CHAPTER XXVI
THE IRREPARABLE LOSS
Jefferson Davis not only refused to remove Albert Sidney Johnston from his command in answer to the clamor of his critics, he wrote his general letters expressing such unbounded confidence in his genius that he inspired him to begin the most brilliant campaign on which the South had yet entered.
Grant, flushed with victory, had encamped his army along the banks of the Tennessee, then at flood and easily navigable for gunboats and transports. The bulldog fighter of Fort Donelson had allowed his maxim of war to lead him into a situation which the eye of Johnston was quick to see.
Grant's famous motto was:
"Never be over anxious about what your enemy is going to do to you; make him anxious about what you are going to do to him."
In accordance with this principle the Union General was busy preparing his Grand Army for a triumphant march into the far South. He was drilling and training his men for their attack on the Confederates at Corinth. His army was not in a position for defense. It was, in fact, strung out into a long line of camps for military instruction, preparing to advance on the foe he had grown to despise.
Sherman's division occupied a position near Shiloh Church. A half mile further was B. M. Prentiss with newly arrived regiments, one of which still had no ammunition. Near the river McClernand was camped behind Sherman and Hurlbert still farther back. Near them lay W. H. L. Wallace's division, and at Crump's Landing, Lew Wallace was stationed with six thousand men.
Grant himself was nine miles down the river at Savannah, a point at which he expected to form a junction with Buell's army approaching from the east.
Grant sat at breakfast on a beautiful Sunday morning quietly sipping his coffee while he planned his conquest of the vast territory which now lay at the mercy of his army the moment the juncture should be effected.
With swift stealthy tread, Johnston was moving through the dense forests of the wild region to the south. His army had been rapidly recruited to approximately forty thousand effective men. Beauregard had been detached from the East and was second in command.
The night before this beautiful spring Sabbath morning the Confederate army had bivouacked within two miles of the Federal front. Johnston had so baffled the scouts and reconnoitering parties of Grant that his presence was not suspected.
In the gray mists of the dawn his divisions silently deployed and formed in line of battle. General Leonidas Polk on the left, Braxton Bragg in the center, William J. Hardee on the right and John C. Breckinridge in reserve.
The men were alert and eager to avenge the defeats of Forts Henry and Donelson. With chuckles of exhilaration they had listened that night to the rolling of the drums in Grant's camps.
A mist from the river valley hung low over the fresh budding trees. With swift elastic tread the gray lines moved forward through the shadows of the dawn.
So complete was the surprise that not a picket was encountered. Not a single company of cavalry guarded the flanks of the sleeping army.
The mists lifted and the sheen of white tents could be seen through the trees.
Only a few of the blue soldiers had risen. They were washing and cooking their morning meal. Some had sat down to eat at generous mess-chests. Thousands were yet soundly sleeping in their tents.
On Prentiss' division from flank to flank with sudden fury the gray host fell. Even the camp sentinels were taken completely by surprise and barely had time to discharge their guns. On their heels rushed the Confederates cheering madly.
Officers and men were killed in their beds and many fled in confusion without their arms. Hildebrand's brigade of Sherman's division was engulfed by the cyclone and swept from existence, appearing no more in the battle.
In vain the broken lines of the Federal camps were formed and re-formed. Charge followed charge in swift and terrible succession.
By half past ten o'clock the Confederates had captured and demolished three great military encampments and taken three batteries of artillery. Storehouses and munitions of war in rich profusion were captured at every turn. The demoralized Union army was retreating at every point.
When Grant reached the field, the lines both of attack and defense were lost in confusion. The battle raged in groups. Sometimes mere squads of men surged back and forth over the broken, tangled, blood-soaked arena, now in ravines and swamps, now for a moment emerging into clearings and then buried again in the deep woods.
The stolid Federal commander sat his horse, keen-eyed, vigilant and imperturbable in the storm of ruin. His early efforts counted for little in the blind confusion and turmoil of his crushed army. Lew Wallace had been ordered to the field in post haste. The bridge across Owl Creek, held by Sherman in the morning, was now in the hands of the Confederates. Wallace marched and countermarched his army in a vain effort to reach the field.
