Page images
PDF
EPUB

the heavy woods, leaving winrows of slain on their track, to the last outburst of shot and shell from the gunboats, the contest of that day had been a fearful one. Most of the troops which received the first shock of battle were raw recruits, just from the camp of instruction. Hundred and hundreds of them had never seen a gun fired save in sport in their lives. With officers equally inexperienced, admitting brilliant exceptions, it is not wonderful that the ranks were broken and driven back when the terrific roar of cannon burst in their midst, and bombshells scattered fire and death among the tents, in which they were quietly sleeping but an hour before. Springing to arms, half prepared only to rush through the blinding smoke to meet the serried columns of the rebels' impetuous advance-truly it is not strange that they fell into confusion, fighting blindly and at random. But it was a grand sight when Sherman dashed along the lines, shouting encouragement to the men, exposing his own life a hundred times, and rallying his forces with a wonderful power of voice and action. The herculean exertions of this brave man no doubt saved the division from utter destruction.

From the first tranquil opening of that beautiful day to its lurid and bloody close more desperate bravery has seldom been exhibited. When Americans meet Americans, all that is heroic and daring in the national character springs to action, and deeds are done on both sides that thrill the nation as it stands breathlessly listening, North and South, to know how her sons have fought.

NIGHT BETWEEN THE TWO BATTLES.

In dead silence the troops took their new position, and lay down on their arms in line of battle. All night long the remainder of Buell's men were marching up from Savannah to a point opposite Pittsburg Landing, whence they were brought over in transports. An hour after dark Wallace came in with his division. There had been delay in getting the right road, which made him late on the field. But once there he fell to work with energy. He ascertained the position of certain rebel batteries which lay in front of him on the right, and threatened to bar his advance in the morning, and selected positions for a couple of his batteries from which they could silence the enemy. In placing his guns and arranging his brigades for support, he was occupied till one o'clock in the morning. His wearied men had lain down to snatch a few hours of sleep, with the shadows of death all around them.

At nine o'clock all was hushed near the landing. Men still panting from the hot contest of the day, threw themselves on the earth to sleep or die as they chanced to be unhurt or wounded unto death. The bright stars looked down upon the ranks of sleeping, dying and dead men, with sweet Sabbath-like calm, and never did the stars of heaven

brood over a spectacle more appalling. The sound of marching troops from the far distance alone broke the solemn stillness, save when the moans of the wounded, and the agonizing cries for water thrilled the night with sounds of anguish. Now a flash shed a flood of sheet-lightning over the river, turning its waters to lurid fire, and the roar of heavy naval guns reverberated on the bluffs, breaking up the sublime silence of the night. Again and again the guns boomed great volumes of sound. By the flashes, the gunboats could be seen receding back into the fiery blue of the waters with each graceful recoil produced by the discharge. A thin veil of smoke settled around them, floating drowsily between their black hulls and the beautiful stars. Far away in the distant woods came the muffled explosion of shells thus let loose on the tranquil air.

Thus the night wore on. The soldiers, far too weary for the boom of cannon to awake them, slept quietly almost as the dead were sleeping. The wounded answered back the dismal sound with more dismal groans. At midnight a thunder storm broke over the battle field, and the artillery of heaven swept its fires through the sky, while the guns from the river boomed a sullen answer. Torrents of rain fell, drenching the sleepers, but falling cool as balm on the parched lips of the wounded, assuaging their burning thirst and moistening their wounds.

The vigilant officers knew that half a mile off lay a victorious army, commanded by splendid Generals, rendered ardent by a half-won conquest which might be a victory on the morrow. For them there was little rest. When the day broke it found these men watching. When the brain is active men do not sleep, and the General who has divisions to command and protect must earn success by vigilance.

THE BATTLE ON MONDAY.

The line of battle agreed upon for the Union forces on Monday was this:-Right wing, Major-General Lew. Wallace; left wing, BrigadierGeneral Nelson. Between these, beginning at the left, Brigadier-Generals T. Crittenden, A. McD. McCook, Hurlbut, McClernand and W. T. Sherman. In the divisions of the three latter were to be included also the remains of Prentiss' and W. H. L. Wallace's commands-shattered and left without commanders, through the capture of one, and the mortal wound of the other.

