The Guns of Shiloh: A Story of the Great Western Campaign

by Joseph A. Altsheler

The surprise had been complete. Hardee, leading the Southern advance, struck Peabody's Northern brigade and smashed it up instantly. The men did not have time to seize their rifles. They had no chance to form into ranks, and the officers themselves, as they shouted commands, were struck down. Men killed or wounded were falling everywhere. Almost before they had time to draw a free breath the remnants of the brigade were driven upon those behind it.

Hardee also rushed upon Sherman, but there he found a foe of tough mettle. The man who had foreseen the enormous extent of the war, although taken by surprise, too, did not lose his courage or presence of mind. His men had time to seize their arms, and he formed a hasty line of battle. He also had the forethought to send word to the general in his rear to close up the gap between him and the next general in the line. Then he shifted one of his own brigades until there was a ravine in front of it to protect his men, and he hurried a battery to his flank.

Never was Napoleon's maxim that men are nothing, a man is everything, more justified, and never did the genius of Sherman shine more brilliantly than on that morning. It was he, alone, cool of mind and steady in the face of overwhelming peril, who first faced the Southern rush. He inspired his troops with his own courage, and, though pale of face, they bent forward to meet the red whirlwind that was rushing down upon them.

Like a blaze running through dry grass the battle extended in almost an instant along the whole front, and the deep woods were filled with the roar of eighty thousand men in conflict. And Grant, as at Donelson, was far away.

The thunder and blaze of the battle increased swiftly and to a frightful extent. The Southern generals, eager, alert and full of success, pushed in all their troops. The surprised Northern army was giving away at all points, except where Sherman stood. Hardee, continuing his rush, broke the Northern line asunder, and his brigades, wrapping themselves around Sherman, strove to destroy him.

Although he saw his lines crumbling away before him, Sherman never flinched. The ravine in front of him and rough ground on one side defended him to a certain extent. The men fired their rifles as fast as they could load and reload, and the cannon on their flanks never ceased to pour shot and shell into the ranks of their opponents. The gunners were shot down, but new ones rose at once in their place. The fiercest conflict yet seen on American soil was raging here. North would not yield, South ever rushed anew to the attack, and a vast cloud of mingled flame and smoke enclosed them both.

Dick had stood as if petrified, staring at the billows of flame, while the thunder of great armies in battle stunned his ears. He realized suddenly that he was alone. Colonel Kenton had said the night before that he did not know what to do with him, but that he would find a way in the morning. But he had been forgotten, and he knew it was natural that he should be. His fate was but a trifle in the mighty event that was passing. There was no time for any one in the Southern army to bother about him.

Then he understood too, that he was free. The whole Orphan Brigade had passed on into the red heart of the battle, and had left him there alone. Now his mind leaped out of its paralysis. All his senses became alert. In that vast whirlwind of fire and smoke no one would notice that a single youth was stealing through the forest in an effort to rejoin his own people.

Action followed swift upon thought. He curved about in the woods and then ran rapidly toward the point where the fire seemed thinnest. He did not check his pace until he had gone at least a mile. Then he paused to see if he could tell how the battle was going. Its roar seemed louder than ever in his ears, and in front of him was a vast red line, which extended an unseen distance through the forest. Now and then the wild and thrilling rebel yell rose above the roar of cannon and the crash of rifles.

Dick saw with a sinking of the heart—and yet he had known that it would be so—that the red line of flame had moved deeper into the heart of the Northern camp. It had passed the Northern outposts and, at many points, it had swept over the Northern center. He feared that there was but a huddled and confused mass beyond it.