The Guns of Shiloh: A Story of the Great Western Campaign
They found Colonel Newcomb and the little detachment of Pennsylvanians with Grant, and Colonel Winchester, resuming command of his regiment, camped by their side, delighted to be with old friends again. Colonel Winchester had lost a portion of his regiment, but there were excuses. It had happened in a country well known to the enemy and but little known to him, and he had been attacked in overwhelming force by the rough-riding Forrest, who was long to be a terror to the Union divisions. But he had achieved the task on which he had been sent, and he was thanked by his commander.
Dick, as he went on many errands or walked about in the course of his leisure hours with his friends, watched with interest the growth of a great army. There were more men here upon the banks of the Tennessee than he had seen at Bull Run. They were gathered full forty thousand strong, and General Buell’s army also, he learned, had been put under command of General Grant and was advancing from Nashville to join him.
Dick also observed with extreme interest the ground upon which they were encamped and the country surrounding it. There was the deep Tennessee, still swollen by spring rains, upon the left bank of which they lay, with the stream protecting one flank. In the river were some of the gunboats which had been of such value to Grant. All about them was rough, hilly country, almost wholly covered with brushwood and tall forest. There were three deep creeks, given significant names by the pioneers. Lick Creek flowed to the south of them into the Tennessee, and Owl Creek to the north sought the same destination. A third, Snake Creek, was lined with deep and impassable swamps to its very junction with the river.
Some roads of the usual frontier type ran through this region, and at a point within the Northern lines stood a little primitive log church that they called Shiloh. It was of the kind that the pioneers built everywhere as they moved from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Shiloh belonged to a little body of Methodists. Dick went into it more than once. There was no pastor and no congregation now, but the little church was not molested. He sat more than once on an uncompromising wooden bench, and looked out through a window, from which the shutter was gone, at the forest and the army.
Sitting here in this primitive house of worship, he would feel a certain sadness. It seemed strange that a great army, whose purpose was to destroy other armies, should be encamped around a building erected in the cause of the Prince of Peace. The mighty and terrible nature of the war was borne in upon him more fully than ever.
But optimism was supreme among the soldiers. They had achieved the great victory of Donelson in the face of odds that had seemed impossible. They could defeat all the Southern forces that lay between them and the Gulf. The generals shared their confidence. They did not fortify their camp. They had not come that far South to fight defensive battles. It was their place to attack and that of the men in gray to defend. They had advanced in triumph almost to the Mississippi line, and they would soon be pursuing their disorganized foe into that Gulf State.
Several new generals came to serve under Grant. Among them was one named Sherman, to whom Dick bore messages several times, and who impressed him with his dry manner and curt remarks which were yet so full of sense.
It was Sherman’s division, in fact, that was encamped around the little church, and Dick soon learned his opinions. He did not believe that they would so easily conquer the South. He did not look for any triumphal parade to the Gulf. In the beginning of the war he had brought great enmity and criticism upon himself by saying that 200,000 men at least would be needed at once to crush the Confederacy in the west alone. And yet it was to take more than ten times that number four bitter years to achieve the task in both west and east.
But optimism continued to reign in the Union army. Buell would arrive soon with his division and then seventy thousand strong they would resume their march southward, crushing everything. Meanwhile it was pleasant while they waited. They had an abundance of food. They were well sheltered from the rains. The cold days were passing, nature was bursting into its spring bloom, and the crisp fresh winds that blew from the west and south were full of life and strength. It was a joy merely to breathe.
One rainy day the three boys, who had met by chance, went into the little church for shelter from a sudden spring rain. From the shutterless window Dick saw Sergeant Whitley scurrying in search of a refuge, and they called to him. He came gladly and took a seat in one of the rough wooden pews of the little church of Shiloh. The three boys had the greatest respect for the character and judgment of the sergeant, and Dick asked him when he thought the army would march.
“They don’t tell these things to sergeants,” said Whitley.
“But you see and you know a lot about war.”
“Well, you’ve noticed that the army ain’t gettin’ ready to march. When General Buell gets here we’ll have nigh onto seventy thousand men, and seventy thousand men can’t lift themselves up by their bootstraps an’ leave, all in a mornin’.”
