Our Standard-Bearer; Or, The Life of General Uysses S. Grant

by Oliver Optic

The national troops were posted on a line three miles in length, extending from a creek on the right to another on the left, each of which had overflowed its banks and effectually protected the flanks of the army. The Union troops numbered at the beginning of the battle thirty-three thousand men. At Crump's Landing, four miles distant, was General Lew Wallace's division of five thousand more.

The rebel troops were reported by Beauregard to be over forty thousand; but there were some discrepancies in his statements which render it probable that he magnified the results of the first day by understating his force. The forward movement of the Union army into the first heart of the Confederacy had startled the rebel leaders, and they had decided to make a gigantic effort to overwhelm the daring invaders. For this purpose General A.S. Johnston, the most accomplished soldier in the enemy's ranks, was sent to the scene of operations, with the most reliable troops in their army. Beauregard, who, in spite of his sensational style, was a very able soldier, whose name carried a prestige no other rebel chief had won, was the leading spirit of the battle, while Hardee, Bragg, and Polk, all educated military men, were in command of divisions. On the other side, only Grant and Sherman were trained soldiers.

The Confederacy was smarting under its overwhelming defeat at Donelson. The boasted superiority of Southern soldiers had been disproved, and, in addition to the necessity of saving the rebel cause from the disaster of having its railway communications severed, lost honor and lost prestige were to be recovered. Never was an army more thoroughly stimulated to valor and desperation than that which was hurled upon the national lines at Pittsburg Landing. A stirring appeal had been issued by General Johnston, in which he inflamed the zeal of the soldiers to the highest pitch, pointing out to them the bitter results of defeat, all of which were fully realized in the ultimate issue. Everything which could rouse the men to desperation in the approaching fight was done with unsparing energy. Thus goaded to madness by the hopes and fears of the future, the confident army of the Mississippi marched out of Corinth, under Johnston, three days before the great battle.

The Union generals were on the alert, and during the three days that the armies confronted each other there was much heavy skirmishing. On the morning of Sunday, the first day of the battle, Prentiss, in the centre of the line, sent out a regiment at three o'clock to reconnoitre the position of the enemy. He had doubled his pickets on Saturday, thus carefully guarding himself against the possibility of a surprise. On Friday, the day on which he was injured by the fall of his horse, Grant was at the front with Sherman, to make sure that every preparation had been made to receive a sudden attack, though none was yet expected.

At five o'clock in the morning the regiment Prentiss had sent out engaged the advance pickets of the rebels, which Beauregard declares was the commencement of the fight, when Johnston gave orders to begin the movement. My excellent friend Mr. Pollard, in "The Lost Cause," says, "The magnificent army was moving forward to the deadly conflict; but the enemy"—the national troops—"scarcely gave time to discuss the question of attack, for soon after dawn he commenced a rapid fire on the Confederate pickets."

Some envious, hypercritical Union men made the astonishing discovery that Sherman, the old soldier, who had been skirmishing for three days with the enemy, was surprised; but happily the rebels themselves have not found it out to this day. If ever an army was wide awake at an early hour in the morning, that army was Grant's at Shiloh. When the enemy came, they found the nationals in force at the camps, and in their advanced positions, and "in strong force along almost the entire line," according to their own acknowledgment.

The onslaught was as fierce and terrible as the zeal of Johnston's inflammatory appeal. The troops of Prentiss were raw and inexperienced; they gave way, but formed again within their camp. Sherman's troops were also new, and failed him in the critical moment, though it was hardly to be wondered at that any troops should yield before that impetuous assault of superior numbers. But the weak places in the line were strengthened, and the ground was doggedly disputed, after the recoil of the first tremendous shock. The battle raged with horrid fury along the entire line.

Grant himself was at Savannah, in accordance with his engagement. He was taking an early breakfast with his staff in order to be in readiness to ride out and meet the commander of the army of the Ohio. The scene of hostilities was nine miles distant, and the sound of the booming guns reached his anxious ears. He wrote a hasty note to Buell, informing him that the battle had begun, and that, instead of meeting him, he must hasten up the river to join his forces.

Taking a steamer at the shore, he sped on his way to the scene of the strife, only stopping a moment at Crump's Landing, to leave his orders with General Lew Wallace, in anticipation of an emergency. Hurrying on, he arrived at Pittsburg Landing at eight o'clock, and instantly dashed to the front, as fast as horse could carry him. The condition of the battle was not hopeful, but Grant went to work with his accustomed zeal and energy. Messages were sent to Wallace and Nelson to hasten forward their troops; wagon loads of ammunition were ordered up to the front, stragglers and panic-stricken files of men were reorganized, and every effort made to save the day.

Some six or eight thousand men were demoralized by the savageness of the conflict; but in spite of this mortifying fact, the line remained unbroken: indeed, only once during the day was it penetrated. Thinned as it was by the misconduct of a fourth part of the troops, it still permitted no opening for the enemy. The contest had become a hand-to-hand fight, in which personal prowess and valor were to win the day. It was only a question of pluck and endurance. Grant was everywhere, encouraging the faithful, and stimulating the recreant.