no time now to
hold cross-examinations.

He took a wide curve, and, after another mile, came to a
hillock, upon which he stood a little while, panting. Again he was
appalled at the sight he beheld. Bull Run and Donelson were small
beside this. Here eighty thousand men were locked fast in furious
conflict. Raw and undisciplined many of these farmer lads of the
west and south were, but in battle they showed a courage and
tenacity not surpassed by the best trained troops that ever
lived.

The floating smoke reached Dick where he stood and stung his
eyes, and a powerful odor of burned gunpowder assailed his nostrils.
But neither sight nor odors held him back. Instead, they drew him
on with overwhelming force. He must rejoin his own and do his best
however little it counted in the whole.

It was now well on into the morning of a brilliant and hot
Sunday. He did not know it, but the combat was raging fiercest then
around the little church, which should have been sacred. Drawing a
deep breath of an air which was shot with fire and smoke, and which
was hot to his lungs, Dick began to run again. Almost before he
noticed it he was running by the side of a Southern regiment which
had been ordered to veer about and attack some new point in the
Northern line. Keeping his presence of mind he shouted with them as
they rushed on, and presently dropped away from them in the
smoke.

He was conscious now of a new danger. Twigs and bits of bark
began to rain down upon him, and he heard the unpleasant whistle of
bullets over his head. They were the bullets of his own people,
seeking to repel the Southern charge. A minute later a huge shell
burst near him, covering him with flying earth. At first he thought
he had been hit by fragments of the shell, but when he shook himself
he found that he was all right.

He took yet a wider curve and before he was aware of the
treacherous ground plunged into a swamp bordering one of the creeks.
He stood for a few moments in mud and water to his waist, but he
knew that he had passed from the range of the Union fire. Twigs and
bark no longer fell around him and that most unpleasant whizz of
bullets was gone.

He pulled himself out of the mire and ran along the edge of
the creek toward the roar of the battle. He knew now that he had
passed around the flank of the Southern army and could approach the
flank of his own. He ran fast, and then began to hear bullets again.
But now they were coming from the Southern army. He threw away the
cloak and presently he emerged into a mass of men, who, under the
continual urging of their officers, were making a desperate defense,
firing, drawing back, reloading and firing again. In front, the
woods swarmed with the Southern troops who drove incessantly upon
them.

Dick snatched up a rifle--plenty were lying upon the ground,
where the owners had fallen with them--and fired into the attacking
ranks. Then he reloaded swiftly, and pressed on toward the Union
center.

"What troops are these?" he asked of an officer who was
knotting a handkerchief about a bleeding wrist.

"From Illinois. Who are you?"

"I'm Lieutenant Richard Mason of Colonel Arthur Winchester's
Kentucky regiment. I was taken prisoner by the enemy last night,
but I escaped this morning. Do you know where my regiment is?"

"Keep straight on, and you'll strike it or what's left of it,
if anything at all is left. It's a black day."

Dick scarcely caught his last words, as he dashed on through
bullets, shell and solid shot over slain men and horses, over
dismantled guns and gun carriages, and into the very heart of the
flame and smoke. The thunder of the battle was at its height now,
because he was in the center of it. The roar of the great guns was
continuous, but the unbroken crash of rifles by the scores of
thousands was fiercer and more deadly.

The officer had pointed toward the Kentucky regiment with his
sword, and following the line Dick ran directly into it. The very
first face he saw was that of Colonel Winchester.

"Dick, my lad," shouted the Colonel, "where have you come
from?"

"From the Southern army. I was taken prisoner last night
almost within sight of our own, but when they charged this morning
they forgot me and here I am."

Colonel Winchester suddenly seized him by the shoulders and
pushed him down. The regiment was behind a small ridge which
afforded some protection, and all were lying down except the senior
officers.

"Welcome, Dick, to our hot little camp! The chances are about
a hundred per cent out of a hundred per cent that this is the
hottest place on the earth today!"

The long, thin figure of Warner lay pressed against the
ground. A handkerchief, stained red, was bound about his head and
his face was pale, but indomitable courage gleamed from his eyes.
Just beyond him was Pennington, unhurt.