“But we don’t have to hurry,” said Pennington. “There’s no Southern army west of the Alleghanies that could stand before our seventy thousand men for an hour.”
“General Buell ain’t here yet.”
“But he’s coming.”
“But he ain’t here yet,” persisted the sergeant, “an’ he can’t be here for several days, ‘cause the roads are mighty deep in the spring mud. Don’t say any man is here until he is here. An’ I tell you that General Johnston, with whom we’ve got to deal, is a great man. I wasn’t with him when he made that great march through the blizzards an’ across the plains to Salt Lake City to make the Mormons behave, but I’ve served with them that was. An’ I’ve never yet found one of them who didn’t say General Johnston was a mighty big man. Soldiers know when the right kind of a man is holdin’ the reins an’ drivin’ ‘em. Didn’t we all feel that we was bein’ driv right when General Grant took hold?”
“We all felt it,” said the three in chorus.
“Of course you did,” said the sergeant, “an’ now I’ve got a kind of uneasy feelin’ over General Johnston. Why don’t we hear somethin’ from him? Why don’t we know what he’s doin’? We haven’t sent out any scoutin’ parties. On the plains, no matter how strong we was, we was always on the lookout for hostile Indians, while here we know there is a big Confederate army somewhere within fifty miles of us, but don’t take the trouble to look it up.”
“That’s so,” said Warner. “Caution represents less than five per cent of our effectiveness. But I suppose we can whip the Johnnies anyway.”
“Of course we can,” said Pennington, who was always of a most buoyant temperament.
Sergeant Whitley went to the shutterless window, and looked out at the forest and the long array of tents.
“The rain is about over,” he said. “It was just a passin’ shower. But it looks as if it had already added a fresh shade of green to the leaves and grass. Cur’us how quick a rain can do it in spring, when everything is just waitin’ a chance to grow, and bust into bloom. I’ve rid on the plains when everything was brown an’ looked dead. ‘Long come a big rain an’ the next day everything was green as far as the eye could reach an’ you’d see little flowers bloomin’ down under the shelter of the grass.”
“I didn’t know you had a poetical streak in you, sergeant,” said Dick, who marked his abrupt change from the discussion of the war to a far different topic.
“I think some of it is in every man,” replied Sergeant Whitley gravely. “I remember once that when we had finished a long chase after some Northern Cheyennes through mighty rough and dry country we came to a little valley, a kind of a pocket in the hills, fed by a fine creek, runnin’ out of the mountains on one side, into the mountains on the other. The pocket was mebbe two miles long an’ mebbe a mile across, an’ it was chock full of green trees an’ green grass, an’ wild flowers. We enjoyed its comforts, but do you think that was all? Every man among us, an’ there was at least a dozen who couldn’t read, admired its beauties, an’ begun to talk softer an’ more gentle than they did when they was out on the dry plains. An’ you feel them things more in war than you do at any other time.”
“I suppose you do,” said Dick. “The spring is coming out now in Kentucky where I live, and I’d like to see the new grass rippling before the wind, and the young leaves on the trees rustling softly together.”
“Stop sentimentalizing,” said Warner. “If you don’t it won’t be a minute before Pennington will begin to talk about his Nebraska plains, and how he’d like to see the buffalo herds ten million strong, rocking the earth as they go galloping by.”
Pennington smiled.
“I won’t see the buffalo herds,” he said, “but look at the wild fowl going north.”
They left the window as the rain had ceased, and went outside. All this region was still primitive and thinly settled, and now they saw flocks of wild ducks and wild geese winging northward. The next day the heavens themselves were darkened by an immense flight of wild pigeons. The country cut up by so many rivers, creeks and brooks swarmed with wild fowl, and more than once the soldiers roused up deer from the thickets.
The second day after the talk of the four in the little church Dick, who was now regarded as a most efficient and trusty young staff officer, was sent with a dispatch to General Buell requesting him to press forward with as much speed as he could to the junction with General Grant. Several other aides were sent by different routes, in order to make sure that at least one would arrive, but Dick, through his former ride with Colonel Winchester to Nashville, had the most knowledge of the country, and hence was likely to reach Buell first.