At two o'clock Johnston had brought up his reserves and ordered the entire gray army to charge and sweep the field. His fine face flushed with victory, he rose in his saddle, addressed a few eloquent words to Breckinridge's division, placed himself at the head of his army and his sword flashed in the sunlight as he shouted to the line:
"Charge!"
Dick Welford had been detached from Forrest's cavalry on staff duty by his Chief's side. Forrest had been marked by Johnston for promotion for his work at Donelson, and Dick had grown to worship his gallant Commanding General. He had watched his plan of battle grow with boyish pride. He knew his Chief was going to crush the two divisions of Grant's army in detail before they could be united. And he had done it. Such complete and overwhelming victory would lift the South from her slough of despair.
With a shout of triumph he spurred his horse neck to neck with his General.
At two o'clock the blue lines were still rolling back on the river in hopeless confusion, the gray lines cheering and charging and crushing without mercy.
A ball pierced Johnston's right leg. Dick saw his hand drop the rein for an instant and a look of pain sweep his handsome face.
"You're wounded, sir?" he asked.
"It's nothing, boy," he answered, "only a flesh cut--drive--drive--drive them!"
Without pause he rode on and on.
He was riding the white horse of Death--an artery had been cut and his precious life was slowly but surely ebbing away.
He swayed in his saddle and Dick dashed forward:
"General, your wound must be dressed!"
Governor Harris of Tennessee, his aide, observed him at the same moment and spurred his horse to his side.
The General turned his dim eyes to the Governor and gasped:
"I fear I'm mortally wounded--"
He reeled in his saddle and would have fallen had not Dick caught him and tenderly lowered him to the ground.
The brave war Governor of Tennessee received the falling Commander in his arms and helped Dick bear him a short distance from the field into a deep ravine.
Dick took the flask of whiskey from his pocket and pressed it to his lips in vain. A moment and he was dead.
In a passion of grief the boy threw his arms around his beloved Chief and called through his tears and groans:
"My God, General, you can't die--you mustn't die now! Don't you hear the boys shouting? They're driving Grant's army into the river. They've avenged Donelson!--General--for God's sake speak to me--say you won't die--you can't, you can't--Oh, Lord God, save his precious life!--"
No sign or answer came. His breast had ceased to move. The Governor tenderly lifted the grief-stricken boy and sent him with his General's last message.
"Find Beauregard and tell him he is in command of the field. Not a word of the death of the Chief until his victory is complete."
Dick saluted and sprang into the saddle.
"I understand, sir."
[Illustration: "Dick saluted and sprang into the saddle--'I understand, sir'"]
It was late in the afternoon before he located General Beauregard and delivered the fateful news.
The victorious Confederate army had furiously pressed its charge. Johnston's word had passed from command to command.
"Forward--forward--let every order be forward!"
Everything had yielded at last before them. From camp to camp, from rallying point to rallying point the Union hosts had been hurled, division piling on division in wild confusion.
Driven headlong, the broken ranks were thrown in panic on the banks of the river. Thousands crouched in ravines and sought shelter under the steep bluffs of the river banks. Trampling mobs were struggling in vain to board the transports and cross the river. The Federal reserve line had been completely crushed, and the entire army, driven from the field they had held that morning, were huddled in a confused mass of a half mile around the Pittsburg Landing.
The next charge of the Confederates would hurl the whole army into the river or they must surrender.
The gunboats had opened in vain. They were throwing their shells a mile beyond the Confederate lines where they fell harmlessly.
The Confederate division commanders were gathering their hosts for the last charge at sunset. There was yet an hour of daylight in which to end the struggle with the complete annihilation of the Union army. Down under the steep banks of the river's edge the demoralized remnants of the shattered divisions were already stacking their arms to surrender. They had made their last stand.
General Bragg turned to his aide:
"Tell Major Stewart of the twenty-first Alabama to advance and drive the enemy into the river!"
The aide saluted.
"And carry that order along the whole line!"
The aide put spurs to his horse to execute the command, when a courier dashed up from General Beauregard's headquarters.
"Direct me to General Bragg!"
The aide pointed to the General and rode back with Beauregard's courier.
"General Beauregard orders that you cease fighting and rest your men to-night."
