USA > Ohio > Brief history of the 46th Ohio Volunteers > Part 3
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It was posted fronting south-southeast, nearly half a mile east of the Owl-Creek Bridge, on the lower Purdy road, on high ground, above the bed of an affluent of Owl Creek, whose general direction from Shiloh Church was about northwest. The pickets of the 46th having been driven in at or about 7 A. M. on the 5th, the colonel was, as indeed he had been for over two weeks, on the alert, with two companies sleeping on their arms, several days before the attack.
Just after sunrise on the 6th April, being out with the pickets about half a mile from camp, he first observed the enemy by the glitter of their arms, marching to attack the division centre at Shiloh Church, and the regiment was immediately thrown forward to the brow of the creek bot- tom in front, which was covered with heavy timber and dense underbrush.
TIME OF THE FIRST ATTACK AT SHILOH.
The attack commenced on the 3d and 4th brigades, on the left and right of the log church, about 7 A. M., and the roar and rattle of artillery and small arms for two hours on our left, across the bend of the valley, was not calculated to stimulate the courage of raw troops, never yet under fire, and neglected by their division commander.
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OPERATIONS OF THE 46TH OHIO AT SHILOHI
A little after 9 A. M. came an order from General Sher- man by his aid, Major Sanger, to fall back about two hun- dred yards to the lower Purdy road, passing through the centre and out to the right of the camp of the 46th Ohio northwestwardly.
RETREAT OF THE 1st BRIGADE BY THE LEFT FLANK AT 9 A. M.
Before the regiment was established on the road came an order to retreat by the left flank so as to join on Mc- Clernand's right, then with his division warmly engaged with the enemy, who had swept off our two centre brigades on the right of, and the 1st brigade and Prentiss' division on the left of, the Union front near the river.
The colonel of the 46th, having reason to believe that the rebel left must be near and in rear of our right, and would soon attack the camp, gave to Lieutenant-Colonel Waleut the momentary direction of the 46th until he should rejoin it, and then rode rapidly along the front of the com- pany tents and back by the rear, calling out for sick men and lingerers to leave the camp. He found his orderly (Louis Bowman) " watching," as he said, the ammunition. He ordered him instantly to retreat, but he was captured a few minutes afterwards.
Shortly before the first order to retreat (9 A. M.), the col- onel had directed an acting wagon-master to ride down the ravine in rear of the camp and observe if the enemy were near Owl-Creek Bridge, less than half a mile northwest of the camp of the 1st brigade.
After leaving the camp, and while galloping across an old field, the colonel attracted the fire of the pursuing rebel line, which wounded several men of Captain Wise- man's company ("C"). On reaching the right of the brig- ade, halted in the woods about four hundred (400) yards northeast of the camp, he found, to his surprise and satis- faction, the
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WHILE UNDER COL. WORTHINGTON'S COMMAND.
46TH POSTED ON THE EXTREME RIGHT
of the 1st brigade, the 6th Iowa having been transferred to the left, with the 40th Illinois still in the centre.
About the time he reached the brigade, his acting wagon- master came up on foot and reported that when at the outlet of the ravine, some two hundred (200) yards from Owl-Creek Bridge, he saw rebel infantry approaching, and a body of their cavalry which had just crossed the bridge, several of whom dashed towards him, when he dismounted and took to the underbrush, barely escaping capture, about which he was ordered to keep silent; the safest course, the colonel considered, being to keep the troops ignorant of the extremity of their danger.
The troops of the 46th Ohio were at least restive, in con- sequence, perhaps, of being so suddenly thrown out of posi- tion in the brigade, and by knowing by the heavy fire in our front that they were dangerously separated from the Union line, besides being in the most exposed position on the field.
Starts back, by squads or platoons, were occasional, and the adjutant once repeated what he said he thought an order from the left to retreat, little knowing our immediate peril in the rear.
FUGITIVES FROM THE LEFT ANNOUNCE THE DISPERSION OF SIX CENTRE REGIMENTS, 5TH DIVISION.
The arrival of thirty or forty fugitives with Colonel Cock- erill, 70th Ohio, from Buckland's brigade, giving fearful accounts of the dispersion of the six centre regiments (4.000 men), was by no means encouraging to the troops of the 46th, from which the brigade commander and division staff seemed to keep cautiously away.
To quiet the men, the colonel rode along his front, and, quietly calling the company officers together, assured then that their surest safety from imminent destruction was to
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OPERATIONS OF THE 46TH OHIO AT SHILOH
keep quiet in line, while he would ride out alone towards the battle-field, and soon return to report the condition of affairs in front.
