Grant Moves South

by Bruce Catton

  Once Webster’s bombardment got into full voice it was stupendous. The 81st Ohio was in position a little in front, and men said the thunderous discharges behind them knocked their hats off. One soldier wrote that the concussion almost broke his neck, and inflicted the sharpest pains he felt in all the war.… “Guns pounded away all night long. The sensation at every shot was that of being lifted two feet and slammed down with a good healthy whack.” Two weeks later, he said, his ears still “played me all sorts of pranks and tricks,” and the ordinary creaking and clicking of wagon wheels sounded like volleys of musketry. In the 6th Iowa, also drawn up close to the guns, the violent concussion drew blood from men’s noses and ears, and gave permanent injury to some soldiers’ hearing. Out in the river, Lexington and Tyler continued to slam in their eight-inch shells, firing down the length of the supposed location of the Confederate battle line. Since this line was withdrawn, they did little actual damage, but they were ordered to keep on firing at intervals throughout the night so as to keep the exhausted Southerners from sleeping. After dark a heavy rain began to fall, with intermittent thunder and lightning, rolling crash of thunder mingling with explosions from the guns, red flames from the massed batteries streaking out in the wet darkness; one Federal veteran probably spoke for everyone in both armies when he wrote of it as “a weird, wearisome and wrathful night.”37

  The danger had passed, but not everyone was ready to recognize the fact. A surgeon in the 55th Illinois, which had been drawn up in support of the line of guns, found Grant nearby and ventured to remark: “General, things are going decidedly against us today.” Grant told him: “Not at all, sir. We are whipping them there now.” The doctor, with some reason, felt that not another man in the army would have said that just then. In the midst of the rain, a staff officer found Grant and others grouped around a smoldering fire of straw. McPherson rode up, after inspecting the lines, and Grant greeted him with a cheerful: “Well, Mac, how is it?” McPherson was not encouraging; at least a third of the army was out of action, he said, and all the rest were disheartened. Grant said nothing, and McPherson sought to prompt him by asking: “General Grant, under this condition of affairs, what do you propose to do, sir? Shall I make preparations for retreat?” Grant snapped back: “Retreat? No. I propose to attack at daylight and whip them.”38

  Nelson’s division was over the river now, and more of Buell’s troops were coming up on the other side, waiting to be ferried across; and, finally, the lost division of Lew Wallace came marching up, to take position on the right. Wallace had had a miserable day. Some of Grant’s impatient staff officers felt that he had been inert and slothful, but apparently the man had simply been misled by a complete misunderstanding about the roads he was supposed to take. He had marched his division off on a wrong road, under this misunderstanding, had had to make a laborious countermarch, and was now reaching the scene many hours too late, his great day of opportunity gone forever—if his division could have come in early in the afternoon, on the Confederate flank, it would almost certainly have brought about a smashing Union victory. Not until near the end of his own life would Grant come to see that Wallace had been much more sinned against than sinning on this stormy Sunday at Shiloh.39

  It was a horrible night for everyone—a night of black darkness, insistent rain, jarring noise and acute physical discomfort. Thousands upon thousands of men had been wounded, and the ones who had not been hurt were completely exhausted and had no chance to get a decent rest. (The Colonel of a Missouri regiment told how his men bivouacked in the downpour without fires, and recorded: “The men, lying in the water and mud, were as weary in the morning as they had been the evening before.”) Grant tried to make a go of it lying under a tree on the bluff near the landing, but the pain in his injured ankle kept him awake and along toward midnight he hobbled off to the log house that was supposed to be his headquarters. It had been put into service as a hospital, it was full of moaning wounded men with many more lying outside awaiting attention, and after one look at all of this Grant went back into the rain. Years later, recalling all of it, he wrote: “The sight was more unendurable than encountering the enemy’s fire, and I returned to my tree in the rain.”40

  Late that night tough Sherman came to see him. Sherman had found himself, in the heat of the enemy’s fire that day, but now he was licked; as far as he could see, the important next step was “to put the river between us and the enemy, and recuperate,” and he hunted up Grant to see when and how the retreat could be arranged. He came on Grant, at last, at midnight or later, standing under the tree in the heavy rain, hat slouched down over his face, coat-collar up around his ears, a dimly-glowing lantern in his hand, cigar clenched between his teeth. Sherman looked at him; then, “moved,” as he put it later, “by some wise and sudden instinct” not to talk about retreat, he said: “Well, Grant, we’ve had the devil’s own day, haven’t we?”

