NIGHT BETWEEN THE TWO BATTLES.
In dead silence the troops took their new position, and lay down on their arms in line of battle. All night long the remainder of Buell’s men were marching up from Savannah to a point opposite Pittsburg Landing, whence they were brought over in transports. An hour after dark Wallace came in with his division. There had been delay in getting the right road, which made him late on the field. But once there he fell to work with energy. He ascertained the position of certain rebel batteries which lay in front of him on the right, and threatened to bar his advance in the morning, and selected positions for a couple of his batteries from which they could silence the enemy. In placing his guns and arranging his brigades for support, he was occupied till one o’clock in the morning. His wearied men had lain down to snatch a few hours of sleep, with the shadows of death all around them.
At nine o’clock all was hushed near the landing. Men still panting from the hot contest of the day, threw themselves on the earth to sleep or die as they chanced to be unhurt or wounded unto death. The bright stars looked down upon the ranks of sleeping, dying and dead men, with sweet Sabbath-like calm, and never did the stars of heaven brood over a spectacle more appalling. The sound of marching troops from the far distance alone broke the solemn stillness, save when the moans of the wounded, and the agonizing cries for water thrilled the night with sounds of anguish. Now a flash shed a flood of sheet-lightning over the river, turning its waters to lurid fire, and the roar of heavy naval guns reverberated on the bluffs, breaking up the sublime silence of the night. Again and again the guns boomed great volumes of sound. By the flashes, the gunboats could be seen receding back into the fiery blue of the waters with each graceful recoil produced by the discharge. A thin veil of smoke settled around them, floating drowsily between their black hulls and the beautiful stars. Far away in the distant woods came the muffled explosion of shells thus let loose on the tranquil air.
Thus the night wore on. The soldiers, far too weary for the boom of cannon to awake them, slept quietly almost as the dead were sleeping. The wounded answered back the dismal sound with more dismal groans. At midnight a thunder storm broke over the battle field, and the artillery of heaven swept its fires through the sky, while the guns from the river boomed a sullen answer. Torrents of rain fell, drenching the sleepers, but falling cool as balm on the parched lips of the wounded, assuaging their burning thirst and moistening their wounds.
The vigilant officers knew that half a mile off lay a victorious army, commanded by splendid Generals, rendered ardent by a half-won conquest which might be a victory on the morrow. For them there was little rest. When the day broke it found these men watching. When the brain is active men do not sleep, and the General who has divisions to command and protect must earn success by vigilance.