Buell's three divisions were not full when the battle opened on Monday morning, but the lacking regiments were gradually brought into the rear. The different divisions were composed of the following forces: BRIGADIER-GENERAL NELSON'S DIVISION.-First Brigade-Col. Ammon, 24th Ohio, commanding; 36th Indiana, Col. Gross; 6th Ohio, Lieut.-Col. Anderson; 24th Ohio, Lieut.-Col. Fred. C. Jones. Second Brigade-Saunders D. Bruce, 20th Kentucky, commanding; 1st Ken

tucky, Col. Enyard; 2d Kentucky, Col. Sedgwick; 20th Kentucky, Lieut.-Col. commanding. Third Brigade-Col. Hazen, 41st Ohio, commanding; 41st Ohio, 6th Kentucky and 9th Indiana.

BRIGADIER-GENERAL T. CRITTENDEN'S DIVISION.- First BrigadeGen. Boyle; 19th Ohio, Col. Beatty; 59th Ohio, Col. Pfyffe; 13th Kentucky, Col. Hobson; 9th Kentucky, Col. Grider. Second Brigade-Col. Wm. S. Smith, 13th Ohio, commanding; 13th Ohio, Lieut.-Col. Hawkins; 26th Kentucky, Lieut.-Col. Maxwell; 11th Kentucky, Col. P. P. Hawkins; with Mendenhall's regular and Bartlett's Ohio batteries.

BRIGADIER-General McCOOK'S DIVISION. - First Brigade- Brig.Gen. Lovell H. Rousseau; 1st Ohio, Col. Ed. A. Parrott; 6th Indiana, Col. Crittenden; 3d Kentucky (Louisville Legion); battalions 15th, 16th and 19th regulars. Second Brigade-Brig.-Gen. Johnston; 32d Indiana, Col. Willich; 39th Indiana, Col. Harrison; 49th Ohio, Col. Gibson. Third Brigade-Colonel Kirk, 34th Illinois, commanding; 34th Illinois, Lieut.-Col. Badsworth; 29th Indiana, Lieut.-Col. Drum; 30th Indiana, Col. Bass; 77th Pennsylvania, Col. Stambaugh.

MAJOR-GENERAL LEW. WALLACE'S DIVISION- RIGHT OF ARMY.First Brigade-Col. Morgan L. Smith, commanding; 8th Missouri, Col. Morgan L. Smith, Lieut.-Col.-James Peckham, commanding; 11th Indiana, Col. George F. McGinnis; 24th Indiana, Col. Alvin P. Hovey; Thurber's Missouri battery. Second Brigade-Col. Thayer (1st Nebraska) commanding; 1st Nebraska, Lieut.-Col. McCord, commanding; 23d Indiana, Col. Sanderson; 58th Ohio, Col. Bausenwein; 68th Ohio, Col. Steadman; Thompson's Indiana battery. Third Brigade-Col. Chas. Whittlesey (20th Ohio) commanding; 20th Ohio, Lieut.-Col. commanding; 56th Ohio, Col. Peter Kinney; 76th Ohio, Col. Chas. R. Woods; 78th Ohio, Col. Leggett.

At daylight it became evident that the gunboat bombardment through the night had not been without a most important effect. It had changed the position of the rebel army. The sun had gone down with the enemy's lines encircling the Union forces closely on the centre and left, pushing them to the river, and leaving them little over half a mile of all the broad space they had held in the morning. The gunboats had cut the coils and loosened the anaconda-like constriction. Their shells had made the old position on the extreme Union left, which the rebels had been occupying, utterly untenable. Instead of stealing upon their foe in the night, which was doubtless their intention, they were compelled to fall back from point to point out of range of the shells which came dropping in; go where they would within range, the troublesome visitors would find them out, and they fell back beyond the inner Union camps, and thus lost more than half the ground they had gained the afternoon before.

Less easily accounted for was a movement of theirs on the right Here they had held a steep bluff, covered with underbrush, as their advanced line. Through the night they abandoned this, the best possible position for opposing Lew. Wallace, and had fallen back across some open fields to the scrub oak woods beyond.

