CHAPTER XVII.
Wherein Captain Galligasken finishes the Battle of Shiloh, and sympathizes with the illustrious Soldier in his unmerited Disgrace while he is waiting, waiting, before Corinth.
The rebels had no intimation of the arrival of Buell's army, and though they had lost one half of their force in the battle of the first day, they stood their ground. If my innocent friend Mr. Pollard really believed that it only required a smart dash to finish the army of the Union, he must severely censure Beauregard for not following up his advantage, not knowing that Buell had effected a junction with the army of the Tennessee. If Beauregard himself believed the sensational report he wrote of the battle, he would have made haste to drive his beaten foe into the river. He was an early riser on emergencies like this, but he does not seem to have had any fears that Grant would attempt to escape in his alleged broken and helpless condition!
The rebel general knew better than he wrote, and his actions speak louder than his words. He had lost half his army, according to his own confession, which was a much greater loss in proportion to the force engaged than the national army sustained. He had been repeatedly repulsed during the preceding day, and he was in no hurry to resume the conflict.
The battle of Monday commenced on the left and centre by the advance of Nelson's fresh troops. The rebels fought well, notwithstanding the fatigues of the previous day, and gallantly disputed every inch of ground. The scene of Sunday was repeated, with the results reversed. Slowly and steadily the Confederates were forced back, until all the lost ground had been recovered. General Buell was in the field, and exhibited the most conspicuous gallantry and skill.
At two o'clock in the afternoon the repulse of the rebels was complete, and they had been driven from the battle-field. Before dark they were five miles from Grant's front line on Sunday morning. Towards night a regiment of Union troops was hard pressed by the enemy, in their efforts to capture a certain position which it was desirable to possess. The rebels, intent upon holding the point, had brought a heavy force to bear upon their assailants, and the regiment had begun to give way. Grant saw the struggles of the overmatched Union men, and deemed it of the highest importance to capture the position.
An Ohio regiment, marching across the field, attracted his attention. He immediately halted it, and, leading the way himself, ordered the men to charge in support of the overpowered force. They recognized Grant, and shouting with enthusiasm, promptly obeyed the command. He led them into the battle himself, more exposed in person than any private in the ranks. The breaking line, seeing their general bringing assistance to them in this impressive manner, close up their files, and with thundering cheers the two regiments went into the fight, driving the enemy before them, and securing the last position on the field.
The battle was ended, and the day was won. Grant, desirous of fighting the battle "through," expressed his wishes to two of Buell's division commanders; but they protested that their men were exhausted by their long march, and were in no condition to pursue the fleeing host, and Grant was reluctantly compelled to content himself with the finale he had already achieved; though a portion of Sherman's command followed the rebels a short distance on the road to Corinth.
The entire loss of the national army in this bloody fight, in killed, wounded, and missing, was twelve thousand two hundred and seventeen. This number included the loss in the army of the Ohio. Beauregard reported his total loss at ten thousand seven hundred; but he made a mistake in his footings somewhere. Both he and Bragg declare that the rebels could put only twenty thousand of the force they reported on Sunday into the field for the second day's battle, which leaves a like number to be accounted for on the first day's engagement. His loss was heavy on the second day. He must have had at least fifteen thousand stragglers and deserters, according to his own statements, or his loss was much greater than he reported.
According to General Sherman, who ought to be regarded as the highest authority, the battle of Shiloh was fought for prestige. The rebels had marched out of Corinth, three days before, with the finest army they could gather, with the ablest and most experienced officers in their service in command, to overwhelm the "Northern hordes." They had fought with a pluck and persistency, nay, with a savage ferocity, which certainly had not been equalled at that time, and has not since been surpassed. They were met with a correspondent obstinacy on the part of the national forces.
"It was a contest for manhood," says Sherman—"man to man, soldier to soldier. We fought and held our ground, and therefore counted ourselves victorious. From that time forward we had with us the prestige. The battle was worth millions and millions to us by reason of the fact of the courage displayed by the brave soldiers on that occasion; and from that time to this, I have not heard of the first want of courage on the part of our Northern soldiers."
