Leaving the sedgy hills, and pursuing our course towards the Landing, we were stopped by a trench in the woods. It was one hundred and fifty feet long, and four deep. For some reason both ends had been left open. Two feet from the bottom, planks were laid across, the trench being filled with earth over them. Beneath the planks the dead were buried. Their bones could be seen at one of the open ends of the trench. A row of head-boards indicated the graves of Illinois volunteers.
We rode on to the spot which has given the battle its northern name. Under high bluffs, on what Zeek called a “bench,”—a shelf of land on the river bank,—approached from the land side by a road running down through a narrow ravine, stood the two log-huts, a dwelling and a grocery, which constituted the town of “Pittsburgh.” There was not so much as a wharf there, but steamers made their landing against the natural bank. There was absolutely nothing there now, the two huts having been burned. Wild ducks sat afloat on the broad, smooth breast of the river. It was not easy looking down from those heights upon the tranquil picture, to call up that other scene of battle-panic and dismay,—the routed Federal troops pouring through the woods, disorganized, beaten, seeking the shelter of the bluffs and the protection of the gun-boats; the great conflict roaring behind them; the victorious Rebels in wild pursuit; God’s solemn Sabbath changed to a horrible carnival of mad passions and bloodshed.
“The Rebels just fanned ’em out,” said Zeek. “The Yankees put up white flags under the bluff, but the Rebels didn’t come near enough to see ’em; they tuke a skeer,—the Federals fell back so easy, they was afraid of some trick. Thar was such a vast amount of ’em they couldn’t all get to the Landing. Some got drowned trying to swim Snake Creek. Numbers and numbers tried to swim the river. A Federal officer told me he saw his men swim out a little ways, get cold, then wind up together, and go to hugging each other, and sink.” Such are the traditions of the fight which have passed into the memory of the country people; but they should be taken with considerable allowance.
On the level river bottom opposite the Landing we found an extensive cornfield, bounded by heavy timber beyond. Under that shore the gun-boats lay where they shelled the advancing Rebels. It was there, emerging from the timber into the open field, that our defeated army saw, that Sunday evening, first the advanced cavalry, then a whole division of Buell’s army coming to the rescue,—banners flying and bayonets glittering among the trees. Glad sight! No wonder the runaways under the bluffs made the welkin ring with their cheers! If Buell did not arrive in time to save that day, he was in time to save the next, and turn defeat into victory.
Taking the Hamburg Road up the river, we reached the scene of General Prentiss’s disaster. The Rebels were in our camps that Sunday morning almost before the alarm of attack was given. First came the wild cries of the pickets rushing in, accompanied by the scattering shots of the enemy, and followed instantly by shells hurtling through the tents, in which the inmates were just rousing from sleep; then, sweeping like an avalanche through the woods, the terrible resistless battlefront of the enemy.
“Into the just-aroused camps thronged the Rebel regiments, firing sharp volleys as they came, and springing towards our laggards with the bayonet. Some were shot down as they were running, without weapons, hatless, coatless, toward the river. Others fell as they were disentangling themselves from the flaps that formed the doors to their tents; others as they were buckling on their accoutrements; a few, it was even said, as they were vainly trying to impress on the cruelly-exultant enemy their readiness to surrender. Officers were wounded in their beds, and left for dead, who, through the whole two days’ struggle, lay there gasping in their agony, and on Monday evening were found in their gore, inside their tents, and still able to tell the tale.”[[13]]
The houses all along the road were burned. In Prentiss’s front was a farm, all laid waste, the orchard shot to pieces and destroyed by balls. The woods all around were killed, perforated with countless holes, as by the bills of woodpeckers.
Striking the Hamburg and Purdy road, we went west to the spot where the Rebel General Sydney A. Johnston fell, pierced by a mortal wound. Zeek then piloted me through the woods to the Corinth Road, where, time pressing, I took leave of him, sorry I could not accept his invitation to go home with him to dinner. It was five miles to his father’s house; it was twenty miles to Corinth; and the day was already half spent.
[13]. “Agate,” in the Cincinnati Gazette, who furnished the best contemporaneous account of this battle.