TO QUIET THE TROOPS, THE COLONEL MAKES A RECONNAISSANCE TO THE FRONT IN FACE OF THE ENEMY.
Captain Heath, company "A," being the only one he advised of the extreme danger of the brigade, and to look out for an attack on our rear and right flank.
He rode out accordingly across a wooded ravine, where were several dead and wounded men, to old fields beyond, over which part of our left centre had just retreated, hav- ing left broken-down gun carriages, baggage wagons, and several dead men and horses; while the firing on our ex- treme left seemed to recede, having doubtless been the driving back of Prentiss' division and Stuart's troops, 1st brigade, 5th division, near the river.
He returned in perhaps twenty-five minutes, and soon after, about 10 A. M., the brigade was moved by the left flank, and after a very deliberate march of nearly a mile from its camp northeastwardly, the right of the 46th came west of and about half a mile or over from the flanks of the contending armies.
IST BRIGADE DISORGANIZED AND 46TH OHIO DESERTED IN THE
FACE OF DESTRUCTION BY BRIGADE AND DIVISION COMMANDERS, AT 11} A. M.
Here the brigade was halted, and faced to the front or right in line, for perhaps half an hour, on cleared and broken ground on the edge of a thick wood to the east. During the halt the 40th Illinois was detached from the centre, and at about 11.30 A. M. the 46th was ordered to march forward towards the battle ground in front, or eastwardly towards the Tennessee River. With the 40th Illinois went the brigade commander, Colonel McDowell, 6th Iowa, and bis own and the division staff, leaving the other two regi-
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WHILE UNDER COL. WORTHINGTON'S COMMAND.
ments, thus separated and out of sight of each other, to march forward over unknown ground, without guides, scouts, or skirmishers in front or on the flanks, they (the staff, &c.) having had ample reason to expect an immediate attack on our right flank ..
THE WARNING AT NOON BY CAPT. HEATH.
The march thus ordered was continued four or five hun- dred yards over brushy, wooded, and broken ground, while shells occasionally exploded or balls cut the branches of the trees above the imperilled troops. The 16th, on the extreme right of the Union line, emerging fron. the wooded ravines, had just passed a small stream nearly parallel to its front, into an open wood, with rising ground on its front and right. The colonel having just passed, as he had fre- quently before, along the rear of the regiment, was perhaps twenty yards from his right flank, when Captain Heath, company " A," suddenly stooped to his left behind his right files, and silently beckoned the colonel forward. When near, Heath warned him in an undertone that the " greys" were gathering thick as bees over a ravine on our immedi- ate right.
At a glance the colonel observed indistinctly through the brushy woods several regiments, as it seemed to him, advancing down the slope on his right, while not over sixty yards just across the ravine was a hostile line, (whose sub- sequent fire proved it equal to his regimental front,) at a kneel and ready to fire.
To retreat or fight instantly was a necessity, with scarce an instant for the consideration of results, which had never- theless to be considered. To have come to the right-about, or to have filed by the left in retreat, would have inevitably and instantly drawn the hostile fire. He knew by the dis- tant fire on our extreme left that it had fallen back nearly a mile towards the landing, and to retreat without an effort was to expose the Union line on his left to an immediate
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OPERATIONS OF THE 46TH OHIO AT SHILOHI
flank attack, with results more or less fatal to the success of the Union arms that day.
An attempt to change front and gain a fire would, if a failure, be but the loss of a few more men than by a re- treat; and, desperate and hopeless as scemed the chances, he instantly determined on the attempt to change front and gain the fire.
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THE CHANGE OF FRONT IN FACE OF THE ENEMY AT A READY TO FIRE.
The right of the 46th had passed the hostile left perhaps ten or more yards, and to avoid both the oblique and front fire on his right, the colonel ordered Captain Heath to throw his company into line obliquely and about ten yards to the right and front, against an oak on the edge of the stream just passed.
To have attempted to change front by the prescribed and preliminary half-wheel would, as the event proved, have given the enemy time enough to open fire, to our certain destruction; and he therefore ordered the more instant movement by the "rifle drill," so inconsiderately omitted in the then and now existing tactics (Hardee's and Upton's), the commands being "Front forward on first company;" "rigbs face-double-quick-march," adding outside the drill and yelling, "Squat, boys! squat! --- you, squat for your lives as you get into line."