As the boy rode from the camp and crossed the river into the forest he looked back, and he could not fail to notice to what an extent it was yet a citizen army, and not one of trained soldiers. The veteran sergeant had already called his attention to what he deemed grave omissions. In the three weeks that they had been lying there they had thrown up no earthworks. Not a spade had touched the earth. Nor was there any other defense of any kind. The high forest circled close about them, dense now with foliage and underbrush, hiding even at a distance of a few hundred yards anything that might lie within. The cavalry in these three weeks had made one scouting expedition, but it was slight and superficial, resulting in nothing. The generals of divisions posted their own pickets separately, leaving numerous wide breaks in the line, and the farmer lads, at the change of guard, invariably fired their rifles in the air, to signify the joy of living, and because it was good to hear the sound.
Now that he was riding away from them, these things impressed Dick more than when he was among them. Sergeant Whitley’s warning and pessimistic words came back to him with new force, but, as he rode into the depths of the forest, he shook off all depression. Those words, “Seventy thousand strong!” continually recurred to him. Yes, they would be seventy thousand strong when Buell came up, and the boys were right. Certainly there was no Confederate force in the west that could resist seventy thousand troops, splendidly armed, flushed with victory and led by a man like Grant.
Seventy thousand strong! Dick’s heart beat high at the unuttered words. Why should Grant fortify? It was for the enemy, not for him, to do such a thing. Nor was it possible that Johnston even behind defenses could resist the impact of the seventy thousand who had been passing from one victory to another, and who were now in the very heart of the enemy’s country.
His heart continued to beat high and fast as he rode through the green forest. Its strong, sweet odors gave a fillip to his blood, and he pressed his horse to new speed. He rode without interruption night and day, save a few hours now and then for sleep, and reached the army of Buell which deep in mud was toiling slowly forward.
Buell was not as near to Shiloh as Dick had supposed, but his march had suffered great hindrances. Halleck, in an office far away in St. Louis, had undertaken to manage the campaign. His orders to Buell and his command to Grant had been delayed. Buell, who had moved to the town of Columbia, therefore had started late through no fault of his.
Duck River, which Buell was compelled to cross, was swollen like all the other streams of the region, by the great rains and was forty feet deep. The railway bridge across it had been wrecked by the retreating Confederates and he was compelled to wait there two weeks until his engineers could reconstruct it.
War plays singular chances. Halleck in St. Louis, secure in his plan of campaign, had sent an order after Dick left Shiloh, for Buell to turn to the north, leaving Grant to himself, and occupy a town that he named. Through some chance the order never reached Buell. Had it done so the whole course of American history might have been changed. Grant himself, after the departure of the earlier messengers, changed his mind and sent messengers to Nelson, who led Buell’s vanguard, telling him not to hurry. This army was to come to Pittsburg Landing or Shiloh partly by the Tennessee, and Grant stated that the vessels for him would not be ready until some days later. It was the early stage of the war when generals behaved with great independence, and Nelson, a rough, stubborn man, after reading the order marched on faster than ever. It seemed afterward that the very stars were for Grant, when one order was lost, and another disobeyed.
But Dick was not to know of these things until later. He delivered in person his dispatch to General Buell, who remembered him and gave him a friendly nod, but who was as chary of speech as ever. He wrote a brief reply to the dispatch and gave it sealed to Dick.
“The letter I hand you,” he said, “merely notifies General Grant that I have received his orders and will hurry forward as much as possible. If on your return journey you should deem yourself in danger of falling into the hands of the enemy destroy it at once.”
Dick promised to do so, saluted, and retired. He spent only two hours in General Buell’s camp, securing some fresh provisions to carry in his saddle bags and allowing his horse a little rest. Then he mounted and took as straight a course as he could for General Grant’s camp at Pittsburg Landing.
The boy felt satisfied with himself. He had done his mission quickly and exactly, and he would have a pleasant ride back. On his strong, swift horse, and with a good knowledge of the road, he could go several times faster than Buell’s army. He anticipated a pleasant ride. The forest seemed to him to be fairly drenched in spring. Little birds flaming in color darted among the boughs and others more modest in garb poured forth a full volume of song. Dick, sensitive to sights and sounds, hummed a tune himself. It was the thundering song of the sea that he had heard Samuel Jarvis sing in the Kentucky Mountains:
They bore him away when the day had fled,
And the storm was rolling high,
And they laid him down in his lonely bed
By the light of an angry sky.
