USA > Indiana > The soldier of Indiana in the war for the union, Vol. I > Part 30
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Beauregard's hair before the war was of unmingled black, "now it was sprinkled with snow,
'Nor turned it white In a single night, As men's have done from sudden fears;'
nor did it blanch under the all-absorbing labors and anxieties of his position," as was partially the case with General Fre-
*See Beauregard's request to the Confederate Government to starve prisoners.
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"THE INSCRUTABLE BUELL" ON THE MARCH.
mont ;* but from external causes produced by the enforce- ment of the blockade.t
General Bragg was a stern, harsh disciplinarian, and not much loved, but he possessed great energy and resolution, and was invaluable to the southern cause.
General Hardee was a man of less gravity, and of a lower tone of character in every respect than Johnston, and in some particulars than even Bragg and Beauregard, but he was more affable and equally prompt and spirited.
General Polk, or "the bishop," as the jealous General Pillow preferred to call him, was more intense, more impressible, more vivacious than any of his co-adjutors.
Breckinridge, a handsome, discontented Kentuckian, was another General of note. Withers, Ruggles and Cheatham were division commanders, and Yancey, Crittenden, Gladden, Gibson were not mean names among the Brigadier Generals.
While General Beauregard chose his position, and gathered about him a great part of the strength and talent of the South, neither Buell nor Grant was idle.
Having clothed and equipped his army anew, and in some respects re-arranged his brigades, General Buell was ready to continue his progress. Before leaving Nashville, however, at the earnest request of General Mitchell, he directed his third division to advance through Murfreesboro, in a southeasterly direction, in order to destroy the communication of the enemy along the Charleston and Memphis railroad, over which sup- plies passed in the West to the Rebel army in the East, and troops might be sent from the East to reinforce the Rebel army in the West; he detached Negley's brigade, in which was the Thirty-Eighth Indiana, from the second division for the defence of Nashville, transferred Colonel Miller from the command of a brigade to the charge of the barracks in the city, and assigned General Dumont to the command of the post.
On the 16th the movement began through a beautiful and highly cultivated part of Tennessee. War had not yet devas-
* Richardson's "Field, Dungeon and Escape."
t The Turveydrops of the South suffered untold mortification for want of hair dyes, wigs and other such necessaries of the toilet.
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
tated that region; and farm and forest, mansion and cabin were fair and smiling in the midst of nature's plenty and peace. Hostile feeling, however, was very strong among the inhabitants. In Williamson county, where, it is said, not a single vote was given for secession, not a single cheer was now uttered for the Union. Some wept at the sight of the almost ceaseless stream of invaders, but generally its course was watched with scowls and sneers.
At Rutherford creek and at Duck river, while a troop of Buell's cavalry, consisting principally of the Second Indiana, held at a distance a troublesome force of the enemy's cav- alry, the second division, which was in advance, was forced to build bridges. The Michigan engineers were no longer at hand, and Willich's pioneers having been disbanded and their tools turned over to the quartermaster's department, the work was no small task. Where laborers are plenty and pay is little or nothing, tools are scarce, and it was with great diffi- culty, after scouring the country, that a sufficiency could be procured. The more difficult affair of the two, the bridge over Duck river, was completed under the direction of Colonel Willich. During the progress of the work, by means at first of a small flat-boat and a rope ferry, afterwards of a pontoon bridge, the divisions of Generals Nelson and Crittenden and part of McCook's crossed the river.
Columbia, on the south bank of Duck river, showed more than any place through which the army had passed the presence of war. Four seminaries or colleges, in which e thousand or twelve hundred young people were generally in attendance, were either closed or used as Rebel hospitals
Beyond Columbia progress was exceedingly slow and toib some. It continued during five days at the rate of six and twelve miles a day. The road was narrow, rough and hilly. The only relief to the tedium of the march was furnished by the change in the appearance of the country and in the char- acter of the people.
