The Way of All Soldiers (Gone For Soldiers)

by Jeffry S. Hepple

  “Who says they’re unfounded?”

  “Let me put it another way, then. What you do in the next few hours will be what’s written in the history books about William Tecumseh Sherman. Make Ellen proud. Make me proud.”

  “I need to get dressed. Get somebody on top of the church to look for muzzle flashes so we can identify where the actions are.”

  “I can do that. As soon as I find a map.”

  “You can’t climb up there with that leg.”

  “I’ll have some troops haul me up with a rope.”

  “Let somebody else do it,” Sherman complained.

  “Who in this camp can read a map and direct artillery fire better than me? Get going, Cump. I hear skirmishes breaking out all around us.”

  ~

  The Confederate army, commanded by General Albert Sidney Johnston, would have achieved complete surprise if its outpost had not tangled with a reconnaissance company of the 25th Missouri Infantry and if Robert Van Buskirk had not heeded a call of nature at that exact time.

  Johnston’s forces consisted of three corps commanded by Major Generals Leonidas Polk, Braxton Bragg and William J. Hardee with a fourth corps commanded by Brigadier General John C. Breckinridge in reserve. Johnston led the attack himself, with the corps of Hardee and Bragg on line. P.G.T. Beauregard, Johnston’s second in command, was at the rear. As they advanced through the rough terrain, the line of battle became confused with men from Hardee and Bragg’s corps intermingling. Seeing the line shorten, Beauregard ordered the corps of Polk and Breckinridge forward extending the line left and right, but reducing the depth and weight of the attack.

  As the two armies clashed, the new recruits of Grant’s command broke and ran for the Tennessee River leaving the veterans to absorb the shock. Sherman rode from right to left and back, constantly in motion, gathering fragmented units, redefining commands and shouting encouragement. By 8:30, he had been slightly wounded twice and had lost three horses to bullet wounds.

  The experienced Union troops had given ground grudgingly, but were now concentrated behind the church. When the Confederates broke through, Robert had to jump from the roof of the church and slide down a pine tree to avoid being captured.

  From the hospital, Grant had heard the cannon fire, and after ordering Bull Nelson’s division at Savannah and Lew Wallace’s division at Crump’s Landing to reinforce the main body at Pittsburg Landing, he rushed to the battlefield by boat. As Grant arrived, disorganized units of Prentiss and William Wallace’s divisions were being gathered by Sherman into a defensive line along a road north of the church under Wallace’s command.

  The Confederate forces charged the Union line as many as fourteen times over the course of seven hours and were repelled with heavy losses each time until, at last, Wallace was mortally wounded. In the ensuing confusion, the Confederates brought fifty or more cannons to bear on the line and fired volley after volley until Prentiss surrendered the surviving twenty-three hundred men.

  The cost to the Confederate army had been enormous and the dead included its commander, Albert Sidney Johnston. Beauregard assumed command but had no clear picture of what was happening at the front, and he continued to advance toward the perceived center of the Union line. The flanks of the Union line had, however, pulled back into a semicircle away from the church toward Pittsburg Landing forming a solid three-mile front with over fifty cannons and naval guns interspersed at regular intervals.

  At 6:00 PM, as a brigade from Buell’s army and a brigade from Bull Nelson’s division arrived, Beauregard called off the attack.

  ~

  The rain began to fall after sundown and Sherman followed the smell of cigar smoke to find Grant and Robert Van Buskirk smoking in the dark under the protective branches of a huge yew tree. He sat down across from them and chuckled. “Well, we’ve had the devil’s own day, haven’t we?”

  “Yeah,” Grant agreed. The end of his cigar glowed bright. “But we’ll lick ‘em tomorrow.”

  “How’s that leg, Professor?” Sherman asked. “I saw you jump from the church roof to that pine tree when the Rebs broke through our lines.”