"Thank God you haven't fallen, and that I've found you!"
exclaimed Dick.

"I don't know whether you're so lucky after all," said Warner.
"The Johnnies have been mowing us down. They dropped on us so
suddenly this morning that they must have been sleeping in the same
bed with us last night, and we didn't know it. I hear that we're
routed nearly everywhere except here and where Sherman stands. Look
out! Here they come again!"

They saw tanned faces and fierce eyes through the smoke, and
the bullets swept down on them in showers. Lucky for them that the
little ridge was there, and that they had made up their minds to
stand to the last. They replied with their own deadly fire, yet many
fell, despite the shelter, and to both left and right the battle
swelled afresh. Dick felt again that rain of bark and twigs and
leaves. Sometimes a tree, cut through at its base by cannon balls,
fell with a crash. Along the whole curving line the Southern
generals ever urged forward their valiant troops.

Now the courage and skill of Sherman shone supreme. Dick saw
him often striding up and down the lines, ordering and begging his
men to stand fast, although they were looking almost into the eyes
of their enemies.

The conflict became hand to hand, and assailant and assailed
reeled to and fro. But Sherman would not give up. The fiercest
attacks broke in vain on his iron front. McClernand, with whom he
had quarreled the day before as to who should command the army while
Grant was away, came up with reinforcements, and seeing what the
fearless and resolute general had done, yielded him the place.

The last of the charges broke for the time upon Sherman, and
his exhausted regiment uttered a shout of triumph, but on both sides
of him the Southern troops drove their enemy back and yet further
back. Breckinridge, along Lick Creek, was pushing everything before
him. The bishop-general was doing well. Many of the Northern troops
had not yet recovered from their surprise. A general and three
whole regiments, struck on every side, were captured.

It seemed that nothing could deprive the Southern army of
victory, absolute and complete. General Johnston had marshalled his
troops with superb skill, and intending to reap the full advantage
of the surprise, he continually pushed them forward upon the
shattered Northern lines. He led in person and on horseback the
attack upon the Federal center. Around and behind him rode his
staff, and the wild rebel yell swept again through the forest, when
the soldiers saw the stern and lofty features of the chief whom they
trusted, leading them on.

But fate in the very moment of triumph that seemed
overwhelming and sure was preparing a terrible blow for the South.
A bullet struck Johnston in the ankle. His boot filled with blood,
and the wound continued to bleed fast. But, despite the urging of
his surgeon, who rode with him, he refused to dismount and have the
wound bound up. How could he dismount at such a time, when the
battle was at its height, and the Union army was being driven into
the creeks and swamps! He was wounded again by a piece of shell,
and he sank dying from his horse. His officers crowded around him,
seeking to hide their irreparable loss from the soldiers, the most
costly death, with the exception of Stonewall Jackson's, sustained
by the Confederacy in the whole war.

But the troops, borne on by the impetus that success and the
spirit of Johnston had given them, drove harder than ever against
the Northern line. They crashed through it in many places, seizing
prisoners and cannon. Almost the whole Northern camp was now in
their possession, and many of the Southern lads, hungry from scanty
rations, stopped to seize the plenty that they found there, but
enough persisted to give the Northern army no rest, and press it
back nearer and nearer to the marshes.

The combat redoubled around Sherman. Johnston was gone, but
his generals still shared his resolution. They turned an immense
fire upon the point where stood Sherman and McClernand, now united
by imminent peril. Their ranks were searched by shot and shell, and
the bullets whizzed among them like a continuous swarm of
hornets.

Dick was still unwounded, but so much smoke and vapor had
drifted about his face that he was compelled at times to rub his
eyes that he might see. He felt a certain dizziness, too, and he
did not know whether the incessant roaring in his ears came wholly
from the cannon and rifle fire or partly from the pounding of his
blood.

"I feel that we are shaking," he shouted in the ears of
Warner, who lay next to him. "I'm afraid we're going to give
ground."

"I feel it, too," Warner shouted back. "We've been here for
hours, but we're shot to pieces. Half of our men must be killed or
wounded, but how old Sherman fights!"