In southern Tennessee poverty and ignorance succeed to the wealth and intelligence of the central region. The farms are small patches of stony or clay soil The farming imple- ments belong to the eighteenth century, and the manner of,
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"THE VOICE OF THE WAR-CANNON."
house-keeping is as ancient. A creaking sweep dips up water from the well. The big wheel or the little wheel hums and drones in the best room of the cabin. A gigantic loom, such as furnished the similitude for Goliath's beam, fills up half the kitchen. Linen whitens on the grass-plot beside the door. Cotton-cards tear apart and roll up the fleecy product of the little fields. Shadows mark the time. A crane swings the kettle over the fire, and a skillet bakes the bread. A large portion of the women encroach on a custom which in other districts of the United States is the nasty prerogative of men. Not uncommon during the war was the spectacle of a mother with three or four grown up daughters sitting in a semi-circle and spitting tobacco juice over the sacred hearth, which the father and sons were fighting for in the Confederate army; or of girls in rivalry with boys expectorating through closed teeth; or of a woman dipping snuff and fondly sucking her snuff-dipper, sometimes kindly passing it from her own mouth to that of a friend. Lowest in the scale of southern humanity are the clay-eaters, a "feeble folk," who actually "eat dirt," and by this custom give to southern literature the expression "dirt-eater," which, though applied to the North, was never understood in that portion of the United States until the march of armies displayed the recesses of Tennessee and Alabama life.
Not being in the habit of living on unpaid labor, such of the people below Columbia as labored at all, were honest, and in consequence loyal. They warmly welcomed the Union army.
April 6th, as the army plodded along, or prepared to renew its march, a hollow rumbling like the far off gathering of a storm was heard. In the sky there was not a cloud; the morning sun shone serenely; but louder and more distinct swelled the sound. It was the roar of battle. The North. and South had met on the field of Shilolı.
"Forward!" was the command which passed along the line. "Forward! without the baggage trains." The men loaded their muskets, inspectors saw that they were provided with forty rounds of cartridges, and horse and foot tramped through all
24
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
the long hours of that dreadful day, hastening towards the rising and falling but never ceasing tumult.
General Grant left Fort Henry, where he had concentrated his army after the siege of Donelson, before General Buell left Nashville. He occupied the second week in March in moving up the Tennessee with his army, on nearly a hundred transports. He landed at Savannah, a little town, of two hundred inhabitants, one hundred and seventy miles above the fort, before the middle of the month. Making this place a depot for stores, and retaining to guard it a few troops, he sent his army further up the river, five divisions to Pittsburg Landing, ten miles, and one division, under General Lew Wallace, to Crump's Landing, but four miles above Savannah. Pittsburg Landing was selected as a place of debarcation, and as an encampment by General Smith, because creeks flowing each side of the position left open to the enemy, should he choose to make an attack, only the front, and new troops resist a front attack more bravely than a flank assault.
The position, now known as the battle-ground of Shiloh, is an oblong area, nearly encircled by streams. The broad Tennessee is on the East, Owl creek rises in a ridge on the West, curves round, and with Snake creek, into which it flows, forms the northern boundary. Lick creek has its source in the same ridge, pursues an opposite course, makes the same sort of curve round the southern limit, and creeps into the river through a narrow marsh not more than three miles from the mouth of Snake creek. The landing is in a ravine mid- way between the Lick and Snake, and is connected with Corinth by a wagon road, which divides a mile or two from the river, one branch being the lower, the other the ridge Corinth road. Pittsburg itself is nothing more than two shabby houses. The original forest, and dense thickets under the trees and in wet ravines, have seldom been disturbed, but besides the roads one or two clearings, which consist of a cotton-field, a corn-field, a peach-orchard, and a cabin, show that the country is inhabited. In the spring of 1862 a hewed log-house, called the Shiloh Church, stood on the ridge road, not quite three miles from the river, in the shade of a noble
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POSITION OF GRANT'S ARMY.
oak grove. Not one log now lies upon another to mark the spot. At the point of the ridge, near the church, two fine springs, now as then, gush up from gravelly beds. Many springs and rivulets of clear water flow at the base of the sharp hills into which the ground is broken.