  Grant said “Yes,” and his cigar glowed in the darkness as he gave a quick, hard puff at it. “Yes. Lick ’em tomorrow, though.”41

  So ended Sunday, April 6, at Pittsburg Landing.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Question of Surprise

  Two exhausted armies pulled themselves out of the mud at daylight on Monday, April 7, stumbled into line, and made ready to go on with the battle. There really was no need for any more fighting, because the ultimate decision had already been reached. Johnston and Beauregard had had one slim chance to cancel all that the Federals had won at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, one desperate hope to restore the balance that had been upset during the winter, and they had come within a hand’s grasp of seizing it. But when the night and the storm came down on April 6, with Webster’s great row of guns pounding the thickets and ravines, with Buell’s soldiers shouldering their way through the fugitives on the riverbank and with Lew Wallace’s men marching across the Owl Creek bridge, the business was settled. There might be more killing, with much bloodshed and agony to be drawn from young men not yet hurt, but the moment when the main current of the war could be reversed had passed.

  The opposing armies had paid a dreadful price for what had been done on the first day. General Johnston was dead, W. H. L. Wallace was dying, Prentiss was a prisoner, and fully 17,000 of other ranks had been killed, wounded or captured. There had been immense losses from straggling, and probably no more than half of the men who had taken up their muskets Sunday morning were in line ready to fight on Monday. The concentrated fury of the fighting had been appalling, and it left its mark for all the rest of the war. The Southern novelist George W. Cable was to write sadly that New Orleans “had never really been glad again after the awful day of Shiloh,” and a Union veteran said that the most any Union soldier could say of any later fight was: “I was worse scared than I was at Shiloh.” In all the story of the Civil War, nothing is much more amazing than the fact that these two armies were able to fight at all on Monday.1

  The Federal Army had all of the advantage today. Beauregard was able to muster no more than twenty thousand infantry, and every man had fought hard the day before, nor had any man had a decent sleep on Sunday night. Grant’s veterans were no better off, but reinforcements were on hand. On his left, Grant had Buell’s men; Nelson’s division, and that of Brigadier General Alexander McD. McCook, and two brigades from the division of Brigadier General Thomas L. Crittenden. These soldiers were bone-tired from a forced march. McCook’s division had hiked thirty miles on Sunday, had been ferried across the river at midnight, and had stood in the mud in pelting rain most of the rest of the night, so miserably uncomfortable that one veteran remembered that night as the worst of his entire three years’ service. But they had not fought, their organization was complete, and they considered themselves the saviors of Grant’s army and accordingly were somewhat cocky. On the right of Buell’s troops were three battered divisions from Grant’s army—Hurlbut’s, McClernand’s and Sherman’s—and on the right flank was Lew Wallace’s unfought division. Grant’s orders were to attack
at dawn, and as the gray light streaked the sodden fields and thickets the big line began to roll forward.2

  Grant rode over to see Wallace just before the attack began. He looked fresh and unworried, and when he said “Good morning” he did not sound like a man who had been within inches of a disastrous defeat twelve hours earlier; looking back long afterward, Wallace put into words a thought that struck many men, at various times: “If he had studied to be undramatic, he could not have succeeded better.” Grant asked Wallace if his division was ready, and when Wallace said that it was Grant led him to a little field, indicated the location of the Confederates, and told him to get moving, promising to send supports if they were needed. Then he cantered off, leaving Wallace feeling that Grant had been just a little too laconic; after all, there were several things Wallace wanted to know about the general situation. Wallace got his division in motion, and the second day’s fight was on.3

