Recollections with the Third Iowa Regiment

by Seymour D. Thompson

But there are times in battle when the chaotic whole resolves itself into definite shapes, some of which we see clearly. What we see of the great tempest at these times, together with the myriad rushing shapes of which we form no definite conception, form our recollections of a great battle. He alone who views it at a distance can be its historian. Those who participate in it can only contribute items.

With us the battle of Shiloh was not a battle. It was merely a resistance—a planless, stubborn resistance. After the first onset of the enemy, which was to the whole army, if not to General Grant himself, a complete surprise, the field was contested by our troops with a heroism which will forever redound to their honor. Divisions, brigades, regiments, men, fought recklessly, but no one could tell how; such was the tumult without and within. Such was the obscurity we can scarcely affirm with certainty what we believe we saw. Facts confronted each other and became uncertainties; certainties contradicted each other; impossibilities became certainties. This is why history hesitates.

I do not undertake a general description of the battle of Shiloh. I can only tell how the part of the conflict I saw appeared to me; how my regiment went through it; what it did and what it attempted to do. Beyond this, I can only sum up the general phases. Surprised at seven, and our front line broken; reinforced and confident at ten; stubborn at twelve; desperate at two; our lines crumbling away at three; broken at four; routed and pulverized at five; at six, rallying for a last desperate stand; at which time a third army appears on the field and a new battle properly commences.

At about an hour of sun, while we were eating our breakfasts, vollies of musketry were heard in advance. We remarked, "they are skirmishing pretty sharply in front." By degrees the firing grew steadier and nearer. "If," said we, "it is a reconnoissance of the enemy, it is a bold one; for he is certainly pushing back our advanced troops." Suddenly set in the noise of cannon—jar after jar—quicker and quicker, announcing too truly that the enemy was attacking us in force. Many instinctively buckled on their accoutrements and took their guns. Others continued to manifest the utmost indifference, and some laughed at the vollies which announced the slaughter of comrades. These manifestations were counterfeits. They lied about the real feelings within. A man may put on the outward appearance of indifference or mirth; but when fortune begins to play freaks with all he has or hopes for, he is seldom mirthful, never indifferent.

And now the long roll began to beat. The soldiers flew to their arms and canteens, the officers to their swords and men, the wagoners to their mules and wagons, the surgeons to their tools and ambulances, the sutlers to their books and goods. Our regiment was promptly formed and moved to the front and left. Passing the 32d Illinois in line, we heard a field officer tell them that any one guilty of straggling from the ranks should be court-martialed for cowardice and shot. They cheered the announcement, and our voices loudly responded. Meanwhile stragglers in wagons with wounded men, and in squads with and without arms, began to pour down the road. To our questions they answered that they had fought an hour without support(!); that the enemy was in their camps; that their regiments were all cut to pieces; to all of which ridiculous stories we paid no attention, but passed on. About a mile in advance the battle was now raging with fury. Our regiment moved by the flank, taking direction to the southwest and diverging to the left from the main road on which we had marched the previous Friday evening. We moved in this way through tangled woods for perhaps half a mile, when we filed to the right and shifted by the left flank into line, in which manner we advanced perhaps a quarter of a mile. Among so many obstacles of logs, trees and underbrush, it was impossible to move in line with any degree of steadiness. Our line wavered, sometimes opening into great gaps, and sometimes closing so as to crowd the men together into several ranks, if indeed it can be said that we maintained any ranks at all. Before leaving our camp we had been ordered to load. As soon as we began to advance in line we were ordered to fix bayonets. This increased our confusion, because it increased our expectations, and because it was much more difficult to march through the thick brush with bayonets fixed. At the same time, whose fault it was I do not know, we did not have a skirmisher between us and the enemy.