Thus said Sherman; and what he said Grant felt, as he showed in every movement he made. To have lost that battle would have been to lose vastly more than the field on which it was fought, and the attendant military advantages which it secured. The grand lesson which all our commanders had to learn was taught in this tremendous battle—that, where the two armies were so equally matched in the material of which their soldiers were composed, and in the military skill which their officers brought into the field, great victories were to be achieved only by hard fighting.
I have often heard Grant called a "butcher." I have often heard it revilingly said of him that he won his battles by mere brute force. On my honor and conscience as a soldier and a student of the solemn lessons of history, I believe that Grant, in the matter of the expenditure of human life, was the most economical commander which the War of the Rebellion produced. When he fought a battle, he won a victory from the very first to the very last. He did not waste a single precious life in all his campaigns. The manes of no slaughtered hero can rise up against him, saying, "You sacrificed me in a vain and foolish battle, wherein nothing was gained, but much was lost. By your timidity and weakness, by your vacillation and penny-wise wisdom, you gave that to the enemy for which I fought and died." Not thus can the ghost of the murdered patriots reproach Grant.
If five thousand noble and brave men died to win Shiloh and the prestige which lighted up our banners from that glorious day, they also died to save twenty thousand who would have been sacrificed in a more protracted struggle, without that inspiration of victory which blazed along the path of the army to Vicksburg, to Atlanta and Chattanooga, and which was borne from the West to the East with the glorious hero who had kindled it in the souls of the soldiers.
In giving up the lives of thousands of willing heroes he saved the lives of tens of thousands. This was true economy, and this was Grant's policy, solemnly chosen, after a broad view of the situation and the fullest consideration of the awful responsibility which rests upon the commander of an army. I believe he covenanted with the nation, before God, wisely and prudently to expend the blessed lives placed in his keeping. He is a gentle and humane man, incapable of revelling in the flow of blood. I repeat emphatically that every life lost beneath his victorious banner was a life which purchased its share in the nation's redemption and peace.
As I have said before, no battle has been more thoroughly misrepresented than that of Shiloh. In spite of the heroic and masterly operations of Grant, in spite of the success which crowned his arms, he was systematically vilified and abused. My blood boils with indignation as I think of it, that he, the brilliant soldier, the most successful commander even then upon the arena of battle, should be foully and basely maligned by his inferiors and his superiors. It is mortifying to think that his stanch friend, but former political opponent, Mr. Washburne, found it necessary to defend the hero of Fort Donelson and Shiloh on the floor of Congress, though it is pleasant to know that he did it effectually and enthusiastically—in just such a spirit as I would have done it had I been there.
Grant was accused of bad generalship, of incompetency, of being a butcher, a drunkard, and a sheep-stealer, for aught I know. His generalship was certainly of a different order from that which had been exhibited to the waiting nation by the commanders of the Union, who marched, countermarched, felt of the enemy, and then retired to recruit for three or six months, rarely fighting a battle, unless compelled to do so by the pertinacity of the enemy. It was Grant's policy to attack, and not wait to be attacked—his policy from the beginning to the end; and with what success it was attended is known now if it was not then.
Cowards and poltroons who had deserted the ranks at Shiloh told exaggerated tales of the misfortunes of the battle. They were frightened and demoralized—Grant was not. Those who believed in carrying on war as a game of chess is played stood aghast at the real battle which the hero fought. But his mode of operations will appear so decidedly advantageous in contrast with that which immediately followed under the leadership of one who believed only in "brilliant strategy," in chess-board movements, that it is not necessary to dwell upon his defence.
Kid-glove critics, civilian correspondents of newspapers, and the advocates of the checker-board theory, howled because Grant established his camp on the left, instead of the right, bank of the Tennessee—on the same side as the enemy, instead of on the opposite side. Certainly the eastern shore was the safe side; but the invincible conqueror went down in Tennessee for the purpose of capturing Corinth, and breaking the line of the rebel railroad communication, and he had no idea of posting himself where he could not get at the enemy. He knew very well that he was able to defend himself; and when he fought the great battle, though the enemy brought it on, he fought it for the possession of Corinth; and if he had had his own way, he would have taken Corinth within a fortnight after Shiloh. The position was selected by General C.F. Smith, the veteran soldier; it was indorsed and retained by Grant; and the result fully justifies his course.
