In the personal reminiscences that follow I shall speak more particularly of the part taken by Rousseau’s brigade of McCook’s division.
I was personally present throughout the second day, as Adjutant of the First Battalion, Sixteenth U. S. Infantry—which, with similar battalions of the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Infantry, and the First Ohio, Fifth Indiana, and Sixth Kentucky Volunteers—constituted Rousseau’s brigade (4th) of McCook’s division (2d) of the Army of the Ohio commanded by General Buell.
My position as adjutant gave me a somewhat wider range of observation than that of a line officer on duty with a company, and I retain some very distinct recollections of the battle, which I will briefly state in so far as they bear upon the movements of Rousseau’s brigade; but I shall leave others to speak of the severity of the fighting, and leave to you to estimate the quality of the service the brigade rendered the Union cause.
Rousseau’s brigade reached Pittsburg Landing during the night of the 6th of April, 1862, by steamers from Savannah, and disembarked just before day. On the level just back of the landing, in the dim light of the coming dawn, we deposited knapsacks and advanced in a southwesterly direction through the woods, passing through camps (probably Hurlbut’s) where our dead lay unburied as they had fallen the day before. After a short halt we were advanced and deployed to the right and front at the hither edge of a broad and shallow depression, where a small brook coursed on to our right through a comparatively open forest without any visible clearing. Here we were halted, muskets loaded, and, in a short time, at a little after six o’clock, we heard firing toward our right rear, and almost immediately our own skirmishers were driven in and we were engaged with a battle line of the enemy. Then followed a steady and vigorous “stand-up” musketry fight which lasted the greater part of an hour, when the enemy drew off, but soon renewed the attack with greater vigor, only to be again repulsed.
This position was probably on Tilghman’s Creek, shown on the map of the Shiloh Battlefield Commission to which I shall refer; but the hour stated on the map as eight o’clock is wrong and should be six o’clock. By eight o’clock we had been baptized with fire and blood. Here Captain Acker of the Sixteenth was killed, and a number of other officers and men were killed and wounded.
It is an old story, perhaps, to most of you—this first experience of actual battle; yet, even now, dimly remembered through the intervening years, it seems to me the most horrifying experience that can possibly fall to the lot of man.
First came the startling report of a musket fired by one of our own skirmishers out in our front; then a crackling of responses from the woods beyond, but we could see only a little blue smoke rising above the undergrowth—for it was early spring and the green leaves were just beginning to appear—and hear the skipping of stray bullets through the branches with a whirr of spent force. A stir went through the lines and faces grew pale, for we knew that the battle was sweeping toward us and that these shots were the first sprinkle of the coming storm. The quiet command of “Attention!” was obeyed ere it was uttered; but the climax of first impressions came with the order to “load.” That order, like the jarring touch upon the chemist’s glass, crystallized the wild turmoil of thoughts and focalized all upon the actual business of war. I can realize now how important a thing in war is the musket as a steadying factor for overwrought nerves; and how that first order to “load!” brought the panicky thoughts of men back with a sudden shock to the realization that they were there upon equal terms with the enemy to do and not alone to suffer. I remember the “thud” of the muskets as they came down upon the ground almost as one,—for our men had been well drilled,—and the confused rattle of drawing ramrods, and their ring in the gun barrels as they rebounded in ramming the charges home. Every movement and every sound was an encouragement; and in the reaction of feeling the interchange of boastful speech almost ripened into cheers. But, meantime, the fire of skirmishers increased to an almost continuous rattle and grew closer, until—for all this was a matter of minutes only—our skirmishers could be seen coming in, firing as they came, and half carrying two or three wounded men. This, of course, again deepened the tension of nervous expectation, and faces took on a look of grim determination, as eyes peered forward to catch the first glimpse of the approaching enemy. As our skirmishers came into the lines, there went a hoarse whisper down the ranks, “There they are!”—and looking out through the woods I saw the flutter of battle flags and beneath them a surging line of butternut and gray moving rapidly across our front just beyond the shallow ravine, perhaps fifty or seventy-five yards away. In a moment, as it seemed, there burst forth a rattle of musketry that almost drowned the command of our officers to “fire at will!”
The first shock of battle is appalling. The rattle deepens into a roar as men get down to the work of loading and firing rapidly; but it is not alone the noise of firing that appals, the vicious “whizz,” and “zip” past the ears; the heavy “thud” of bullets that strike the tree-trunks with the force of sledge-hammer blows,—all these make up a horrible din that has no parallel on earth. But with it all is the realization that this is but the accompaniment of a leaden blast of hell sweeping into one’s face as though it were a sort of fierce and deadly wind impossible to stand against; and the rain of leaves and twigs cut from the trees, and the occasional fall of larger branches, heightens this impression of a raging storm. After a little the smoke obscures everything and the battle goes on in an ever-increasing acrid fog that would make breathing impossible were it not for the frenzy of battle that seizes upon every other faculty, physical and mental, and makes one oblivious to all other surroundings.
Here and there a man drops his musket, throws up his hands and falls backward dead; or another lunges heavily forward on hands and knees, mortally wounded; and no one who has seen it will ever forget that look of agony unspeakable on the faces of those stricken by sudden death in battle.
For what seemed an interminable time the angry buzz of bullets clipped by our ears and overhead; and I remember, that, as I passed up and down the line assisting the commanding officer of the battalion in encouraging the men to take time in loading carefully and aiming low, a bullet struck a musket in the hands of a young Irishman of my own company, just as he was about to bring it to his shoulder, and the force of the impact shattered the stock and turned him partly about and almost threw him down. I saw the blood spurt from his arm, for he had in the excitement rolled up his sleeves to handle his piece the better. I sprang forward to assist him; but with a cry of rage he stripped off his sleeve, and with the assistance of a comrade, bound up his wound, which proved to be not serious, and seized a dead comrade’s musket beside him and went on with the fight.