The five divisions round Pittsburg Landing were under the command of Sherman, Prentiss, McClernand, Hurlburt and Smith. General Smith, immediately after encamping the army, was attacked by an illness which terminated fatally. He was succeeded in the command of his division by W. H. L. Wallace. Except Sherman, all the division commanders were Illinois men. The only Indiana troops on the field were in Hurlburt's division, the "Fighting Fourth," as it came to be called. They formed the Twenty-Fifth, Thirty-First and Forty-Fourth regiments. The Twenty-Fifth was in the second brigade, which was commanded by Colonel Veatch, and the Thirty-First and Forty-Fourth were in the third bri- gade, Colonel Lauman, who assumed command only the day before the battle, and made the acquaintance of his men un- der fire.
General Sherman's division fronted the South, and was arranged as outlying pickets. Three brigades, forming the extremne right, were three miles from the landing, and reached from Snake creek, the bridge of which they guarded, beyond Shiloh Church. One, the extreme left, guarded the ford of Lick creek, not more than a mile from the Tennessee. This last brigade was under the command of Colonel Stuart. The brigade east of the church was under Colonel Hildebrand. The first line of Sherman's right was on the brow of a ridge, the declivity of which was covered with thick woods, and the base watered by a willow-bordered brook. The division was made up of Illinois, Iowa and Ohio troops, who were all inexperienced and undisciplined, not one regiment having yet seen a battle.
Nearer to the river, almost parallel with it, and between the sundered parts of Sherman's division, lay McClernand and Prentiss, the former overlapped by Sherman. McClernand's men were nearly all from Illinois, and, having been engaged at Donelson, they had both experience and reputation. Prentiss
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
with raw Illinois, Iowa and Missouri troops, was on the left and southeast of McClernand.
Hurlburt and W. H. L. Wallace were in the rear, not far from the river.
No defences were thrown up in front, although both Grant and Sherman were well aware of the danger in which their proximity to the Rebels placed them, and though ridgy ground and thick woods offered such advantages that either breast- works or an abatis could easily be made.
The Confederate commanders, meantime, watched with solicitude the concentration of Grant's forces and the approach of Buell. As early as the 14th of March Beauregard gave minute instructions to his men in regard to their conduct in the coming battle. Under all circumstances they were to fire with deliberation at the feet of the enemy, in order to avoid over-shooting, and because wounded men would give more trouble than dead. Each man must single out his mark. Whoever quit his standard on the battle-field under fire, on pretence of removing or aiding the wounded, would be shot on the spot.
Not only instructions were given, preparations of every kind were hastened in order to attack Grant's forces before Buell's arrival. Beauregard was confident that taking the armies singly he could capture them, or drive them into the river, or on their transports, and bring to Corinth the abun- dant Federal stores which were at Savannah. Hismovement, however was delayed by various difficulties, and it was not until he ascertained, on the 2d of April, that Buell was dan- gerously near, that he issued orders to advance. Saturday morning, April 5th, was fixed for the attack, but the roads were so bad that the army did not reach the approaches to the Federal camp until late Saturday night. Friday and Sat- urday a cavalry reconnoitring force appeared in front of Crump's Landing. After skirmishing with Wallace's cavalry it was driven back and pursued.
Saturday night the Confederate troops rested not a mile from General Grant's front, within the sound of the Federal drum. Sunday morning, while the stars were still shining, they rose, moved on silently in three lines of battle, led re-
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TO ARMS!
spectively by Hardee, Bragg and Polk, and with a strong reserve under Breckinridge, towards Pittsburg Landing. Cav- alry formed the rear of each wing of the first and second line, of the left wing of the third line, and the right wing of the reserve. In order to embrace the whole Union front, the reserve was brought up as the army approached, and made to extend the line right and left. A brigade of Bragg's corps took the left of Hardee. A brigade of Breckinridge's reserve supported the left of Bragg's corps, while the rest of Breck- inridge's force and Yancey's brigade of Polk's corps advanced on the right to the fords of Lick creek, and later in the day assumed a commanding point opposite Stuart.
When the Union pickets became aware of the Confederate approach, they strove to fall back slowly and give the army time to spring to arms, but they were captured or scattered, and, almost unannounced, Hardee and Bragg came sweeping in towards the center. They expected to strike Prentiss and McClernand, and turn upon Sherman when they had swept away the main army, or crushed it into one mass. But while Bragg struck Prentiss full in front, McClernand was so far behind Sherman that he escaped the first blow, and Hardee's attack fell hard on Hildebrand, standing near the little church.