THE ATTACK OF FIVE HUNDRED AND FIFTY ON TWENTY-FIVE HUNDRED MEN.
Fortunately, not a man in the regiment save Captain Heath and his first-sergeant (King) were aware of the ter- rible danger and death so close at hand; and the troops went round the more rapidly from supposing that the move- ment was intended to avoid the fire at the crest of the slope to which they were about to be exposed.
The colonel dashed to the left to perfect the change of
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WHILE UNDER COL. WORTHINGTON'S COMMAND.
front, before the men were down, and as he rose in his stirrups to command the fire was himself fired on by a squad of sharp-shooters to the right and rear of the Con- federate line, just at the time his fire, then delivered, was returned within not over a second of time.
This gain of a second, however, disconcerted their fire, and their immediate retreat followed our fire-a fire the more fatal from the descent of their ground towards the Union line, which had nearly a hundred men killed, wounded, or grazed.
THE FLIGHT OF THE FORTY-SIXTH.
The 46th, before he could give an order, rose and also broke in disorder to the rear. The colonel's horse had been shot clean through the withers without injury to the bone; but having a shot also above the left knee, was so crippled that even if the colonel could have got him across the broken ground on the line of retreat his order to halt, while in the rear of the regiment, would have been useless. He therefore rode off to the right or east of the flying line to the crest of the ridge, then to the left or north until even with the foremost fugitives, and to the left or west again, along a bridle-path, into their midst.
THE FALL OF THE COLONEL'S HORSE AND THE RALLY.
When about the centre of the flying line his exhausted horse came suddenly to his knees, throwing his rider a length or more over his head among the startled men, who were, perhaps, rallied more in consequence of this fortunate mishap than by his loud and expletive orders to fall in line on peril of immediate death or capture. Then, by the aid of Lieutenant-Colonel Walcut, Major Smith, Adjutant Neil, and Captains Heath, Alexander, Geary, Wiseman. Lilly, Pinney, and others, with Sergeant- Major Foster on the left, in less than three minutes the regiment was in line and in action, leading the hostile flanking force, as he found
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OPERATIONS OF THE 46TH OHIO AT SHILOH
afterwards, to suppose that the whole 5th division was then in their front.
Sending out a few trusty scouts, the colonel soon found that the enemy was attempting the turning of his right flank by crossing over the ground lately passed over by the 1st brigade, and accordingly kept up, as well as to his front and left, a fire in their direction on the right, which was so vigorously returned that the cutting of the twigs of the brush where we were was repeatedly perceptible.
THE 6TH IOWA ATTACKS THE ENEMY.
Meantime the 6th Iowa, on our left, had been so intent on the battle raging on the left that the change of front and fire of the 46th was not noticed, and advancing nearly to the open ground west-southwest of McClernand's camp, this excellent regiment, though without field officers, changed front southward and opened an effective fire on the enemy still pressing our extreme right, and lost more men in proportion to their numbers, and indeed actually, than any other regiment that day in the Union Army of the Tennessee at Shiloh, the 46th perhaps excepted.
The fortunate retreat of the 46th for about four hundred. yards had placed the regiment on high and advantageous ground, but nearly the same distance from the right of the 6th lowa. So, apprehending danger from this gap in the line, the 46th, while continuing its fire, was gradually closed on to the right of that regiment about 1 P. M., and with se- vere loss maintained the position until near or after 2 P. M., when an order came through Major Hammond, A. A. G., to fall back and rally in rear of the 11th Iowa, near the centre of MeClernand's camp.
THE RETREAT IN DISORDER OF THE UNION RIGHT WING JUST BEFORE GENERAL JOHNSON'S FALL.
About the same time McClernand's whole front had been driven back or northwardly, crossing the retreat of
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the 1st brigade nearly at right angles in flight, so that the troops became mixed in the utmost confusion.
Therefore, on Colonel Worthington reporting to General Sherman, he considered an attempt at a rally impractica- ble, and ordered the colonel of the 46th to report to Gen- eral Grant the condition of affairs on the Union right, and meantime to attach any fragments of his regiment to the nearest body of organized troops, which was done accordingly.
THE COLONEL OF THE FORTY -SIXTH FINDS GRANT AT DINNER ON HIS BOAT ABOUT 3 P. M.