  “Ruined a nearly new uniform, scratched the devil out of my face, chest and arms hugging the tree, but the leg’s fine,” Robert replied. He listened as the Union gunboats fired another salvo into the Confederate positions which, on the previous night, had been Union positions. “I sincerely hope that one of those shells hits your tent, Sam. I hate the idea of Johnston or Beauregard smoking your fine cigars.”

  “Johnston won’t be smoking any cigars,” Sherman said. “He was killed at the Hornet’s Nest.”

  “What’s the hornet’s nest?” Robert asked.

  “Just a field alongside a road where a lot of good men died,” Sherman said. “Colonel Wallace was one of ‘em.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Robert replied. “Is my nephew okay?”

  “Fine. If you’d seen him, you’d have been proud. He was dragging shirkers back to the line two at a time. And he walks a battlefield like it was a stroll in the park.”

  “My father always said it was better to be shot in the head than in the arse,” Robert chuckled.

  Grant looked toward the landing where the sound of cheering was louder than the rain or gunfire. “More reinforcements. Must be Lew Wallace or Don Carlos Buell.”

  “Or both,” Robert suggested.

  “About time,” Sherman said.

  “Might be best that they’re here this late,” Grant said. “Beauregard thinks he licked us today and he doesn’t know about Wallace and Buell. We’ll strike at dawn and destroy him.”

  “We could wait and let him come to us,” Sherman suggested.

  “No,” Grant replied gruffly. “I want to surprise him like he surprised us.”

  “He shouldn’t have surprised us,” Sherman said. “The Professor was right, I was wrong. We should have had listening posts and skirmishers on all sides, trenches and firing holes in the camps and scouts on the roads.”

  “My fault, not yours,” Grant said. “And it’ll never happen again. Let’s try to get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”

  April 7, 1862

  Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee

  Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard, unaware that Grant had been reinforced, planned to regroup and resupply in the morning and then drive Grant into the river. The massive Federal counterattack that struck at dawn took him completely by surprise.

  The extreme right of the Union line, commanded by Lew Wallace, made the first contact driving back the brigade of Colonel Preston Pond. Sherman was on Wallace’s left, McClernand next, with William Wallace’s troops, now commanded by Colonel James Tuttle, in the right center. Buell’s division was the center left, with Generals Bull Nelson, Thomas Leonidas Crittenden and Alexander M. McCook on the extreme left.

  It took Beauregard most of the morning just to gain some semblance of order and to get a battle line formed. Bragg was the Confederate left with Polk, Breckinridge, and Hardee on his right.

  Crittenden and Nelson had pushed down the Corinth and Hamburg-Savannah roads, but Confederate General Breckinridge pushed Crittenden back with a fierce counterattack and then retreated when McCook joined Crittenden.

  Beauregard, desperate to maintain control of the Corinth road, launched numerous counterattacks to no avail. Finally, with ammunition running out and nearly ten thousand casualties, Beauregard withdrew the bulk of the Confederate forces back beyond Shiloh Church and left Breckinridge with most of the artillery to cover a retreat to Corinth.

  When Breckinridge withdrew, Lew Wallace’s division gave chase to just beyond Shiloh Branch, but when he got no support, Wallace disengaged and returned to Sherman’s camp to complain.

  Buell agreed with Wallace that a pursuit of the Confederates should be mounted, but Grant argued that the troops were too exhausted. The quarrel became heated and was finally settled by the approach of sundown.

  In an attempt to soothe the bad temp
ers, Sherman offered to lead a reconnaissance in force at first light tomorrow to determine if the Confederates were retreating or reorganizing. Grant agreed and returned to camp. As he ducked in through the flaps of his new tent, he stopped short. “Merciful Jesus, what happened to you?”

  Robert Van Buskirk was standing -chested near a lantern amidst tattered pieces of rusty-brown cotton bandages. The right side of his face, his chest and the insides of both arms were covered with oozing, bloody abrasions. “I had to slide down a pine tree yesterday to get off the roof of the church.” He gestured toward the littered tent floor. “Sorry about the mess. I had to soak the bandages off. I’ll clean it all up in a minute.”

