The enemy had placed batteries at Eastport, Miss., to blockade the river and cover the movement of General Johnston's troops over the railroad from Decatur to Corinth. It is also probable that he had a small land force at that point. The wooden gunboats engaged the batteries unsuccessfully. But it can not be claimed that they amounted to an obstacle in the way of General Smith. They could easily have been captured or driven off by our infantry. This Gen. Smith did not attempt; whether it was that his orders restricted his movements, or whether he was unequal to the occasion, is yet to be made known.
Toward night, March 4th, three days' rations were issued to our regiment with orders to divide, cook and be ready to march at daylight. The kitchen furnaces of the boat were taken possession of for this purpose; and notwithstanding the work was crowded vigorously, but three companies could get their rations cooked during the night.
At daylight the boats conveying General Hurlbut's division moved up the river a few miles under convoy of a gunboat, and halted opposite the bluffs of Pittsburg Landing, which the enemy had occupied a few days before. Nine boats tied up on the western bank and two on the eastern, one of which was our own. We built fires on shore and proceeded to cook the rations we had not been able to do the previous evening. The whole expedition was almost at a halt. Most of the fleet was above us, probably endeavoring to effect a landing at Hamburg, six miles above. We, the soldiers, knew little of the whereabouts of the enemy. It was not fair to conjecture that our generals knew much more. A general generally knows much less of his antagonist than those who are not generals think he ought to. A few days before, the enemy had a force with some artillery on Pittsburg Bluffs. A gunboat had engaged them and driven off their artillery, but they in turn had repulsed our infantry which landed and attempted to pursue.
Who knew now that the enemy was not in force beyond our observation ready to dispute our landing? The honor of first setting foot on this historic soil belongs to the fourth division. To land at all in the face of the intervening bottom overflowed with water, presented no ordinary difficulties. The 41st Illinois regiment disembarked in light order, ascended the bluff and advanced into the woods to cover the movement. General Sherman at the same time began preparations to debark. Roads were cut up the sides of the bluffs on which the wagons and artillery could ascend. These dispositions being made, General Hurlbut announced the details of the disembarking of his division in the following order:
Head Quarters, Fourth Division, }
March 17, 1862. }General Orders,
No. 4.The 1st and 3d Brigades of this Division, now at Pittsburg Landing, will disembark as rapidly as possible and form camps by brigades, the 1st Brigade with the left resting on the road, and the 3d with the right. In order to establish the lines without confusion, the 1st Brigade will commence the movement forming in brigade line right in front on the road. On reaching the point designated by a staff officer detailed for that purpose, the brigade will file right into line perpendicular to the road. Regiments taking positions according to the rank of their Colonels, from right to left. The 3d Brigade will be formed on the same road, left in front, and on reaching their line will file left into brigade line on the extension of the line of the 1st Brigade. Full room to the front will be taken by these brigades so as to permit the other troops to establish camps in their rear.
Tents will be pitched by the single file by the companies. After the above line is established, the brigades will stack arms and break by right of companies for the 1st Brigade, and by left of companies for the 3d Brigade to the rear, leaving an interval of twenty-five paces from the color line to the first company tent.
Proper details will then be made to bring up the baggage and trains of the Regiments, and have but the details allowed to leave the regimental grounds. The transportation of each brigade will be used for this purpose without reference to the Regiments under the orders of the Brigade Quarter Master.
Thirty paces will be allowed between regiments, unless the nature of the ground compels a wider interval. Police and Regimental guards will be established before the Brigades stack arms. Commanding officers will see that sinks are established for their officers and men at once.
Burrow's Battery will occupy ground between the two Brigades, one-half with the 1st, and the other with the 3d. Mann's Battery, on the Key West will drop over to this side of the river as soon as the landing is opened, and be assigned to cover the flank of the 3d Brigade.
As fast as a boat is cleared of troops and baggage, it will be reported to these Head Quarters and sent to Savannah. The orders are to hold Pittsburg Landing and the honorable post of exterior line in front is given to this Division.
All officers are enjoined to give their strict personal attention to discipline and drill in their respective commands. Their attention is especially called to the 49th and 50th Articles of War, and they are notified that they will be strictly enforced. Each Regiment will clear its regimental ground for parade and drill, and as soon as possible a rigid inspection will be made by Brigade commanders.
The 3d Iowa will establish camp perpendicularly to the line of the 1st Brigade, the right toward the river along the brush. The Empress and Emerald, having commissary stores on board, will fix themselves at some convenient points as soon as the rest of the transportation is drawn off. The General commanding will take Head-Quarters on shore as soon as the line is established.
By order of Brig. Gen. S. A. Hurlbut,
Smith D. Atkins, A. A. A. G.