The lightning flashed and the wild sea lashed
The shore with its foaming wave,
And the thunder passed on the rushing blast,
As it howled o’er the rover’s grave.
He pressed on, hour after hour, through the deep woods, meeting no one, but content. At noon his horse suddenly showed signs of great weariness, and Dick, remembering how much he had ridden him over muddy roads, gave him a long rest. Besides, there was no need to hurry. The Southern army was at Corinth, in Mississippi, three or four days’ journey away, and there had been no scouts or skirmishers in the woods between.
After a stop of an hour he remounted and rode on again, but the horse was still feeling his great strain, and he did not push him beyond a walk. He calculated that nevertheless he would reach headquarters not long after nightfall, and he went along gaily, still singing to himself. He crossed the river at a point above the army, where the Union troops had made a ferry, and then turned toward the camp.
About sunset he reached a hill from which he could look over the forest and see under the horizon faint lights that were made by Grant’s campfires at Pittsburg Landing. It was a welcome sight. He would soon be with his friends again, and he urged his horse forward a little faster.
“Halt!” cried a sharp voice from the thicket.
Dick faced about in amazement, and saw four horsemen in gray riding from the bushes. The shock was as great as if he had been struck by a bullet, but he leaned forward on his horse’s neck, kicked him violently with his heels and shouted to him. The horse plunged forward at a gallop. The boy, remembering General Buell’s instructions, slipped the letter from his pocket, and in the shelter of the horse’s body dropped it to the ground, where he knew it would be lost among the bushes and in the twilight.
“Halt!” was repeated more loudly and sharply than ever. Then a bullet whizzed by Dick’s ear, and a second pierced the heart of his good horse. He tried to leap clear of the falling animal, and succeeded, but he fell so hard among the bushes that he was stunned for a few moments. When he revived and stood up he saw the four horsemen in gray looking curiously at him.
“‘Twould have been cheaper for you to have stopped when we told you to do it,” said one in a whimsical tone.
Dick noticed that the tone was not unkind—it was not the custom to treat prisoners ill in this great war. He rubbed his left shoulder on which he had fallen and which still pained him a little.
“I didn’t stop,” he said, “because I didn’t know that you would be able to hit either me or my horse in the dusk.”
“I s’pose from your way of lookin’ at it you was right to take the chance, but you’ve learned now that we Southern men are tol’able good sharpshooters.”
“I knew it long ago, but what are you doing here, right in the jaws of our army? They might close on you any minute with a snap. You ought to be with your own army at Corinth.”
Dick noticed that the men looked at one another, and there was silence for a moment or two.
“Young fellow,” resumed the spokesman, “you was comin’ from the direction of Columbia, an’ your hoss, which I am sorry we had to kill, looked as if he was cleaned tuckered out. I judge that you was bearin’ a message from Buell’s army to Grant’s.”
“You mustn’t hold me responsible for your judgment, good or bad.”
“No, I reckon not, but say, young fellow, do you happen to have a chaw of terbacker in your clothes?”
“If I had any I’d offer it to you, but I never chew.”
The man sighed.
“Well, mebbe it’s a bad habit,” he said, “but it’s powerful grippin’. I’d give a heap for a good twist of old Kentucky. Now we’re goin’ to search you an’ it ain’t wuth while to resist, ‘cause we’ve got you where we want you, as the dog said to the ‘coon when he took him by the throat. We’re lookin’ for letters an’ dispatches, ‘cause we’re shore you come from Buell, but if we should run across any terbacker we’ll have to he’p ourselves to it. We ain’t no robbers, ‘cause in times like these it ain’t no robbery to take terbacker.”
Dick noticed that while they talked one of the men never ceased to cover him with a rifle. They were good-humored and kindly, but he knew they would not relax an inch from their duty.
“All right,” he said, “go ahead. I’ll give you a good legal title to everything you may find.”
He knew that the letter was lying in the bushes within ten feet of them and he had a strong temptation to look in that direction and see if it were as securely hidden as he had thought, but he resisted the impulse.
Two of the men searched him rapidly and dexterously, and much to their disappointment found no dispatch.
“You ain’t got any writin’ on you, that’s shore,” said the spokesman. “I’d expected to find a paper, an’ I had a lingerin’ hope, too, that we might find a little terbacker on you ‘spite of what you said.”
“You don’t think I’d lie about the tobacco, would you?”
“Sonny, it ain’t no lyin’ in a big war to say you ain’t got no terbacker, when them that’s achin’ for it are standin’ by, ready to grab it. If you had a big diamond hid about you, an’ a robber was to ask you if you had it, you’d tell him no, of course.”
“I think,” said Dick, “that you must be from Kentucky. You’ve got our accent.”
“I shorely am, an’ I’m a longer way from it than I like. I noticed from the first that you talked like me, which is powerful flatterin’ to you. Ain’t you one of my brethren that the evil witches have made take up with the Yankees?”
“I’m from the same state,” replied Dick, who saw no reason to conceal his identity. “My name is Richard Mason, and I’m an aide on the staff of Colonel Arthur Winchester, who commands a Kentucky regiment in General Grant’s army.”
“I’ve heard of Colonel Winchester. The same that got a part of his regiment cut up so bad by Forrest.”
“Yes, we did get cut up. I was there,” confessed Dick a little reluctantly.
“Don’t feel bad about it. It’s likely to happen to any of you when Forrest is around. Now, since you’ve introduced yourself so nice I’ll introduce myself. I’m Sergeant Robertson, in the Orphan Brigade. It’s a Kentucky brigade, an’ it gets its nickname ‘cause it’s made up of boys so young that they call me gran’pa, though I’m only forty-four. These other three are Bridge, Perkins, and Connor, just plain privates.”
The three “just plain privates” grinned.
“What are you going to do with me?” asked Dick.
“We’re goin’ to give you a pleasant little ride. We killed your hoss, for which I ‘pologize again, but I’ve got a good one of my own, and you’ll jump up behind me.”
A sudden spatter of rifle fire came from the direction of the Northern pickets.
“Them sentinels of yours have funny habits,” said Robertson grinning. “Just bound to hear their guns go off. They’re changin’ the guard now.”
“How do you know that?” asked Dick.
“Oh, I know a heap. I’m a terrible wise man, but bein’ so wise I don’t tell all I know or how I happen to know it. Hop up, sonny.”
“Don’t you think I’ll be a lot of trouble to you,” said Dick, “riding behind you thirty or forty miles to your camp?”
The four men exchanged glances, and no one answered. The boy felt a sudden chill, and his hair prickled at the roots. He did not know what had caused it, but surely it was a sign of some danger.
The night deepened steadily as they were talking. The twilight had gone long since. The last afterglow had faded. The darkness was heavy with warmth. The thick foliage of spring rustled gently. Dick’s sensation that something unusual was happening did not depart.
The four men, after looking at one another, looked fixedly at Dick.
“Sonny,” said Robertson, “you ain’t got no call to worry ‘bout our troubles. As I said, this is a good, strong hoss of mine, an’ it will carry us just as far as we go an’ no further.”
It was an enigmatical reply, and Dick saw that it was useless to ask them questions. Robertson mounted, and Dick, without another word, sprang up behind him. Two of the privates rode up close, one on either side, and the other kept immediately behind. He happened to glance back and he saw that the man held a drawn pistol on his thigh. He wondered at such extreme precautions, and the ominous feeling increased.
“Now, lads,” said Robertson to his men, “don’t make no more noise than you can help. There ain’t much chance that any Yankee scoutin’ party will be out, but if there should be one we don’t want to run into it. An’ as for you, Mr. Mason, you’re a nice boy. We all can see that, but just as shore as you let go with a yell or anything like it at any time or under any circumstances, you’ll be dead the next second.”
A sudden fierce note rang in his voice, and Dick, despite all his courage, shuddered. He felt as if a nameless terror all at once threatened not only him, but others. His lips and mouth were dry.
Robertson spoke softly to his horse, and then rode slowly forward through the deep forest. The others rode with him, never breaking their compact formation, and preserving the utmost silence. Dick did not ask another question. Talk and fellowship were over. Everything before him now was grim and menacing.
