USA > Iowa > Jasper County > Newton > Third reunion of Iowa Hornets' Nest Brigade : 2d, 7th, 8th, 12th and 14th infantry, held at Newton, Iowa, Wednesday and Thursday, August 21 and 22, 1895 > Part 3
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able for the manufacture of such a bit of nonsense as that above quoted.
The history of the selection of Pittsburg Landing as the base of operations has been but meagerly described by parties qualified to speak on that subject. After the surrender of Forts Henry and Donelson, it was the purpose of General Halleck to mass the forces of Generals Grant and Bnell against the Confederate army at Cor- inth. General Sherman, with four brigades, was required to land at some point on the Tennessee river below Eastport, and make a break of the Memphis & Charleston Rail Road between Tuscumbia and Cor- inth. After unsuccessfully attempting to comply with his orders at points beyond Pittsburg Landing, General Sherman, on March 14th, 1862, dropped down the river with his four brigades to that landing, where he found General Hurlbut and his division. General Smith, who was acting in place of General Grant, directed General Sherman and General Hurlbut to disembark their divisions at Pittsburg Land- ing and take positions well back, leaving room for the whole army. General Smith did not live to report what were his designs, but to General Sherman he stated that he intended soon to come up in per- son and with his whole army make a lodgment on the railroad as contemplated by the orders of General Halleck. On March 18th, Gen. Hurlbut disembarked his forces and on the 19th General Sherman did likewise. Within a few days, the division of General Prentiss arrived, and, shortly afterward, it was followed, first, by the division of General McClernand, then by that of Gen. W. H. L. Wallace. All this time Gen. Smith was at Savannah suffering from the injury which within a short time cansed his death. On the 13th day of March, Gen. Grant was restored to his command, according to his own statement, and yet the events above described, at least till after the landing of the divisions of Gen. Hurlbut and Gen. Sherman, were according to the statements of the general last named under the direction of Gen. Smith. Of the whereabouts of Gen. Grant from March 13th until after March 19th, we have no information either from his narrative or that of Gen. Sherman and we are equal- ly uninformed as to the exact time when Gen. Grant actually took charge of affairs at Pittsburg Landing. It is however clear from what has already been said, that for the selection of Pittsburg Landing as the base of operations against Corinth, Gen. Smith was directly responsible, and it is equally clear, that at this landing two divisions had been disembarked on March 19th -- a period of eighteen days before the battle of Shiloh. At whatever date Gen. Grant may have assumed actual command of the forces at Pittsburg Land- ing, it admits of no question that he adopted the choice of base made by his predecessor in accordance with which troops had been landed.
The Mobile & Ohio Rail Road crossed the Memphis & Charleston Rail Road at Corinth twenty-two miles south-westward from Pitts- burg Landing. Between these points there were roads, which by the spring rains, had been rendered heavy but not impassable. At Pittsburg Landing the Tennessee river ran due north, passing along the west side of Savannah about eight miles further on in its course. If all intervening impediments to his view could have been removed, a person standing on the summit of the hill which over- looked the landing and facing westward, would have had behind him the swollen waters of the Tennessee river, and in front he would have had spread out before him an undulating expanse of country covered with timber, except as there was dotted here and there a
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small farm, or there were the unfenced lines of highways of which the locations were governed by the conformation of the grounds to be crossed. To his left, at a distance of about two miles, this person, if nothing intervened, and his eyes were keen enough, might have made out the place where the river received the waters of Lick creek from whence he could have traced upward the meandering course of that stream toward its source in a south-westerly direction for a distance of about five miles where it was intersected by a branch running from the south-west. To his right, at a distance of about three-fourths of a mile could have been discerned the mouth of of Snake creek from which with his eyes he could have followed that creek from the river first. northward, thence, after describing a curve his ascent would have been south-westward for about three miles till he reached the mouth of Owl creek. From this point of intersection this confluent stream would have been traceable toward its sources in a direction somewhat west of due southward, for a dis- tance of about five miles. These streams for the distances they have been traced, were on April 6, 1862, swollen with rains and for the most part skirted with their own overflow waters. Within the view supposed there was partially enclosed by the Tennessee river on the east, by Lick creek and its tributary on the south, by Snake and Owl creeks on the north and west. an irregular shaped tract, about five miles across between Lick and Owl creeks where they were farthest apart. Where these creeks made the nearest approach to each other was farther out than the above line of measurement and was beyond the Shiloh church, which was about two and one half miles from the landing. At a distance of from three to four miles from the landing, the interval was of but about two miles between the tributary of Lick creek above indicated and Owl creek, and this interval was all that was lacking to completely enclose the tract. which as has already been stated, was partially surrounded by the Tennessee river and its tributaries. It is scarcely necessary to state that from a point near the landing there was a divide which ran in the direction of Corinth between Lick creek and its tributary on the one side and Snake and Owl creeks on the other.