The Southern leaders brought up fresh troops and hurled them
upon Sherman. Again the combat was hand to hand, and to the right
and left the supports of the indomitable Northern general were being
cut away. Those brigades who had proved their mettle at Donelson,
and who had long stood fast, were attacked so violently that they
gave way, and the victors hurled themselves upon Sherman's flank.

Dick and his two young comrades perceived through the flame
and smoke the new attack. It seemed to Dick that they were being
enclosed now by the whole Southern army, and he felt a sense of
suffocation. He was dizzy from such a long and terrible strain and
so much danger, and he was not really more than half conscious. He
was loading and firing his rifle mechanically, but he always aimed
at something in the red storm before them, although he never knew
whether he hit or missed, and was glad of it.

The division of Sherman had been standing there seven hours,
sustaining with undaunted courage the resolute attacks of the
Southern army, but the sixth sense warning Dick that it had begun to
shake at last was true. The sun had now passed the zenith and was
pouring intense and fiery rays upon the field, sometimes piercing
the clouds of smoke, and revealing the faces of the men, black with
sweat and burned gunpowder.

A cry arose for Grant. Why did not their chief show himself
upon the field! Was so great a battle to be fought with him away?
And where was Buell? He had a second great army. He was to join
them that day. What good would it be for him to come tomorrow? Many
of them laughed in bitter derision. And there was Lew Wallace, too!
They had heard that he was near the field with a strong division.
Then why did he not come upon it and face the enemy? Again they
laughed that fierce and bitter laugh deep down in their throats.

The attack upon Sherman never ceased for an instant. Now he
was assailed not only from the front, but from both flanks, and some
even gaining the rear struck blows upon his division there. One
brigade upon his left was compelled to give way, scattered, and lost
its guns. The right wing was also driven in, and the center yielded
slowly, although retaining its cohesion.

The three lads were on their feet now, and it seemed to them
that everything was lost. They could see the battle in front of
them only, but rumors came to them that the army was routed
elsewhere. But neither Sherman nor McClernand would yield, save for
the slow retreat, yielding ground foot by foot only. And there were
many unknown heroes around them. Sergeant Whitley blazed with
courage and spirit.

"We could be worse off than we are!" he shouted to Dick.
"General Buell's army may yet come!"

"Maybe we could be worse off than we are, but I don't see how
it's possible!" shouted Dick in return, a certain grim humor
possessing him for the moment.

"Look! What I said has come true already!" shouted the
sergeant. "Here is shelter that will help us to make a new
stand!"

In their slow retreat they reached two low hills, between
which a small ravine ran. It was not a strong position, but Sherman
used it to the utmost. His men fired from the protecting crests of
the hills, and he filled the ravine with riflemen, who poured a
deadly fire upon their assailants.

Now Sherman ordered them to stand fast to the last man,
because it was by this road that the division of Lew Wallace must
come, if it came at all. But Southern brigades followed them and
the battle raged anew, as fierce and deadly as ever.

Although their army was routed at many points the Northern
officers showed indomitable courage. Driven back in the forest they
always strove to form the lines anew, and now their efforts began to
show some success. Their resistance on the right hardened, and on
the left they held fast to the last chain of hills that covered the
wharves and their stores at the river landing. As they took
position here two gunboats in the river began to send huge shells
over their heads at the attacking Southern columns, maintaining a
rapid and heavy fire which shook assailants and strengthened
defenders. Again the water had come to the help of the North, and
at the most critical moment. The whole Northern line was now
showing a firmer front, and Grant, himself, was directing the
battle.

Fortune, which had played a game with Grant at Donelson,
played a far greater one with him on the far greater field of
Shiloh. The red dawn of Shiloh, when Johnston was sweeping his army
before him, had found him at Savannah far from the field of battle.
The hardy and vigorous Nelson had arrived there in the night with
Buell's vanguard, and Grant had ordered it to march at speed the
next day to join his own army. But he, himself, did not reach the
field of Shiloh until 10 o'clock, when the fiercest battle yet known
on the American continent had been raging for several hours.