  Overpowered they might be, but the Confederates were very stubborn about giving up the ground they had won. In the main, it was like Sunday’s battle, a soldiers’ fight, a tangled series of desperate small combats all going on at once; as Lew Wallace said, before the battle ended “the two armies as a general thing degenerated into mere fighting swarms,” tactical formations and maneuvers were forgotten, and in advance or retreat only one rule prevailed—“to watch the flag and stay with it.”4 The Confederates slowly gave ground, but until the middle of the day things were fairly even. Then the Federal advantage in numbers began to tell, by 2 in the afternoon the Confederate front was ready to cave in, and when one of Beauregard’s staff came to the General, in the rear of Shiloh church, and suggested that it was time to retreat, Beauregard said that he had the same idea: “I intend to withdraw in a few moments.” Rear-guard lines were set up, the Confederates began to pull away, and Grant, sensing the change, picked up two regiments, formed them in line of battle, and led them forward for one final blow. Reaching a proper vantage point he ordered the men to charge, and it seemed to him that this broke the last enemy resistance.5

  But the Confederates were leaving anyway, and after the most perfunctory of pursuits the Federals let them go with blessings on them. No one in Grant’s army wanted to keep in touch with these foes any longer than the law required, Buell was not the man to crowd anybody, and Beauregard got his shattered army off on the muddy roads toward Corinth.

  He should have been pressed, but Grant had nothing much with which to make an effective chase. His own army was disorganized and ready to drop in its tracks, and Buell’s army was not precisely under Grant’s full control. Before the battle began, Halleck had notified Grant that he and Buell were to act in concert; Buell would exercise his separate command “unless the enemy should attack you,” and although the enemy had indeed attacked on Sunday this was another day, Buell was stiff and touchy, and by this time the relationship between Buell and Grant was very delicate. On Monday evening Grant sent Buell a note which betrays his own uncertainty about the command situation:

  When I left the field this evening my intention was to occupy the most advanced position possible for the night with the infantry engaged throughout the day, and to follow up our success with cavalry and fresh troops expected to arrive during my last absence on the field.

  The great fatigue of our men, they having been engaged in two days’ fight and subject to a march yesterday and fight today, would preclude the idea of making any advance tonight without the arrival of the expected reinforcements. My plan, therefore, will be to feel in on the morning with all the troops on the outer lines until our cavalry force can be organized (one regiment of your army will finish crossing soon) and a sufficient artillery and infantry support to follow them are ready for a move.

  Under the instructions which I have previously received, and a dispatch also of today from Major-General Halleck, it will not then do to advance beyond Pea Ridge, or some point which we can reach and return in a day. General Halleck will probably be here himself tomorrow. Instructions have been sent to the different division commanders not included in your command to be ready in the morning either to find if an enemy was in front or to advance.6

  The writing is slightly confused, but the basic idea is clear enough: the Confederates were retiring, Grant’s army was incapable of pressing them, if Buell could keep moving on it would be fine, but if he felt that he could not Grant was not going to make him do so. Grant was not treating Buell as a subordinate; he was dealing with him as an equal, a point which becomes even clearer in a note which he sent to him on the following day: “If the enemy are retreating, and can be made to hasten across the low lands between here and Pea Ridge, they will probably be forced to abandon their artillery and baggage. Will you be good enough to order your cavalry to follow on the Corinth road, and give two or three of your fresh brigades to follow in support.”7

  More than this, under the circumstances, Grant probably could not have done. Yet from this distance it seems clear that the great missed opportunity at Shiloh was the failure to press the retiring Confederates pitilessly during the twenty-four hours following Beauregard’s withdrawal. The Union Army was worn out, and its command arrangements were very imperfect; but the Confederates’ plight was desperate. They were, in short, ready to be had, and a driving chase down the muddy roads to Corinth might have knocked them out of the war for good. Braxton Bragg, who was one of the most dour pessimists in either army but who nevertheless had a clear military eye, wrote to Beauregard on the morning after the battle: “Our condition is horrible. Troops utterly disorganized and demoralized. Road almost impassable. No provisions and no forage; consequently everything is feeble.… Our artillery is being left all along the road by its officers; indeed, I find but few officers with their men.” A few hours later he sent in another gloomy report: “If we are pursued by a vigorous force we will lose all in our rear. The whole road presents the scene of a rout, and no mortal power could restrain it.”8