On the morning of April 6th 1862 there was left open to the at- tack of the Confederate forces only the interval above referred to, the flanks of the Union army being protected by the creeks already described. The ontermost line of the Federal army reached from the bridge on Owl creek to the Lick creek ford. Its right was com- posed of three brigades, and the left of the fourth brigade of Gen. Sherman's division, the intervening space was held by the di- vision commanded by General Prentiss. About half a mile behind this line was Gen. McClernand's division, and. still nearer the river, were the divisions of General Hurlbut and Gen. Smith - the latter under command of Geo. W. II. I .. Wallace. The distinctive features of the battle which followed have been described by Gen. Buell in language at once terse. direct, and forcible. In the maga- zine article entitled "Shiloh Reviewed" he said: "An army compris- ing 70 regiments of infantry, 20 batteries of artillery, and a suffi- ciency of cavalry, lay fortwo weeks, and more, in isolated camps, with a river in its rear, and a hostile army claimed to be superior in numbers 20 miles distant in its front, while the commander made his headquarters and passed his nights nine miles away on the opposite side of the river. It had no line of battle, nodefensive works of any sort, no outposts properly speaking, to give warning or check the advance of an enemy, and no recognized head during the absence of
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its regular commander. On a Saturday the hostile force arrived and formed in line of battle without detection or hindrance within a mile and a half of the unguarded army, advanced upon it the next morn- ing, penetrated its disconnected lines, assaulted its camps in front and flank, drove its disjointed members successively from position to position, capturing some and routing others in spite of much heroic individual resistance, and steadily drew near the landing and depot of its supplies in the pocket between the river and the impassable creek." In this energetic language of General Buell the facts are summarized whereon is founded the charge that Shiloh was a sur- prise by which were very nearly accomplished the designs of the enemy. The reports of the general officers on the Confederate side, written just afterwards, tell the same story of want of preparation as does the above quoted language of General Buell. In the account given of this battle by the President of the Confederate States the unanimous testimony of all the officers whose reports were made to his government was summarized in a clear and concise corrobora- tion of General Buell's account of the events which preceded and attended the Easter Sunday morning attack upon the forces of Gen- eral Grant. With the aid of the material at his command, the son of General Johnson, the Confederate commander, compiled an ac- count of the same events as did President Davis with the same result as to the proposition that the surprise of the Federal force was almost complete. That this conclusion was reached in all fairness and candor is evident from the apology which William Preston John- son offers on behalf of General Grant and which, because in some measure it seems to meet the criticism of General Buell, is reproduced as it was written. Beginning at the bottom of page 551 of the first Volume of the "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War," this apology reads as follows: "Grant has been severely criticised for his placing his army with the river at its back. But he was to take the initiative. He had the larger army, under cover, too, of his gun- boats; he was expecting Buell daily; and the ground was admirable for defense. Indeed, his position was a natural stronghold. Flanked by Owl and Lick creeks, with their marshy margins, and with his front protected by a swampy valley he occupied a quadrilateral of great strength. Itis troops were stationed on woody heights, gener- ally screened by heavy undergrowth and approached across boggy ravines or open fields. Each camp was a fortress in itself, and the line of retreat afforded at each step some like point to rally on. He did not fortify his camps it is true; but he was not there for attack, but for defense." Reduced to the simplest form, this apology is based upon three assumptions; first, that as General Grant intended to at- tack, the enemy might confidently be expected to await his pleasure in that regard; second, that if attacked, it could only be in the front; and third, if worsted there lay behind his troops advantageous posi- tions upon which they could fall back and make successive stands in their retreat toward the river. The first of these assumptions has been the cause of the greatest military disasters recorded in history. When the fortunes of the Continental army were at their lowest ebb, the British had good cause to expect that attack would not come from that quarter, and yet, in this expectation they were cruelly dis- appointed by the sudden appearance from across the Delaware very early on a bitterly cold and stormy December morning of the mere skeleton of an army, which, upon every consideration of comfort and probabilities should have remained in quarters and near their warm, safe and comfortable fires. This attack was successful because it
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was improbable. Later than Shiloh, General Grant unexpectedly crossed the Mississippi river below Vicksburg, ont loose from his base and conducted a three weeks campaign so bold in its conception, so brilliant in its execution, and so momentous in its consequences, that thenceforward no one could doubt what a great general the war had disclosed on the Federal side. These successes were attained- the one by General Washington; the other by General Grant -- simply because each of those generals unexpectedly assunned the initiative.
The reliance upon the successive favorable positions for making stands, the last justification offered, within itself implied that there was properly to be considered the possibility that General Johnson's forces might advance suddenly from Corinth, and, assuming the initiative, drive the Umon forces back to their several favorable positions for defense. This is a clear admission of an essential prop- osition under consideration, and that is, whether General Grant should have taken into account the possibility of a Confederate attack. General Sherman, while he has insisted that it was justitia- ble to rely upon the assumption that the Federal forces were to take the initiative, has made no mention of the favorable nature of grounds for defense at different points behind him as affording an excuse for neglecting to fortify his front. The disadvantages, in case of an attack which might have resulted from having in the rear the Tennessee river and on each flank an impassable stream, were stated by General Grant on page 123 of the second vohnne of his Memoirs. Speaking of an interview with President Lincoln, General Grant's language was as follows: "I should have said that in our interview, the President told me he did not want to know what I proposed to do. But he submitted a plan of campaign of his own, which he wanted me to hear, and then to do as I pleased about it. He brought out a map of Virginia, on which he had evidently marked every position occupied by the Federal and Confederate armies up to that time. He pointed out on the map two streams which empty into the Potomac, and suggested that the army might be moved in boats and landed between the mouths of these streams. We would then have the Potomac to bring our supplies, and the tributaries would protect our flanks while we moved out. I listened respectfully, but did not suggest that the same streams would protect Lee's flanks while he was shutting us up." Of a somewhat similar tendency is General Grant's description of the report made to him by General Barnard as to General Butler's forces being corked as in a bottle between the James and Appomattox rivers which is to be found on pages 15i and 152 of volume second of the above mentioned Memoirs. From these two incidents, it would seem probable that the position occupied by the Union forces and near Pittsburg Landing, was not in accordance with General Grant's theory as to what would have been a proper base from which to conduct offensive operations. However this may have been, General Grant would not abandon a position once taken by him, or a live of procedure once adopted, for, as he said of himself as a boy, "One of my superstitions had always been when I started to go anywhere, or to do anything not to turn back, or stop, until the thing intended was accomplished." That this pe- culiarity remained with him long after he had attained his manhood, no student of his life and character can for a single moment doubt. But, finding his army encamped where it was when he resumed com- mand, why at some time was not the possibility of a surprise placed beyond peradventure? The front upon which an attack could be made way only about a mile and a half or two miles across. On the
IOWA HORNETS' NEST BRIGADE.
night of Friday, April 4, there was such a Confederate demonstration against the outlying Federal forces, that Gen. Beauregard advised the abandonment of the contemplated attack because he believed a surprise had thereby been rendered impossible. Notwithstanding this fact, there were established no outposts and, although there were but two roads by which the Confederates could advance near the Federal front, no means for finding whether an advance was in pro- gress over either of these roads was adopted.
The Union army calmly and confidently ignored the possibility of an advance from Corinth, until early on Sunday morning, when something unusual opposite its front caused General Prentiss, of his own motion, to send out a detachment to ascertain the cause and the nature of the disturbance. This detachment opened the battle of Shiloh. For the most part the immediate front of the Federal army was covered with forest trees, yet although the divisions of General Sherman and General Hurlbut respectively had been encamped in the vicinity since March 19th, not a tree had been felled, neither had a shovelful of dirt been disturbed for purposes of defense.
General Sherman, who has been General Grant's principal witness in defense of this non-preparation, justified it in the following lan- guage found on page 229 of the first vohime of his own Memoirs: "We did not fortify our camps against an attack, because we had no orders to do so and because such a course would have made our raw men timid. The position was naturally strong, with Snake creek on our right, a deep bold stream with a confluent, (Owl creek) to our right front: and Lick creek. with a similar confluent on our left, thus narrowing the space over which we could be attacked to about a mile and a half or two miles. At a later period of the war we could have rendered this position impregnable in one night, but at this time we did not do it and it may be it is well we did not." In this defense there are at least two obscure statements. Of these the first is that "we had no orders to do so." Who should have given these orders and to whom should they have been issued? By the expression "we had no orders to do so," it is probable that General Sherman meant that the division commanders had received no such instructions from Gen- eral Grant. This perhaps localizes the responsibility, but it does not excuse the oversight. The ever recurring question still remains, should chevaux de frise have been improvised by the use of forest trees felled for that purpose, and should not some sort of earth em- bankments have been constructed? The closing sentence of the quo- tation just made from General Sherman's Memoirs makes it very clear that one single night's preparation would have rendered the po- sition impregnable, but he darkens counsel with this final clanse "and it may be it is well we did not." Why could it be well we did not do so? The only suggestion of a reason for this conclusion which he gave, was that though the course suggested would have made the po- sition impregnable yet it would have made our raw men timid. As this proposition that shelter would have made our raw men timid is the only one to which attention has not already been devoted let us see what value General Sherman practically attached to securing cover for raw troops for the purpose of enabling them to hold their position. In his report to General Grant's assistant adjutant general of date April 10th. 1862, (page 237 volume. I of his Memoirs) General Sherman after having described the abandonment of his original camp made use of the following language: "This was about half- past ten A. M. at which time the enemy had made a furious attack on General McClernand's whole front. He struggled most determin-
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edly. but, tinding him pressed, I moved McDowell's brigade directly against the left flank of the enemy, Forced him back some distance. and then directed the men to avail themselves of every cover- trees, fallen timber, and a woody valley to our right. We held this position for four long hours, sometimes gaining and at others losing ground; General McClernand and myself acting in perfect concert and strug- gling to maintain this line." Not only was this position held by raw men under cover for four hours, from half-past ten A. M., that is till half-past two P. M., according to this direct statement of General Sherman, but this was followed by language, the fair import of which is, that it was held until 4 o'clock, and would have been held still longer, but for the fact that General Hurlbut had fallen back and it was necessary that General Sherman's division should take such a po-
sition as would enable it to cover a bridge, by which it was expected that the division of General Lew Wallace would arrive upon the bat- tlefield. If the cover afforded by trees, fallen timber, and a wooded valley to its right inspired General Sherman's division with the tena- cions courage which he ascribed to them, what would have been the effect upon the whole army if the felled trees with sharpened branch- es pointing toward the enemy, backed by intrenchments, had ren- dered impregnable the defensive line of the Union army? It is in- conceivable that troops could be so raw that an impregnable position furnished for their protection would render them timid.