We had not marched far this way before we met scattered stragglers pouring through the woods. We at length halted, dressed our line, and other regiments of the 1st Brigade formed on our left. At this time a mass of stragglers hurried pell mell past our right, whom a field officer was trying to rally. It proved to be what was left of a regiment of Sherman's division, led, or rather followed, by a lieutenant colonel. By mingled entreaties and threats he succeeded in inducing a few of them to form and close up the interval between our regiment and the one on our left. A sergeant of one of our companies took occasion to speak depreciatingly of their courage; but Major Stone rebuked him, telling him it was no time for crimination now. The Major evidently believed as did most of his men, that the situation was a precarious one, and that we, too, might be likewise routed.

It is a literal fact that some of the regiments of Sherman's and Prentiss' divisions were pulverized by the first onset of the enemy. They fled through the woods in panic, like sheep pursued by wolves. Neither commands, threats nor entreaties were of any avail to check them. They could hear behind them the enemy's musketry and his shout of triumph; but they could not see before them, the revolvers presented to their breasts by their officers, who demanded of them to turn back and face the enemy. Idle waste of words! Honor, glory, country, liberty; defeat, captivity, humiliation, shame;—all were alike to them. You shouted these words to them, but they did not understand you. It was no time for them to think of such things now. They had but one thought, to save themselves from the enemy's balls and bayonets. Of all their hearts cherished, nothing was so dear to them as their worthless carcasses. You shouted "coward!" "dastard!" in their ears. They admitted it and rushed on. They had no colonels, no captains, no country; no firesides, no honor, no future. What was more discouraging than all, officers were sometimes seen to lead in these shameless stampedes.

At this very time regiments and battalions were hurrying forward to reinforce them and close up the breaches caused by their ignoble flight. We could look back and see them coming. It was a glorious, an all-cheering sight, battalion after battalion moving on in splendid order, stemming the tide of these broken masses; not a man straggling; regiments seeming to be animated by one soul. These were the troops of the Fourth Division, and this was the splendid manner in which their general led them against the enemy.

While in this position, where the First Brigade formed its first line at half past eight in the morning, the enemy advanced his batteries and began to shell us vigorously. Before us was a gentle ridge covered with dense woods and brush. The enemy fired at random. We lay flat on the ground and laughed at his shells exploding harmlessly in the tops of the trees above us. Our regiment shifted position two or three times here; but the whole brigade was soon ordered forward to take a position in a cotton field where one of our batteries had been planted. Beyond this field, we for the first time caught sight of the enemy, his regiments with their red banners flashing in the morning sun marching proudly and all undisturbed through the abandoned camps of Prentiss. To him as suddenly appeared the 1st Brigade, widely deployed upon the open field, the ground sloping toward him and not a brush to conceal us from his view; a single blue line, compact and firm, crowned with a hedge of sparkling bayonets, our flags and banners flapping in the breeze; and in our center a battery of six guns, whose dark mouths scowled defiance at him. The enemy's infantry fronted toward us and stood. Ours kneeled and brought their pieces to the ready. Thus for some moments the antagonists surveyed each other. He was on the offensive; we on the defensive. We challenged him to the assault; but he moved not. He was partly masked in the woods and the smoothbore muskets of our regiment could not reach him. But a regiment on the left of the brigade opened fire. The others followed, and the fire was caught up and carried along the entire line. It was some moments before our officers could make the men desist from the useless waste of powder. The enemy's infantry did not reply; but no sooner had our foolish firing ceased than one of his batteries, completely masked, opened upon ours with canister. His first shots took effect. Ours replied a few times, when its officers and men disgracefully fled, leaving two guns in battery on the field.

Having driven off this battery, the enemy turned his guns upon the infantry. But most of his discharges flew over our heads and rattled harmlessly through the tops of the dry trees. He soon, however, obtained our range more perfectly, and we began to suffer from his fire. We were thus a target for his artillery, and could not at that range give him an effective return. Major Stone protested against his men being kept in a position where they were so uselessly exposed; and soon after the brigade abandoned the field, our regiment taking position to the right of it in front of the 17th Kentucky.