There was now no careful choosing of position, nor arrang- ing of lines on the field of Shiloh. Ordered from the tent, from the table, from the bed into the full blaze and roar of battle, the troops could scarcely hear, or hearing comprehend, the plainest directions. General Prentiss drew up in front of his encampment in an open space of which Generel Bragg had full sweep. He could not hold it. He was instantly forced back. He formed his brigade within his encampment, but only to be driven back again, and so rapidly that some of his men were captured or slain in their tents before they had time to arm or even dress themselves.
Sherman stood somewhat better. The church, held by Hildebrand, was his center. But Hildebrand's raw troops gave way. One regiment fled without lifting a hand; another wavered, then broke and ran wildly to the rear; the third was in confusion. To retain the central point was hopeless, and Sherman lost no time in gaining a new position for such of
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
Hildebrand's brigade could not be collected. As his foremost batteries fell back, he met Captain Behr, and ordered him to come immediately into action. Behr gave directions to his company to assume the position pointed out. Before his instructions could be heard he was shot from his horse. His death so confused his men that when four were wounded and sixty-eight horses were killed, they fled în disorder, leaving nearly all their guns, though carrying of their cassions.
The two remaining brigades on the right, like wild steeds of the prairie when flames roll from every side, stood,startled and trembling; but the regal spirit of their commander held them steady. The impetuous Sherman, his face soiled with powder and blood, was a target to the enemy. A bullet cut off his bridle within two inches of his fingers; a second whistled through the top of his hat. His horse was shot under him ; he mounted another; the second fell; he bestrode a third; his hand was shot through, an aid bound it in a sling. Wherever he went the bullets fell; wherever the enemy poured his hottest fire he went.
When McClernand in his camp heard the din of battle on his right and left, he promptly marched forward to the Corinth road, extended his line toward Shiloh, and waited the coming in of the battle tide. He had not to wait many minutes. It rolled up against his right, then all along his front, but he stood like a rock until the Confederates, rushing in where Sherman had broken, threatened to flank him, then he too drew back, leaving his camp in the possession of the enemy.
Before eight o'clock Sherman and Prentiss both sent to Hurlburt's reserve for aid. The second brigade, the Twenty -.. Fifth Indiana and three Illinois regiments, were marching to Sherman in ten minutes. In a little more time the first and third were on their way to Prentiss. As they drew near his- rear and left, they met flying thousands, all unmanned, hag- gard, panting, pushing in blind strength towards the river. The fugitives drifted over and through Hurlburt's men. A white-faced Colonel shouted to the Forty-Fourth Indiana, " They outnumber us two to one! My command is all gone! You'll be cut to pieces!" "Hold your tongue, you cowardly rascal!" cried Lieutenant Hodges, of company I; "or I'll
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VEATCH AND LAUMAN.
run you through. If you have stampeded your regiment, you shan't run off ours!"
The "Fighting Fourth" drew up in line of battle, the first brigade on the south side of a large open field, the third con- tinuing the line with an obtuse angle round the eastern edge of the field, and extending beyond some distance into the woods. One battery was placed in the angle, one at each end of the line. Scarcely was the fire of the enemy felt when the artillerymen on the right fled, leaving cassions, guns and horses, without control. Volunteers from the two other batteries, Mann's in the angle, and Ross' on the left, brought in the frightened horses and spiked the guns.
General Breckinridge, with his reserve, approached the third brigade. As he neared, the young Major of the Thirty-First Indiana rode along his regiment, his face aglow with the light of battle, and said, "Be cool, men, be cool!" While the words were still on his lips, a sweeping volley hurled him from his horse, and struck the Colonel and Lieutenant-Colo- nel. A half hour's steady and continuous fire repulsed this fierce attack. But the pause was short. The struggle was renewed by a return of Breckinridge's force. It advanced steadily and gallantly over the open field in front within four hundred yards. Fire from both batteries and both brigades drove it back, but only to return. Three hours a bitter strug- gle continued along Hurlbut's line. General Johnston was in Breckinridge's rear, delivering an order to an aid, when a piece of shell struck him and cut an artery, from which he bled to death. Colonel Cruft was three times wounded. One bullet cut through the surface of his shoulder, a second lodged in his thigh, while a piece of shell stuck fast in his skull. He picked them out, without dismounting, as coolly as a man would draw a splinter from his finger.