To those who had looked despairingly at the prospects on Sunday evening, it seemed unaccountable that the rebels did not open the contest by daybreak. Their retreat before the bombshells of the gunboats, however, explained the delay. The Union divisions were put in motion almost simultaneously. By seven o'clock Lew. Wallace opened the day by shelling the rebel battery, of which mention has been made, from the positions he had selected the night before. A brisk artillery duel was followed by a rapid movement of infantry across a shallow ravine, as if to storm; and the rebels, enfiladed and menaced in front, limbered up and made the opening of their Monday's retreating.

NELSON'S ADVANCE.

Nelson, who was assigned the left wing, moved his division about the same time Wallace opened on the rebel battery, forming in line of battle, Ammon's brigade on the extreme left, Bruce's in the centre, and Hazen's to the right. Skirmishers were thrown out, and for nearly a mile the division thus swept the country, pushing a few outlying rebels before it, till it came upon them in force. Then a general engagement broke out along the line, and again the rattle of musketry and thunder of artillery echoed over the late silent fields. There was no straggling this morning. These men were well drilled, and strict measures were taken to prevent miscellaneous thronging back out of harm's way. They stood up to their work and did their duty manfully.

It soon became evident that, whether from change of commanders or some other cause, the rebels were pursuing a new policy in massing their forces. On Sunday the heaviest fighting had been done on the left. In the morning they seemed to make a less determined resistance here, while toward the centre and right the ground was more obstinately contested, and the struggle fiercely prolonged.

Until half past ten o'clock Nelson advanced slowly but steadily, sweeping his long lines over the ground of defeat on Sunday morning, moving over scores of dead rebels, and resistlessly pressing back the jaded and wearied enemy. The rebels had received but few reinforcements during the night. Their men were exhausted with the desperate contest of the day before, and manifestly dispirited by the fact that they were fighting Grant and Buell combined.

Gradually, as Nelson pushed forward his lines under heavy musketry, the enemy fell back, till about half-past ten, when, under cover of the

heavy timber and a furious cannonading, they made a general rally. The Union forces, flushed with their easy success, were scarcely prepared for the sudden onset, when the rebel masses were hurled against them with tremendous force. The men halted, wavered, and were driven back. At this critical juncture Captain Terry's regular battery came dashing up. Scarcely taking time to unlimber, he was loading and sighting his pieces before the caissons had turned, and in an instant was tossing in shell from twenty-four-pound howitzers in to the compact and advancing rebel ranks.

Here was the turning point of the battle on the left. The rebels were checked, not halted. On they came. Horse er horse from the batteries was picked off. Every private at one of the howitzers was shot down, and the gun was worked by Captain Terry himself and a corporal. A regiment dashed up from the Union line, and saved the disabled piece. Then for two hours artillery and musketry raged at close range. At last the enemy began to waver. The Federals pressed on, pouring in deadly volleys. Just then Buell, who assumed the general direction of his troops in the field, came up. At a glance he saw the position of things, and gave a prompt order. "Forward at double quick by brigades." The men leaped forward with the eagerness of unleashed hounds. For a quarter of a mile the rebels fell back. Faster and faster they ran; less and less resistance was made to the advance. At last the front camps on the left were reached, and by half-past two that point was cleared. The rebels had been steadily swept back over the ground they had won, with heavy loss, and fell into confusion. The Unionists had retaken all their own guns lost here the day before, and one or two from the rebels were left to attest how bravely that great victory in Tennessee was won.

ADVANCE OF CRITTENDEN'S DIVISION.

Next to Nelson came Crittenden. He, too, swept forward over his ground to the front some distance before finding the foe. Between eight and nine o'clock, however, while keeping Smith's brigade on his left even with Nelson's flank, and joining Boyle's brigade to McCook on the right, in the grand advance, he came upon the enemy with a battery in position, and, well supported, Smith dashed his brigade forward. There was sharp, close work with musketry, and the rebels fled. He took three pieces-a twelve-pound howitzer and two brass sixpounders. But they cost the gallant Thirteenth Ohio dear. Major Ben. Piatt Runkle fell, mortally wounded.

For half an hour, perhaps, the storm raged around these captured guns. Then came the recoiling rebel wave that had hurled Nelson back. Crittenden, too, caught its full force. The rebels swept up to the bat

« PreviousContinue »