Grant and his staff, as they rode away from his headquarters,
heard the booming of cannon in the direction of Shiloh. Some of
them thought it was a mere skirmish, but it came continuously, like
rolling thunder, and their trained ears told them that it rose from
a line miles in length. One seeks to penetrate the mind of a
commanding general at such a time, and see what his feelings were.
Again the battle had been joined, and was at its height, and he
away!

Those trained ears told him also that the rolling thunder of
the cannon was steadily moving toward them. It could mean only that
the Northern army had been driven from its camp and that the
Southern army was pushing its victory to the utmost. In those
moments his agony must have been intense. His great army not only
attacked, but beaten, and he not there! He and his staff urged
their horses forward, seeking to gain from them new ounces of speed,
but the country was difficult. The hills were rough and there were
swamps and mire. And, as they listened, the roar of battle steadily
came nearer and nearer. There was no break in the Northern retreat.
The sweat, not of heat but of mental agony, stood upon their faces.
Grant was not the only one who suffered.

Now they met some of those stragglers who flee from every
battlefield, no matter what the nation. Their faces were white with
fear and they cried out that the Northern army was destroyed.
Officers cursed them and struck at them with the flats of their
swords, but they dodged the blows and escaped into the bushes.
There was no time to pursue them. Grant and his staff never ceased
to ride toward the storm of battle which raged far and wide around
the little church of Shiloh.

The stream of fugitives increased, and now they saw swarms of
men who stood here and there, not running, but huddled and
irresolute. Never did Fortune, who brought this, her favorite, from
the depths, bring him again in her play so near to the verge of
destruction. When he came upon the field, the battle seemed wholly
lost, and the whole world would have cried that he was to blame.

But the bulldog in Grant was never of stauncher breed than on
that day. His face turned white, and he grew sick at the sight of
the awful slaughter. A bullet broke the small sword at his side,
but he did not flinch. Preserving the stern calm that always marked
him on the field he began to form his lines anew and strengthen the
weaker points.

Yet the condition of his army would have appalled a weaker
will. It had been driven back three miles. His whole camp had been
taken. His second line also had been driven in. Many thousands of
men had fallen and other thousands had been taken. Thirty of his
cannon were in the hands of the enemy, and although noon had now
come and gone there was no sound to betoken the coming of the troops
led by Wallace or Nelson. Well might Grant's own stout heart have
shrunk appalled from the task before him.

Wallace was held back by confused orders, pardonable at such a
time. The eager Nelson was detained at Savannah by Buell, who
thought that the sounds of the engagement they heard in the Shiloh
woods was a minor affair, and who wanted Nelson to wait for boats to
take him there.

It seemed sometimes to Dick long afterward, when the whole of
the great Shiloh battle became clear, that Fortune was merely
playing a game of chess, with the earth as a board, and the armies
as pawns. Grant's army was ambushed with its general absent. The
other armies which were almost at hand were delayed for one reason
or another. While as for the South, the genius that had planned the
attack and that had carried it forward was quenched in death, when
victory was at its height.

But for the present the lad had little time for such thoughts
as these. The success of Sherman in holding the new position infused
new courage into him and those around him. The men in gray, wearied
with their immense exertions, and having suffered frightful losses
themselves, abated somewhat the energy and fierceness of their
attack.

The dissolved Northern regiments had time to reform. Grant
seized a new position along a line of hills, in front of which ran a
deep ravine filled with brushwood. He and his officers appreciated
the advantage and they massed the troops there as fast as they
could.

Now Fortune, after having brought Grant to the verge of the
pit, was disposed to throw chances in his way. The hills and the
ravine were one. Another, and most important it was, was the
presence of guns of the heaviest calibre landed some days ago from
the fleet, and left there until their disposition could be
determined. A quick-witted colonel, Webster by name, gathered up
all the gunners who had lost their own guns and who had been driven
back in the retreat, and manned this great battery of siege guns,
just as the Southern generals were preparing to break down the last
stand of the North.

Meanwhile, a terrible rumor had been spreading in the ranks of
the Southern troops. The word was passed from soldier to soldier
that their commander, Johnston, whom they had believed invincible,
had been killed, and they did not trust so much Beauregard, who was
left in command, nor those who helped. Their fiery spirit abated
somewhat. There was no decrease of courage, but continuous victory
did not seem so easy now.