  Grant walked closer to him. Concern was etched into his exhausted face. “I never saw you in the daylight yesterday. I had no idea it was this bad when we were talking with Cump in the dark last night. Why didn’t you say something?”

  “What could you have done?”

  “I could have taken you to a surgeon.”

  “The surgeons have more than they can handle. I doubt if any of them has stopped to eat or sleep since the Confederate attack began.”

  “You’re going home in the morning.”

  “I’m fine, Sam. Really.”

  “You’re not fine and I’m too tired to argue with you about this. Either you promise me that you’ll be on the morning boat with the evacuees or I’ll have to pull a detail of much-needed men off the line to put you in it.” He raised his hand. “Please. I’m at the end of my rope. I really am. Please.” For a moment his famous composure cracked and he looked as if he might weep.

  “I’ll be on the boat, Sam,” Robert said gently. “Sit down. Everything’s going to be all right.” He found his tunic, took out two cigars and handed one to Grant.

  Grant bit off the end, spat it out and dropped into a camp chair. “Thirteen thousand casualties. That’s more than the entire population of Galena, Robert. How can a man live with those kinds of numbers?”

  Robert lit Grant’s cigar and then his own. “This war is going to get progressively bloodier as we move south. There’s nothing you can do about that. To win you have to kill the enemy and sacrifice your own people. It’s the way of all soldiers.”

  April 8, 1862

  Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee

  Sherman, with two infantry brigades and two cavalry squadrons, halted six miles south of Pittsburg Landing where the Corinth Road had been blocked by fallen trees. A short distance beyond was a large Confederate camp and a field hospital.

  As Sherman sent skirmishers of the 77th Ohio forward to clear the trees, Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest and about three hundred of his cavalry attacked. Sherman would have been captured had not Colonel Quincy Van Buskirk formed a line, fired a volley and charged. Forrest was shot above the hip, but managed to keep his saddle and escape.

  Sherman advanced aggressively, driving the now leaderless cavalry away. Breckinridge’s covering force put up a paltry fight, then withdrew. Sherman captured the camp and hospital, then returned to Pittsburg Landing where he reported to Grant that the Confederates had no fight left in them.

  April 10, 1862

  Cairo, Illinois

  Robert and Nancy Van Buskirk were sitting at a room-service breakfast table in their suite when Robert cursed and threw the newspaper across the room.

  Nancy was so shocked that her always calm husband had shown such a temper that she simply stared at him.

  “Sorry,” he muttered.

  Nancy got up, retrieved the paper and sat back down at the table. “What is it that’s upset you so badly?”

  “That reporter, Goldberg.” He pointed an accusing finger at the newspaper. “He says that Sam was drunk and that the whole army would have been destroyed if Cump hadn’t taken command and if Buell hadn’t arrived to save everything the following day. He wasn’t even there.”

  “Who wasn’t there? Buell?”

  “No, no, Buell was there. I meant Goldberg. The reporter. He wasn’t there.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I came back on the boat with all the civilians and I wrote down all their names for the record. There wasn’t anyone named Goldberg aboard.”

  “Could he have left before you did or stayed later?”

  Robert shook his head. “He couldn’t have left sooner because we impounded all watercraft before the battle, and if he left later he would have stayed in violation of martial law and somebody would have arrested him.”

  “Maybe he was with the Confederates.”

  “I suppose that’s possible, but even if he was, his story’s still a lie.”

  “Why would he lie?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She read part of the story and looked up. “What Goldberg says about a lack of defensive preparations sounds like what you said.”

  “Let me see.”

  She gave him the paper and pointed out what she’d been reading.

  “No, no. I never said anything like that. Not even to Grant or Cump. Goldberg didn’t get this from me.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I meant that his reference to a lack of defensive preparations agreed with what you told me.”

  “Oh. Well, yeah. Sam deserves some criticism for that, but not all this vitriol and demands that he be removed.”

  Nancy nodded.