The personal habits of the hero were maliciously stated to be bad. It was affirmed that he was a drunkard—that he was intoxicated in the field. Mr. Washburne was able to say at that time, "There is no more temperate man in the army than General Grant. He never indulges in the use of intoxicating liquors at all. He is an example of courage, honor, fortitude, activity, temperance, and modesty; for he is as modest as he is brave and incorruptible."
I have before shown that Grant was not surprised—for if his army had been surprised, the fault would have been as justly chargeable to him as though he had been personally present on the ground. He had been to the front himself the night before and examined the situation; he had placed Sherman—the tried and the true as he knew him then—in the most advanced position. Grant himself says, "As to the talk of our being surprised, nothing could be more false. If the enemy had sent us word where and when they would attack, we could not have been better prepared."
It was undeniable that the brave general, the successful commander, was again under a cloud. All the false rumors were in time disproved; but if there had been no malignant, jealous enemies, dreading a total eclipse of their own farthing candles in his department, the country would have believed in Grant after Shiloh, as they did after Donelson. An effort was made to relieve him entirely from command, and to extinguish the star which was steadily rising.
General Halleck painfully went through the necessary form of thanking Generals Grant and Buell for their conduct at Shiloh, and immediately repaired to the scene of operations to take command of the united armies of Grant and Buell in person, now called "The Grand Army of the Tennessee." It was largely reënforced, and numbered one hundred and twenty thousand men. It was divided into three corps, under Thomas, Pope, and Buell, with McClernand in the reserve. Grant was nominally in command of the Tennessee district; but his army was placed beyond his control, and orders were transmitted to his subordinates without any knowledge on his part of their purport.
Grant was second in command, without power or influence in the camp. Halleck consoled him with a sarcastic bit of philosophy, declaring that the second in command, in case the chief was killed, ought not to be embarrassed with the immediate control of a body of troops. Grant did not appreciate the situation, and evidently believed that there was no danger of his superior's falling in battle. The man who had won Donelson and Shiloh so heroically could not be winked entirely out of sight, or doubtless he would not have been permitted to retain even a complimentary position. Grant was practically in disgrace, and was so regarded in the army. His situation was intensely disagreeable, and nothing but his unselfish devotion to the cause prevented him from retiring in disgust from the field where he was insultingly ignored.
The grand army of the Tennessee, under Halleck, felt its way, behind a series of intrenchments, to a position in front of Corinth, using up six weeks in a progress of fifteen miles. Probably Beauregard at Corinth had seventy thousand men, though he stated his force as below fifty. The grand army was evidently superior in numbers, and both officers and men were anxious to strike a blow, confident of their ability to annihilate the rebel army. It made our blood boil to see these glorious opportunities slipping away from us. Halleck only waited and waited for the rebels to come out and attack him; but Beauregard had been educated up to the point of prudence by Grant, and he stuck to his works as closely as Halleck did. In a word, while Grant was shelved as a second in command, the farce of Manassas was repeated to the satisfaction of the admiring rebels, and to the disgust and mortification of the loyal people.
But Grant was not idle, cipher as he was in the army. He watched the enemy, and found, with unerring skill, the weak point in their line of intrenchments. He shared the general feeling of impatience which pervaded the army, and ventured to suggest to General Halleck that an assault at the point indicated, followed up by a general movement, would be successful. Halleck scouted the idea, and crustily told Grant that when his suggestions were wanted, they would be called for.
All this time Beauregard was studying up a plan to escape without the knowledge of the besiegers. On the 30th of May, after the grand army had been nearly two months rusting in inactivity, the cunning rebel made a deceptive movement, and the mighty general, hoodwinked and deceived, deeming an attack imminent, drew up in line of battle his vast army, the largest ever gathered in the West, and made elaborate preparations to defend himself. But not a gun opened upon him, not a rebel was to be seen.
Beauregard, with wonderful skill and prudence, had fled from the toils of the overwhelming force on his front, leaving his wooden guns on the ramparts where they had confounded General Halleck. Corinth was evacuated, and the wily rebel had saved his army! General Halleck marched in triumph into Corinth!