At the dawn of day on Sunday, April 6th, magnificent battle-lines, under the Confederate battle-flag, emerged from the woods on the neighboring hills within gunshot of the Federal camps. Whether the Union army was really surprised has been the subject of long controversy, which we need not enter. Certainly, the attack on it was most sudden, and in consequence it fought on the defensive and at a disadvantage throughout the day.
General Hardee’s corps, forming the first line of battle, moved against the outlying division of the Union army, which was commanded by General Benjamin Prentiss, of West Virginia. Before Prentiss could form his lines Hardee’s shells began bursting around him, but he was soon ready and, though pressed back for half a mile in the next two or three hours, his men fought like heroes. Meanwhile the further Confederate advance under Bragg, Polk, and Breckinridge was extending all along the line in front of the Federal camps. The second Federal force to encounter the fury of the oncoming foe was the division of General W. T. Sherman, which was cut to pieces and disorganized, but only after it had inflicted frightful loss on the Confederate army.
General Grant, as we have noted, spent the night at Savannah, a town nine miles by way of the river from Pittsburg Landing. As he sat at breakfast, he heard the distant boom of cannon and he quickly realized that Johnston’s army had attacked his own at the Landing. Instantly he took a boat and started for the scene of the conflict. At Crump’s Landing, about half way between the two, General Lew Wallace was stationed with a division of seven thousand men. As Grant passed Crump’s Landing, he met Wallace and ordered him to be ready for instant marching when he was called for. When Grant arrived at Pittsburg Landing, about eight o’clock in the morning, he found a tremendous battle raging, and he spent the day riding from one division commander to another, giving directions and cheering them on as best he could.
About two and a half miles from the Landing stood a little log church among the trees, in which for years the simple folk of the countryside had been wont to gather for worship every Sunday morning. But on this fateful Sunday, the demon of war reigned supreme. The little church was known as Shiloh to all the country around, and it gave its name to the great battle that raged near it on that memorable day.
General Prentiss had borne the first onset of the morning. He had been pressed back half a mile. But about nine o’clock, after being reënforced, he made a stand on a wooded spot with a dense undergrowth, and here he held his ground for eight long hours, until five in the afternoon, when he and a large portion of his division were surrounded and compelled to surrender. Time after time the Confederates rushed upon his position, but only to be repulsed with fearful slaughter. This spot came to be known as the “Hornet’s Nest.” It was not far from here that the Confederates suffered the irreparable loss of the day. Their noble commander, Albert Sidney Johnston, received his death wound as he was urging his troops to force back Hurlbut’s men. He was riding in the center of the fight, cheering his men, when a minie ball cut an artery of his thigh. The wound was not necessarily fatal. A surgeon could easily have saved him. But he thought only of victory and continued in the saddle, raising his voice in encouragement above the din of battle. Presently his voice became faint, a deadly pallor blanched his cheek. He was lifted from his horse, but it was too late. In a few minutes the great commander was dead, from loss of blood.
The death of Johnston, in the belief of many, changed the result at Shiloh and prevented the utter rout or capture of Grant’s army. One of Johnston’s subordinates wrote: “Johnston’s death was a tremendous catastrophe. Sometimes the hopes of millions of people depend upon one head and one arm. The West perished with Albert Sidney Johnston and the Southern country followed.” Jefferson Davis afterward declared that “the fortunes of a country hung by a single thread on the life that was yielded on the field of Shiloh.”
Beauregard succeeded to the command on the fall of Johnston and the carnage continued all the day—till darkness was falling over the valleys and the hills. The final charge of the evening was made by three Confederate brigades close to the Landing, in the hope of gaining that important point. But by means of a battery of many guns on the bluff of Dill’s Branch, aided by the gunboats in the river, the charge was repulsed. Beauregard then gave orders to desist from further attack all along his lines, to suspend operations till morning. When General Bragg heard this he was furious with rage. He had counted on making an immediate grand assault in the darkness, believing that he could capture a large part of the Federal army.
When the messenger informed him of Beauregard’s order, he inquired if he had already delivered it to the other commanders. “Yes,” was the reply. “If you had not,” rejoined the angry Bragg, “I would not obey it. The battle is lost.” But Bragg’s fears were not shared by his compatriots.
Further mention is due the two little wooden gunboats, Tyler and Lexington, for their share in the great fight. The Tyler had lain all day opposite the mouth of Dill’s Branch which flowed through a deep, marshy ravine, into the Tennessee just above the Landing. Her commander, Lieutenant Gwin, was eager for a part in the battle, and when he saw the Confederate right pushing its way toward the Landing, he received permission to open fire. For an hour his guns increased the difficulties of Jackson’s and Chalmers’ brigades as they made their way to the surrounding of Prentiss. Later on the Lexington joined her sister, and the two vessels gave valuable support to the Union cannon at the edge of the ravine and to Hurlbut’s troops until the contest ended. All that night, in the downpour of rain, Lieutenant Gwin, at the request of General Nelson, sent shot crashing through the trees in the direction where the Confederates had bivouacked. This completely broke the rest of the exhausted troops, and had a decided effect upon the next day’s result.
Southern hopes were high at the close of this first bloody day at Shiloh. Whatever of victory there was at the end of the day belonged to the Confederates. They had pressed the Federals back more than a mile and now occupied their ground and tents of the night before. They had captured General Prentiss with some thousands of his men as a result of his brave stand at the “Hornet’s Nest.”