  Robert sighed. “At least Cump came out okay in the story. He needed a career and confidence boost.”

  “Is it possible that President Lincoln might replace General Grant over this?”

  “No,” Robert said. “Halleck might try, but Lincoln won’t let him.”

  Nancy took the newspaper back and resumed reading. “Good God,” she said after a minute.

  “What?”

  “Twenty-five thousand casualties.”

  “That’s for both sides,” he said dismissively.

  Nancy looked at him over the paper. “They were all Americans, Robert. Twenty-five thousand dead Americans. Mostly boys. That’s a hell of a high price for a thing called union.”

  “The war’s going to be over soon. All we have to do is take Vicksburg. That’ll cut the Confederacy in half and deny them use of the Mississippi.”

  “The other day you said it would last for two or three more years.”

  “Well, I changed my mind,” he said crossly. “I’m not going to let it last two or three more years.”

  She put the paper down and stood up. “Your face is bleeding again.”

  He took a bloodstained handkerchief from his pocket and blotted his cheek.

  “Let me get the salve.” She hurried from the room, then came back with a jar and pulled a chair up next to him. “Hold still.”

  “If that’s such a miracle cure, why didn’t the army surgeons give it to me?”

  “Hold still.”

  “I think that, like most patent medicines, it’s a swindle.”

  “Well I paid for it with my money,” she said, “so if I was swindled it’s none of your damned business.”

  “Why did you pay with your money?”

  “Because it was very dear.”

  “How dear? How much did you pay for it?”

  “I paid a whole lot and I’m not telling you how much. That was the whole point of using my own money.”

  “Bah,” he grumbled. “You won’t tell me because you got swindled and you don’t want to admit it.”

  “I didn’t get swindled. It’s very dear because it’s made from silver.”

  “Silver?” He pulled back. “You’re putting silver on my face? Isn’t silver poisonous?”

  “No. It’s perfectly safe. This compound was created by Hippocrates. It’s been in use for almost two thousand years.”

  “By those who could afford it.”

  “Yes. Having money has always been an advantage.” She gripped his beard. “Hold still.”

  He gave in and let her apply the ointment.

  “I don’t think your beard is going to grow back on some of these spots.�
��

  “If not, I’ll just shave the other side to match.”

  “How are your arms and your chest?”

  “I won’t shave them.”

  “You know what I meant.”

  “My arms and chest are much better than my face.”

  “I suppose the bandages help, but I can’t think of any way, short of wrapping your whole head, to keep this covered.”

  “It feels better today. The throbbing’s stopped and it doesn’t feel hot.”

  “That’s the silver. It stops infection.”

  “How do you know that when the surgeons don’t?”

  “Didn’t you just ask me that question?”

  “If I did, you didn’t answer me.”

  “I learned it from your mother. She learned it from Ginger. Ginger learned it from Granny Sally. Whether Granny Sally learned it from Dr. Van Buskirk, the Tory, or from a witch doctor on some tropical island, I really can’t say. But I know it works.” She put the lid back on the jar and looked at him critically. “You’re not going to be as pretty when this heals.”

  “Will you still love me?”

  “Probably. It was never your face that fascinated me.” She batted her eyelashes at him.

  April 15, 1862

  Warwick River, Virginia

  Major John Buford and Captain Paul Van Buskirk were standing in front of a wall-map that they were using to brief Generals George McClellan, Winfield Scott Hancock and William F. “Baldy” Smith. “This is the spot where the Confederates have built the dam on the Warwick to widen it,” Buford said, pointing at the map. “The flood plain doesn’t show here, but it’s plenty wide. A good sized lake surrounded by bog.”

  “Mark it,” McClellan said. “And call it Dam Number One.”

  “Yes, sir.” Buford nodded to Paul who was standing by with a brush and ink.

  “That’s the spot where I reported a potential weakness in my April 6th report, sir,” Hancock said.

  “Do you agree with General Hancock’s assessment, Major?” McClellan asked. “Is that a potential weakness in the Confederate line?”