General Grant's account of the battle of Shiloh giving his rea- sons for failing to provide against an offensive movement on the part of the enemy, was written nearly twenty-three years after the events which he undertook to describe and to explain. Meantime he had brought the civil war to a successful close, had commanded the Fed- eral armies through anxious reconstruction times and had filled the office of President of the United States for two terms. During all these years which ended with his second term, his mind had been oc- cupied with planning and achieving one success after another. Af- ter his retirement from the chief magistracy of the nation, he was engaged in extensive business enterprises which, through the treach- ery of his partner, brought financial wreck to his cherished projects. There was during these almost twenty-three years, but little opportu- nity for reflection upon the situation and events attendant upon the battle of Shiloh. General Grant, on page 165 of the first volume of his Memoirs, makes the very opposite observation, that his experience since the Mexican war had taught him that things are seen plainer af- ter the events have occurred. It is well to bear this in mind, for, doubt- less unconsciously to himself, his account written so long after the bat- tle, has suffered in its accuracy from lapse of time. General Sherman, for almost his entire account of the battle of Shiloh in his Memoirs, quoted his official report made shortly afterwards, as therefore, be- ing the most reliable.
The excuse offered by General Grant on pages 357 and 358 of the first volume of his Memoirs, is as follows: "The criticism has often been made that the Union troops should have been intrenched at Shi- loh. Up to that time the pick and spade had been but little resorted to at the West. 1 had, however, taken this subject under considera- tion soon after re-assuming command in the field, and, as already stated, my only military engineer reported unfavorably. Besides this, the troops with me, officers and men, needed discipline and drill more than they did experience with the pick, the shovel and the axe. Reinforcements were arriving almost daily, composed of troops that had been hastily thrown together into companies and regiments-
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fragments of incomplete organizations, the men and officers strang- ers to each other. Under all these circumstances, I concluded that drill and discipline were worth ntore to our men than fortifications." It is with profound regret that one part of this quotation is read, and that is the expression that the troops needed discipline and drill more than they did experience with the pick, the shovel and the axe. Discipline and drill were for the purposes of education and prepara- tion of men and officers for the performance of their duties; no one has ever urged that this was requisite with respect to the use of the pick, the shovel, and the axe. Relieving this quotation of this irrev- alent antithesis, the reasons for not fortifying in advance will be. first, the pick and shovel had been but little resorted to in the west; second, a military engineer had reported unfavorably. and, third, the time could be spent more profitably in drilling than in making in- trenchments. The argument that because the pick, spade, and axe had been but little resorted to, in advance of the battle of Shiloh, has little weight, for the proper course to be taken was for the determina- tion of West Point graduates, educated long before the civil war at National expense, that they might be equipped for just such emergen- cies. Neither General Sherman nor General Grant failed to expatiate upon the rawness of the Federal officers and troops at that time under their command-it could therefore hardly have been expected that from this source should come the wisdom which should dictate what preparation should be made. With the lessons of experience came this wisdom, and with the approval of General Grant himself, the soldiers in the Wilderness illustrated the course of preparation which should have been made against Shiloh.
In the fifty-first chapter of his Memoirs General Grant said: "It may be as well here as elsewhere to state two things connected with all the movements of the Army of the Potomac; first, in every change of position or halt for the night, whether confronting the enemy or not, the moment arms were stacked the men intrenched themselves. For this purpose they would build up piles of logs or rails, if they could be found in their front, and dig a ditch, throwing the dirt forward ou the timber. Thus the digging they did counted in making a depres- sion to stand in, and increased the elevation in front of them. It was wonderful how quickly they could, in this way, construct defenses of considerable strength. When a halt was made with a view of assault- ing the enemy, or in his presence, these would be strengthened, or their positions changed, under the direction of engineer officers." This quotation describes the precautions of a veteran army adopted by common consent in successsive operations in which, always, that army took the initiative. General Sherman's testimony, too, was that in one night the position at Shiloh could have been made im. pregnable. When knowledge of the ill advised attack on the night of April 4th, upon the Union outposts, came to General Beauregard, he advised that the proposed attack, then under way, should be aband. oned, for, he argued, the Federal forces would be found intrenched to their eyes. The fact that a civil engineer could only find a suitable line for intrenchments farther back than the advanced encampments, and, that this line would have been subject to the disadvantage of the enemy preventing the use of the waters of the creeks on the flanks, cuts no great figure, for the intrenchments which this officer evidently had in mind were such as would withstand a prolonged attack, in which event it would be important to have access to an abundance of water. The proximity of General Lew Wallace with his division,
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