Confusion invaded the triumphant army also. Beauregard had
divided the leadership on the field among three of his lieutenants.
Hardee now urged on the center, Bragg commanded the right, and Polk,
the bishop- general, led the left. It was Bragg's division that was
about to charge the great battery of siege guns that the alert
Webster had manned so quickly. Five minutes more and Webster would
have been too late. Here again were the fortunes of Grant brought to
the very verge of the pit. The Northern gunboats at the mouth of
Lick Creek moved forward a little, and their guns were ready to
support the battery.

The Kentucky regiment was wedged in between the battery and a
brigade, and it was gasping for breath. Colonel Winchester,
slightly wounded in three places, commanded his men to lie down, and
they gladly threw themselves upon the earth.

There was a momentary lull in the battle. Wandering winds
caught up the banks of smoke and carried most of them away. Dick,
as he rose a little, saw the Southern troops massing in the forest
for an attack upon their new position. They seemed to be only a few
yards away and he clearly observed the officers walking along the
front of the lines. It flashed upon him that they must hold these
hills or Grant's army would perish. Where was Buell? Why did he not
come? If the Southerners destroyed one Northern army today they
would destroy another tomorrow! They would break the two halves of
the Union force in the west into pieces, first one and then the
other.

"What do you see, Dick?" asked Warner, who was lying almost
flat upon his face.

"The Confederate army is getting ready to wipe us off the face
of the earth! Up with your rifle, George! They'll be upon us in
two minutes!"

They heard a sudden shout behind them. It was a glad shout,
and well it might be. Nelson, held back by Buell's orders, had
listened long to the booming of the cannon off in the direction of
Shiloh. Nothing could convince him that a great battle was not
going on, and all through the morning he chafed and raged. And as
the sound of the cannon grew louder he believed that Grant's army
was losing.

Nelson obtained Buell's leave at last to march for Shiloh, but
it was a long road across hills and creeks and through swamps. The
cannon sank deep in the mire, and then the ardent Nelson left them
behind. Now he knew there was great need for haste. The flashing
and thundering in front of them showed to the youngest soldier in
his command that a great battle was in progress, and that it was
going against the North. His division at last reached Pittsburg
Landing and was carried across the river in the steamers. One
brigade led by Ammen outstripped the rest, and rushed in behind the
great battery and to its support, just as the Southern bugles once
more sounded the charge.

Dick shouted with joy, too, when he saw the new troops. The
next moment the enemy was upon them, charging directly through a
frightful discharge from the great guns. The riddled regiments,
which had fought so long, gave way before the bayonets, but the
fresh troops took their places and poured a terrible fire into the
assaulting columns. And the great guns of the battery hurled a new
storm of shell and solid shot. The ranks of the Southern troops,
worn by a full day of desperate fighting, were broken. They had
crossed the ravine into the very mouths of the Northern guns, but
now they were driven back into the ravine and across it. Cannon and
rifles rained missiles upon them there, and they withdrew into the
woods, while for the first time in all that long day a shout of
triumph rose from the Union lines.

Another lull came in the battle.

"What are they doing now, Dick?" asked the Vermonter.

"I can't see very well, but they seem to be gathering in the
forest for a fresh attack. Do you know, George, that the sun is
almost down?"

"It's certainly time. It's been at least a month since the
Johnnies ran out of the forest in the dawn, and jumped on us."

It was true that the day was almost over, although but few had
noticed the fact. The east was already darkening, and a rosy glow
from the west fell across the torn forest. Here and there a dead
tree, set on fire by the shells, burned slowly, little flames
creeping along trunk and boughs.

Bragg was preparing to hurl his entire force upon Sherman and
the battery. At that moment Beauregard, now his chief, arrived.
But a few minutes of daylight were left and the swarthy Louisianian
looked at the great losses in his own ranks. He believed that the
army of Buell was so far away that it could not arrive that night
and he withheld the charge.

The Southern army withdrew a little into the woods, the night
rushed down, and Shiloh's terrible first day was over.