About 3 p. M. the colonel reported to General Grant on his boat, the Tigress, at the lower landing, and by him was ordered to ride out and report to the troops that General Lew Wallace, 3d division, would be up in half an hour with ten thousand men. On reaching the brow of the hill the colonel was surprised to find General Buell, who told him his advance would, he thought, be up in an hour, and riding out he first reported to McClernand's division, on the right of the Corinth road.
The announcement of aid was cheered along the whole line not then in action. He then rode off to the left, through Hurlburt's deserted camp, and observed a body of rebel cavalry, several hundred yards in front, about to advance.
THE COLONEL OF THE FORTY-SIXTH PREVENTS THE CAPTURE OF M'ALLISTER'S BATTERY.
He passed off, therefore, to the right, where he found McAllister's Illinois battery, inactive, as he said, for want of gunners or orders, and exposed to immediate capture. Riding instantly over to General MeClernand he reported the circumstances to him, and he, with some of his staff, immediately rode over and brought in the battery, which did good service the same afternoon. He then rode over the woods and bottoms of Snake Creek, where thousands of
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OPERATIONS OF THE 46TH OHIO AT SHILOH
men were lurking under the ravine banks to avoid the fire; also down the creek to the river bank and back re- peatedly to the battle-field.
ARRIVAL OF NELSON AND AMMEN AT 5 P. M.
About 5 p. M. thousands of our men were ready to join in Buell's attack with troops then arriving; and near sun- set Colonel W. reported to General Grant, who was on foot, and had just been directing the posting of the rallied men and newly-arrived troops. The General ordered him to return to the battle-line and keep the troops up to the front in the last attack, which continued until night closed the conflict for the day.
CONCLUSION.
No troops could have behaved more effectively than did those of the 46th Ohio in such an extremity. 1st-Sergeant Burr, of Pinney's company, an excellent and most worthy young soldier, was killed, with many others, at the first fire. Captain Geary, company "B," of Franklin county, Ohio, and Lieutenant Wilson, of Licking county, Ohio, were killed in the 2 P. M. retreat, with Sergeant Hassan, of Fairfield county, and Lieutenant-Colonel Walcut, after we had rejoined the 6th Iowa, received a flesh-wound in th. upper left arm. From Lieutenant Upton, of Colonel McDowell's staff, the colonel has heard that it was the opinion of General Sherman that his first brigade pre- vented, by its steadiness, the defeat of the whole Union line at noon of April 6th, 1862, and the men and officers of the regiment are therefore recommended to the favor- able attention of the Government.
Respectfully submitted to the Secretary of War, with a map showing the flank march of the first brigade and the condition of the battle on the Union right about noon of April 6th, 1862.
T. WORTHINGTON, Late Colonel 46th Ohio.
WASHINGTON, April, 1879.
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WHILE UNDER COL. WORTHINGTON'S COMMAND.
In March, 1879, in hope of obtaining some recognition of the service of the 46th Ohio at Savannah, Shiloh, and La Fayette, Tennessee, Col. W. submitted a memorial, with the following :
Remarks on the march at 9 a. m. and operations of the 16th Ohio Volunteers at " Shiloh," April 6, 1862, at and, after noon. Being a Supplement to Colonel Worthington's report.
TO THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF OHIO:
The particulars of this march, with the enemy in greatly superior force on its front, right, and rear, are detailed in a copy of the official report (now in the War Department) herewith submitted, to which the colonel begs leave to make an addition (which military etiquette would not per- mit in an official report) in behalf of the 46th Ohio, the troops of which have done more than justice to their colonel; but, though utterly unnoticed by his three supe- rior commanders, McDowell, Sherman, and Grant, neither the colonel of that regiment nor any historian has found or can find language sufficiently expressive to do them the justice they merit, for to do so is simply impossible.
In scaling a parapet, or storming a breach or battery, or charging a hostile line of bayonets, troops intended for such danger have nerved themselves for the encounter, and are prepared for and see the work before them. But when a single regiment of less than six hundred raw troops, deserted by their three highest commanders and left alone where shot and shell are crashing and exploding and cut- ting down the forest above and around them, are thrown instantly into the face of immediate and unexpected de- struction, as was the 46th Ohio, it is cause for the utmost wonder and admiration that instead of breaking back, as was the wont that day, in terror and disorder when thrown instantly by a change of front into the veriest jaws of de- struction, the line went rapidly round without the waver-
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OPERATIONS OF THE 46TH OHIO AT SHILOH
ing or shrinking of a single soldier, when even the cow- ardice of a single man, the purposed or accidental discharge of a single musket, would have consigned the regiment, the army, and possibly the Union to inevitable ruin.