  One solid blow on April 8 could have shattered the Confederate Army beyond repair, but the Federal Army was not up to it. The Federals followed their foes just long enough to make sure that they had actually left the premises and then stopped, and although Grant exhorted both Sherman and McClernand to jam the Rebel rear guard with cavalry and infantry in hot pursuit,9 nothing much came of it. The Unionists went into the camps they had occupied before the battle began, the Confederates loitered just out of gunshot range, and the terrible battle of Shiloh was over. Between them, Grant and Buell had lost more than 13,000 men, Beauregard had lost more than 10,000, and the greatest battle ever fought on the North American Continent up to that date had come to a conclusion.

  It had been a very near thing indeed, and the most that could be said for the Northerners was that they had beaten off an unexpected attack; and yet one of the decisive struggles of the Civil War had been won. The end of the war was a long way off, in April of 1862, yet when the exhausted Confederates drifted southwest from Pittsburg Landing a faint foreknowledge of what that end would be went down the road with them. The Northern victory had been purely negative, but it was of far-reaching consequence.10 For this was one battle which the Confederacy had had to win in order to survive, and the Confederacy had not quite been able to win it. In the long run many things killed the dream of Southern independence; one of them, compacted in the wilderness above the Tennessee River, was made up of the desperate fighting of many Middle Western soldiers, the power of the row of guns on the bluff in the twilight … and, with these, the unbreakable stubbornness of Ulysses S. Grant.

  Beauregard had a stubbornness of his own, and he was in no haste to get back to Corinth. On Tuesday he was still close enough to the battlefield to send a note to Grant, under flag of truce, proposing that a Confederate burial detail be allowed to go back to the Shiloh area to bury the Confederate dead. Grant sent a reply the following morning, remarking that because of the warmth of the weather he had promptly assigned heavy details to such duty and that the dead of both armies were alrea
dy under the sod.11 The work was not done quite as rapidly as Grant may have imagined. An Iowa soldier said that his regiment was kept busy on this assignment for most of the week, wrote that “it is an awful sight to see the dead lying all about,” and remembered that seven hundred dead Confederates were put in one enormous grave. An Indiana cavalry colonel wrote home in mid-April saying that “men who were killed a week ago are still unburied,” and he added that many wounded had not yet been given medical attention.12

  There was a great deal to be done, for the formless battle of Sunday had revealed gross imperfections in Federal drill and discipline. The thousands who had strayed from their commands had to be brought back into camp and kept there. Officers who had fled incontinently had to be sent home, and the dismayingly large number of wounded had to be cared for. Hospital boats were coming upstream, and Halleck wired that arrangements had been made to care for 10,000 casualties in hospitals at Cincinnati; in addition to the wounded, the army had many men down with illness, and volunteer Samaritans of high and low degree from the Middle Western states were hurrying to the scene to help them. Once the pursuit had been halted, Grant issued orders prohibiting soldiers or citizens from passing picket lines, stationing cavalry details on all approaches to the camps, tightening the regulations about sanitation, and cracking down on one of the oddest habits of this poorly trained army—the custom of promiscuously firing muskets on any and all occasions. In wet weather, a whole regiment might discharge its muskets in the air just to see whether the powder charges had dampened; a newspaper correspondent referred to “this abominable habit,” and said there had been such a continual pop-popping of firearms before the battle that men in camp paid no attention to a skirmish-line clash, so that when the battle began on Sunday many soldiers assumed that it was nothing more than the casual routine of firing muskets at nothing. Grant’s order specified: