We immediately followed in pursuit, after this last fight, capturing two field-guns from the enemy, and continued the advance until we had repossessed General McClernand’s headquarters of Sunday, beyond which we again met a determined resistance, but eventually drove the enemy back through a large open field into what has been termed the “water oaks thicket.”
The enemy seemed to be massed in great force at and beyond this point to oppose our further progress, and a heavy line of battle occupied the woods beyond the clearing on the hither edge of which we were halted to replenish our exhausted ammunition.
Our advance, though slow, had been continuous and resulted in projecting a sort of wedge into the enemy’s lines, of which wedge we seemed to be the apex. It resulted, therefore, naturally and necessarily that the enemy concentrated more and more in our immediate front to break the force that was gradually splitting them in two and endangering their communications in rear. Firing still continued toward the rear on both flanks, for we had considerably outstripped the general advance. Our men fixed bayonets and lay down under orders to hold the position, if attacked, at all hazards. The firing against us grew quite heavy, but no reply was made, although some were killed, among them Lieutenant Keyes, a splendid officer of the Sixteenth, with whom I was standing arm in arm at the time his summons came,—for among the regulars it was not then considered “good form” for officers to take shelter.
I have before spoken of the impact of a minie bullet against a tree as like the blow of a sledge hammer. The Keyes incident gives a very realistic illustration. As I have mentioned in another place, Lieutenant Keyes and I were standing arm in arm—my right interlocked with his left,—in rear of his company. We were, as I recall, just exchanging sorrowful remarks over the death of a Sergeant Baker—a fine man—who received a bullet through the forehead just a moment before, while Keyes was exchanging words with him. Just then the sledge hammer struck one of us—for a moment I did not know which—and hurled us both to the ground backwards. As I scrambled to a footing I saw Keyes’ blanched face and the torn garment showing the passage of the bullet through the left shoulder joint where a hasty examination showed that the bony structure of the vicinity had been shattered. He was taken to the rear and died the second day after.
Here, after a long wait, General Sherman came, and I saw him for the first time. I will let him tell you what next occurred. General Sherman is describing, in his official report of the battle, his own movements as he came up on our right; and is speaking of a battery that had reached him at the rear. He says:
“Under cover of their fire we advanced until we reached the point where the Corinth road crosses the line of McClernand camp, and here I saw for the first time the well ordered and compact columns of General Buell’s Kentucky forces whose soldierly movements at once gave confidence to our newer and less disciplined men. Here I saw Willich’s regiment advance upon a point of water oak and thicket, behind which I knew the enemy was in great strength, and enter it in beautiful style.”
(The thicket described by General Sherman, I may remark, was just beyond the field on the edge of which we were lying and through which it was necessary to pass. The Thirty-second Indiana was regarded as the crack German regiment of our western army.)
General Sherman continues:
“Then arose the severest musketry fire I ever heard, and lasted some twenty minutes when this splendid regiment had to fall back.”
(The Thirty-second, let me explain further, had passed around our left and formed in our front, in the open, in column of companies—“double column to the center,” as the formation is described by its commander in his report. The absurdity of this formation seemed to strike even the rank and file, for it drew a direct and enfilading fire from the extended line of the enemy in front that reached even the rear companies and gave rise to the claim on their part that they had been fired upon by the troops in their own rear. This claim was and is, of course, ridiculous. The regulars were at that moment engaged in replenishing their cartridge boxes in the rear of Kirke’s brigade which had been in reserve and had taken our position temporarily for this purpose. The claim was made as an excuse for a most unmilitary blunder in placing a column formation in the open in the face of a battle line, and, as it naturally resulted in a complete rout of the regiment, some excuse was sought as a salve for wounded pride).