Colonel Veatch's brigade, sent early to the assistance of Sherman, bore itself as manfully as the rest of Hurlbut's division. A private letter written the next day by the Major of the Twenty-Fifth, tells the story of Indiana on the right of the field with more spirit than the cold pen of the distant writer:
" We had hardly left the camp before we saw the roads full
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
of our flying men, and all along the two miles we passed over were strewn guns, knapsacks and blankets. We found to our dismay that our front had been completely surprised, one whole division scattered and retreating in utter confusion, and the enemy in force already a mile within our camps.
" We were drawn up in line of battle, our brigade under Colonel Veatch, in a skirt of timber, bordering on a large field, on the outer edge of which our troops were engaging the enemy. But the Confederates pressed on in overwhelm- ing force, and just as the troops in front of us began to waver, we discovered that the enemy had flanked us on the right, and was rapidly advancing (in what force we knew not, but the woods were swarming,) to attack our brigade on the right and rear. So it became necessary for us to change front to the rear to meet them. The Fifteenth Illinois was on the right, the Fourteenth Illinois in the center, and the Twenty- Fifth Indiana on the left, the other regiment, the Forty-Sixth Illinois, by the rapid flanking of the enemy becoming detached from the brigade, was not with us again during the whole action. This brought the first fire upon the Fifteenth Illinois, which stood it nobly, but was soon overpowered, likewise the Fourteenth.
"In the meantime our troops in front and on the left were completely routed, and came pell-mell right through our lines, causing some little confusion, and hardly had they passed through to our rear, when the enemy was upon us; and liere the fire of musketry was most terrible. Our men tried to stand up to it, but everything was breaking to pieces all round us, and it was more than we could do short of annihilation. We poured in a few well-directed volleys, and reluctantly left the field, many of our men firing as they fell back. The loss here was heavy. All the field officers of the Fifteenth Illi- nois were killed instantly. Two of our Lieutenants were killed and three wounded, and one of our Captains, George W. Saltzman, became separated from us, being on the extreme right, and covered entirely by the thick undergrowth. After vainly seeking for the regiment he went into the thickest of battle on the left, joining the Sixteenth Wisconsin, and there bravely fighting for his country, was shot through the heart.
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TRIED IN THE FURNACE.
We left dead on this field fifteen men killed almost instantly on the first fire, and a large number wounded.
"At the first fire Lieutenant-Colonel Morgan was shot in the leg and carried off the field. From this time I led the regiment in person. I did all I could to make the men con- test the ground firmly as we fell back, and on the first favora- ble ground, about a hundred yards from the first line of battle, I planted the colors, mounted a fallen tree, and, waiving my hat with all my might, I cheered and called on the men to rally on the fllag, never to desert their colors. All the left wing responded to my call most nobly, and rallied under a galling fire. Our loss was very heavy. Lieutenant Henry L. Brickett, commanding company C, was mortally wounded, and died in a few minutes, refusing to be carried from the field. Lieutenant Patterson fell here, and other noble inen.
"I did not see Colonel Morgan fall, and supposed he had charge of the right wing, but the various captains collected a large number of their men, and as soon as I got under cover of the regiment on the left and rear, they brought the men upand and joined me, and I thus had quite a battalion, notwith- standing the killed and wounded and lost. The men who came to me at this time had been tried in the furnace, and were true men, and during all the trying scenes of the rest of the day they never faltered in obeying my commands and did most nobly. As soon as our brigade was collected, Colo- nel Veatch moved us over to the right to support General Mc Clernand's division, which was being very hard pressed by the enemy."
Stuart's brigade, which stood at the far left, was the last of the outer line to be attacked. When Colonel Stuart saw long lines of bayonets appear through the leaves, he drew his troops together near the ford and awaited their approach. But he attracted no attention until ten o'clock, when, as he stood listening to the advancing and receding roar of battle on his right and in the center of the field, he was startled by a shell from the opposite bluffs of the creek. He had already requested aid from W. H. L. Wallace, and Wallace had sent him Colonel McArthur's Brigade. But McArthur bore too
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
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