When the colonel, as stated in his report, on finding a superior force within sixty yards in ambush on his right, with fingers on their triggers, at a kneel and a ready, and as a desperate and almost hopeless chance of preventing the capture or dispersion of the regiment and the army, ordered a change of front without notice to the troops of the death so many were about to meet without a thought of danger on their right, he had no more idea that the regi- ment could or would perfect the manœuvre successfully than that they would reach the moon; and though the result proved its possibility, his main and indeed only hope was a retreat without a previous fire ignobly in their rear, without chance of its return or hope of success.
But, as above stated, the change of front was perfected without a waver in the line, silently, surely, and without disorder, and, according to the brigade commander's re- port, the first most deadly fire was gained by a second of time, and from the nature of the ground it was the most fatal fire that bloody day delivered,* as proven by the im- mediate retreat of twenty-five hundred of the enemy on whom it fell, and two hours of time was thus gained, which proved sufficient by the subsequent death of General Al- bert Sidney Johnson to enable the Army of the Ohio to arrive to the rescue; and, had the pension of a general been granted to each man of the 46th Ohio from that day forward, it would have been the entirest trifle compared with the ruin averted by that single fire of 556 Ohio vol-
*Since writing the above, the colonel of the 46th Ohio has found that the advance of the flanking force was Cleburn's brigade, which went into action with 2,750 men. Had perhaps 2,500 when attacked by the 46th, and lost 1,043 killed and wounded, including 65 missing, or about double in proportion to any brigade in the rebel army.
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WHILE UNDER COL, WORTHINGTON'S COMMAND.
unteers bravely and surely delivered in that moment of terror and of blood.
Far away on the banks of the Tennessee the fallen heroes of that brave attack lay almost unnoticed and unknown, and as some trifling token of remembrance for the service of the dead and the living to the Union, and from their commander for the more than entire justice they have done him for his action that day, he has from the first wished to have struck a medal of honor, with some appropriate de- vice or design, with the name of each volunteer embossed upon its face, showing whether he was killed or wounded, and present at the first fire of the regiment, at noon, April 6, 1862. And for this purpose he had a correct list of those present made out immediately after the battle; the number being 556 or 560. He has not so far been able to obtain the means due him from the government for his civil service in 1861 to strike such medals, which will not cost to exceed one dollar each.
He, therefore, respectfully requests of the Ohio Legisla- ture that he may be authorized to contract for the dies for such a medal, and the medals, not to exceed five hundred and fifty six (556), to be paid for by and deposited with the Adjutant-General of Ohio, to be delivered to the volunteers of that regiment on proof of identity, if living, or to their representatives, if dead, unless it may be considered that the medals of those killed in battle or who have since died may be more appropriately held for exhibition at the capitol of Ohio.
Very respectfully submitted,
T. WORTHINGTON, Late Colonel 46th O. V. I.
WASHINGTON, March 18, 1879.
On the 29th of April, 1862, the 5th division with Hal- leck's army of invasion was ordered towards Corinth. On the 30th Colonel Worthington was the first to fortify his front, more for the purpose of keeping the men from idle- ness and to get them their daily ration of whisky allowed by Halleck when on fatigue duty.
The example of the 46th was soon followed by the whole army, much to Halleck's annoyance, though the resulting lines of fortifications, seven or eight in number, are all he has to show for this march of one-half a mile a day, usually denominated the siege of Corinth, which place the 46th Ohio, with the 5th division, entered about the 1st of June, 1862.
About the 10th, at Chewalla, ten miles west of Corinth, the 46th was left behind to escort a wagon train to Grand Junction.
On the 25th of June, while the division was in camp at La Fayette, Tennessee, the Confederates, by obstructing the track, threw off and captured a railroad train bound east from Memphis with several hundred volunteer troops on the way to rejoin their regiments.
Meantime, from the time General Halleck reached Shiloh, April 13, 1862, Colonel W. had vainly attempted to have instituted an inquiry into the criminality which had produced the slaughter and disgrace of Shiloh. Halleck having refused to interfere, the colonel of the 46th had urged it upon his Congressman, the Ohio Senators Wade and John Sherman; Senator Wilson, chief of the Senate Mili- tary Committee; the War Department, and Senator Wade, chief of the Committee on the Conduct of the War. Re- ceiving no answer, he at last wrote to the IIon. V. B. Hor- ton, of Ohio, urging him to have an inquiry made by the
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