Bragg turned his rugged dark face on the messenger with a scowl.
"You have promulgated this order to the army?"
"I have, sir--"
"If you had not, I would not obey it--"
He paused and threw one hand high above his head.
"Our victory has been thrown to the winds!"
The sudden and inexplicable abandonment of this complete and overwhelming success was one of the most remarkable events in the history of modern warfare.
The men bivouacked on the field.
The blunder was fatal and irretrievable. Even while the order was being given to cease firing the advance guard of Buell's army was already approaching the other bank of the river. Twenty-five thousand fresh men under cover of the darkness began to pour their long lines into position to save Grant's shattered ranks.
As night fell another misfortune was on the way to obscure the star of Beauregard. His soldiers, elated with their wonderful victory, broke into disorderly plundering of the captured Federal camps. Except for a few thousand sternly disciplined troops under Bragg's command the whole Southern army suddenly degenerated into a mob of roving plunderers, mad with folly. In the rich stores of the Federal army thousands of gallons of wines and liquors were found. Hundreds of gray soldiers became intoxicated. While scenes of the wildest revelry and disorder were being enacted around the camp fires, Buell's army was silently crossing the river under cover of the night and forming in line of battle for to-morrow's baptism of blood.
Albert Sidney Johnston's body lay cold in death--and the army of the victorious South had no head. Better had there been no second general of full rank in the field. Either of Johnston's division commanders, Bragg, Hardee, Polk or Breckinridge, would have driven Grant's panic-stricken mob into the river within an hour if let alone.
But the little hero of Bull Run of the flower-decked tent halted his men to rest for the night at the very hour of the day when Napoleon ordered his first charge on one of his immortal battlefields.
Beauregard gave his foe ample time for breakfast next morning. The sun was an hour high in the heavens before the battle was joined.
The genius of Johnston had surprised Grant and rolled his army back on the river--never pausing for a moment to give him time to rally his broken ranks.
But when Beauregard leisurely led his disorganized army next morning against Grant's new lines, there was no shock, no surprise--the line was ready. His panic-stricken men had been reorganized and massed in strong defensive position and reënforced by the divisions of Generals Nelson, McCook, Crittenden, and Thomas of Buell's army--twenty-five thousand strong.
Lew Wallace's division had also effected the junction and the Federal front presented a solid wall of fifty-three thousand determined men against whom Beauregard must now throw his little army of thirty thousand effective fighters.
The assault was made with dash and courage. For four hours the battle raged with fury. The shattered regiments that had been surprised and crushed the day before, yielded at one time before the onslaughts of the Confederates. By noon Beauregard had sent into the shambles his last brigade and reserves and shortly afterwards gave his first order to withdraw his army.
Breckinridge's division covered the retreat and there was no attempt at pursuit. Grant was only too glad to save his army. The first great battle of the war had been fought and won by the genius of the South's commander and its results thrown away by the hero of Bull Run.
Never was the wisdom of a great leader more thoroughly vindicated than was Jefferson Davis in the record Albert Sidney Johnston made at Shiloh. The men who had been loudest in demanding his removal stood dumb before the story of his genius.
The death list of this battle sent a shiver of horror through the North and the South. All other battles of the war were but skirmishes to this.
The Confederate losses in killed, wounded and missing were ten thousand six hundred and ninety-nine. At Bull Run the combined armies of Joseph E. Johnston and Beauregard lost but one thousand nine hundred and sixty-four men.
Grant's army lost thirteen thousand one hundred and sixty-two in killed, wounded and prisoners. McDowell at Bull Run had lost but two thousand seven hundred, and yet was removed from his command.
The rage against Grant in the North was unbounded. The demand for his removal was so determined, so universal, so persistent, it was necessary for Abraham Lincoln to bow to it temporarily.
Lincoln positively refused to sacrifice his fighting General for his first error, but sent Halleck into the field as Commander-in-Chief and left Grant in command of his division. The bulldog fighter of the North learned his lesson at Shiloh. The South never again caught him napping.
Great as the losses were to the North they were as nothing to the disaster which this bloody field brought to the Confederacy. Albert Sidney Johnston alive was equal to an army of a hundred thousand men--dead; his loss was irreparable.