My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field

by Charles Carleton Coffin

Prentiss sent a second messenger, asking for immediate aid. Hurlburt in person led his other two brigades, Williams’s and Lauman’s. He had Mann’s Ohio battery, commanded by Lieutenant Brotzman, Ross’s battery, from Michigan, and Meyer’s Thirteenth Ohio battery. He marched out on the Ridge road, and met Prentiss’s troops, disorganized and broken, with doleful stories of the loss of everything. Prentiss and other officers were attempting to rally them.

Hurlburt formed in line of battle on the border of an old cotton-field on the Hamburg road. There were some sheds, and a log-hut with a great chimney built of mud and sticks, along the road. In front of the hut was a peach-orchard. Mann’s battery was placed near the northeast corner of the field. Williams’s brigade was placed on one side of the field, and Lauman’s on the other, which made the line nearly a right angle. Ross’s battery was posted on the right, and Meyer’s on the left. This disposition of his force enabled Hurlburt to concentrate his fire upon the field and into the peach-orchard.

You see the position,—the long line of men in blue, in the edge of the woods, sheltered in part by the giant oaks. You see the log-huts, the mud chimney, the peach-trees in front, all aflame with pink blossoms. The field is as smooth as a house floor. Here and there are handfuls of cotton, the leavings of last year’s crop. It is perhaps forty or fifty rods across the field to the forest upon the other side. Hurlburt and his officers are riding along the lines, cheering the men and giving directions. The fugitives from Prentiss are hastening towards the Landing. But a line of guards has been thrown out, and the men are rallying behind Hurlburt. The men standing in line along that field know that they are to fight a terrible battle. At first there is a little wavering, but they gain confidence, load their guns, and wait for the enemy.

Withers’s division, which had pushed back Prentiss, moved upon Hurlburt’s right. Gage’s and Girardey’s batteries opened fire. The first shot struck near Meyer’s battery. The men never before had heard the shriek of a Rebel shell. It was so sudden, unexpected, and terrifying, that officers and men fled, leaving their cannon, caissons, horses, and everything. Hurlburt saw no more of them during the day. Indignant at the manifestation of cowardice, he rode down to Mann’s battery, and called for volunteers to work the abandoned guns; ten men responded to the call. A few other volunteers were picked up, and although they knew but little of artillery practice, took their places beside the guns and opened fire. The horses with the caissons were dashing madly through the forest, increasing the confusion, but they were caught and brought in. You see that in battle men sometimes lose their presence of mind, and act foolishly. It is quite likely, however, that the troops fought all the more bravely for this display of cowardice. Many who were a little nervous, who had a strange feeling at the heart, did not like the exhibition, and resolved that they would not run.

At this time the fortunes of the Union army were dark. Prentiss had been routed. His command was a mere rabble. Hildebrand’s brigade of Sherman’s division was broken to pieces; there was not more than half a regiment left. The other two brigades of Sherman’s division by the church were giving way. Half of Waterhouse’s battery, and all but one of Behr’s guns were taken. Sherman and Prentiss had been driven from their camps. Four of the six guns composing Meyer’s battery could not be used for want of men. The three regiments which McClernand had sent to Sherman were badly cut to pieces. The entire front had been driven in. Johnston had gained a mile of ground. He had accomplished a great deal with little loss.

General Grant heard the firing at Savannah, ten miles down the river. It was so constant and heavy that he understood at once it was an attack. He sent a messenger post haste to General Buell, whose advance was ten miles east of Savannah, and then hastened to Pittsburg on a steamboat. He arrived on the ground about nine o’clock. Up to that hour there was no commander-in-chief, but each division commander gave such orders as he thought best. There was but little unity of action. Each commander was impressed with a sense of danger, and each was doing his best to hold the enemy in check.

The wide gap between Prentiss and Sherman, and the quick routing of Prentiss’s regiments, enabled Hardee to push his middle brigades to the centre of the Union army without much opposition. Both of Hardee’s flanks had been held back by the stout fight of Sherman on one side, the weaker resistance of Prentiss on the other. This gradually made the Rebel force into the form of a wedge, and at the moment when Hurlburt was waiting for their advance, the point of the wedge had penetrated beyond Hurlburt’s right, but there it came against General W. H. L. Wallace’s division.

When Hurlburt notified Wallace that Prentiss was attacked, that noble commander ordered his division under arms. You remember his position, near Snake Creek, and nearer the Pittsburg Landing than any other division. He at once moved in the direction of the firing, which brought him west of Hurlburt’s position.

You remember that General McClernand had sent three regiments to General Sherman, and that they were obliged to change front. Having done that, he moved his other two brigades, the first under the command of Colonel Hare, including the Eighth and Eighteenth Illinois infantry and the Eleventh and Thirteenth Iowa, with Dresser’s battery, and the third brigade with Schwartz’s and McAllister’s batteries. It was a complete change of front. These movements of Wallace and McClernand were directly against the two sides and the point of the wedge which Hardee was driving. Wallace marched southwest, and McClernand swung round facing southeast. They came up just in season to save Sherman from being cut off and also to save Veatch’s brigade of Hurlburt’s division from being overwhelmed.

McClernand’s head-quarters were in an old cotton-field. The camps of his regiments extended across the field and into the forest on both sides. He established his line on the south side of the field in the edge of the forest, determined to save his camp if possible. His men had seen hard fighting at Fort Donelson, and so had General Wallace’s men. They were hardened to the scenes of battle, whereas Sherman’s, Prentiss’s, and Hurlburt’s men were having their first experience. Schwartz, McAllister, and Dresser had confronted the Rebels at Donelson, and so had Major Cavender with his eighteen pieces, commanded by Captains Stone, Richardson, and Walker.