While the work preparatory to disembarking was going on, the men were allowed to go ashore to cook their rations and wash their clothes. Much curiosity was exhibited in examining the field of the recent engagement. The bodies left on the field had been but slightly buried by the enemy, and the graves were covered over with rails. While an Illinois regiment was exhuming and reburying the bodies of their fallen comrades, many soldiers crowded around to get a view of the marred faces of the dead. And so great was the curiosity of some young soldiers to see the bodies of men who had been slain in battle, that a guard had to be placed over the graves of the enemy's dead to prevent them from being again torn open.
The Fourth Division landed on the 17th, agreeably to General Hurlbut's order, and the 3d Iowa took position on the bluff in rear of the line. We drew new Sibley tents, and six were allowed to the company. The ground was full of water; but our quarters were commodious and contrasted delightfully with the filthy decks of the Iatan. But sickness was already becoming alarmingly prevalent among us. The confinement, bad diet, and bad air to which we had been subject, had thinned our ranks and filled the hospital as much as a hard fought battle. The water which we now had to drink was brackish and sickening. It was furnished by surface springs, and was the soakings of the roots of all the vegetation of the forest. Camp diarrhœa was the prevailing malady. We had not been in camp a week before there was scarcely a man who did not have it.
The Third Iowa was assigned by direction of Major General Grant, to the 1st Brigade, Fourth Division, and Col. Williams, as ranking officer, assumed command. The Brigade was composed of the Third Iowa, the 32d Illinois, Col. John Logan, the 41st Illinois, Col. I. C. Pugh, the 28th Illinois, Col. E. K. Johnson, and Burrow's Battery of light guns. It was very fortunate for Col. Williams to be thus placed in command of a brigade of such excellent troops, and his friends are confident that if he had not been disabled early in the battle of Shiloh, he would have silenced the accusations against him. Major Stone was left in command of our regiment, Col. Scott being absent on account of sickness. We twice changed our camp previous to the battle, and when that event occurred, the 1st Brigade was camped in proper order, the 3d Iowa on the extreme right. Beyond us were the divisions of Sherman and Prentiss, and to our right those of McClernand and Smith.
In the confusion of hills, ravines, and cross-roads, it was scarcely possible for a casual observer to come to a definite conclusion as to the topography of our camps. But he did not have to look twice at that city of white tents in the solemn forest to be impressed with the grandeur of the sight. As far as the eye could reach the hills were covered with them. By day the roads were choked with baggage wagons coming and going; the woods teemed with armed men; the air was full of martial sounds. The noise of artillery firing on drill with blank cartridges, joined to that of soldiers discharging their pieces in the woods, at times almost counterfeited a battle. The field music, bugles and bands were continually playing, and a steam calliope on one of the transports seemed to catch up their notes and repeat them to the distant hills.
Our spare tent was mostly occupied with drills and reviews. The weather was much of the time rainy, and sickness and despondency continued to increase. We had tidings that our arms were everywhere successful, and yet we were in gloom. It almost seemed to us that we were suffering to no purpose. In a week or ten days after our arrival at Pittsburg Landing, the roads had dried up so as to be quite passable. Why, then, did we not advance? The reason is obvious now. Our delay had given the enemy time to concentrate at Corinth, and we must now wait the arrival of Buell before resuming the offensive. Ah! how nearly fatal was the delay! Our blunder in failing to deal the enemy a a decisive blow when we had the opportunity is equaled by that of allowing him the opportunity of dealing a decisive blow against us. He was concentrating a large army within a few days' march of us, with what design we were ignorant, whether merely to arrest our further advance, or to march upon us and give us battle. In the latter event our situation was a highly dangerous one. With an impassable river immediately in our rear, and an impenetrable forest on either flank, defeat would amount to no less than destruction and capture. The soldiers themselves were not so stupid as not to discern the peril to which we were exposed. Nevertheless, not even the ordinary precautions were taken against it. The troops were not camped in proper line of battle; reconnoissances were unfrequent and unsatisfactory; picketing at the time of the attack was done only by the infantry; and the picket line was but a short distance in front of the line of advanced camps; and what was well nigh as bad, the headquarters of the commanding general were at Savannah, eight miles away. We had rumors that the enemy were evacuating Corinth, and again that he was marching against us. Whatever we believed, we could not deny that if the enemy expected to give us a decisive blow, he would attempt it now. The evening before the battle, I observed a captain talking with one of his men as they viewed from an eminence near the Landing the camps of the army. Their observations on the danger of our situation were very similar to those I have just made. Their words were almost prophetic. For in twenty-four hours that army whose camps they saw extending so widely and so beautifully, was rolled back a broken mass upon the bluff, half of its artillery and most of its material in the hands of the enemy, and with two hours more of such disaster, would have been utterly destroyed or captured.