By this time the fire from the enemy in our front—it was the division of General Hardee turning the flank of the Federal position—became so terrible that we were driven back into the ravine. Here we were comparatively safe. We could load our pieces, crawl up the bank of the ravine, fire and fall back, as it were. But many poor fellows who crawled up this friendly embankment fell back dead or wounded; and in one instance, as I crouched down loading my piece, a man who had been struck above me, fell on top of me and died by my side. It was here, in this terrible moment, that I, boylike, thought of the peaceful Ohio home, where a loving, anxious mother was doubtless thinking of me, and with the thought that perhaps my father had been killed, came a natural desire to be well out of the scrape. Notwithstanding, I kept firing as long as my cartridges lasted. These gone, a fierce sergeant, with a revolver in his hand, placed its muzzle close to my ear and fiercely demanded why I was not fighting. I told him that I had no cartridges. “Take cartridges from the box of the man there,” he said, pointing to the dead man who had just fallen upon me. Mine was an Enfield rifle, and my deceased neighbor’s cartridges were for a Springfield rifle. I had clung to this beautiful Enfield, with its maple stock, which my father had selected, and I was determined that it should not leave my hands. While this scene was passing, the enemy came upon us full charge, and, looking up through the smoke of the burning leaves and beyond a washout which connected with our ravine, I saw their gray, dirty uniforms. I heard their fierce yells, I saw their flag flapping sullenly in the grimy atmosphere. That was a sight which I have never forgotten; I can see the tiger ferocity in those faces yet; I can see them in my dreams. For what might they not have appeared to me, terrified boy that I was!
It was at this point that our blue line first wavered. Out of the ravine, over the bank, we survivors poured, pursued by the howling enemy. I remember my horror at the thought of being shot in the back, as I retreated from the top of the bank and galloped as gracefully as I could with the refluent human tide. Just by my side ran a youthful soldier, perhaps three years my senior, who might, for all I knew, have been recruited as I was. I heard him give a scream of agony, and, turning, saw him dragging one of his legs, which I saw in an instant had been shattered by a bullet. He had dropped his rifle, and as I ran to his support he fell upon my shoulder, and begged me, for God’s sake, to help him. I half carried him for some distance, still holding to my Enfield rifle, with its beautiful curly stock, and then, seeing that I must either give up the role of good Samaritan or drop the rifle, I threw it down and continued to aid my unfortunate companion. All this time the bullets were whistling more fiercely than at any time during the engagement, and the woods were filled with flying men, who, to all appearances, had no intention of rallying on that side of the Tennessee River. My companion was growing weaker all the while, and finally I set him down beside a tree, with his back toward the enemy, and watched him for a few moments, until I saw that he was slowly bleeding to death. I knew nothing of surgery at that time, and did not even know how to staunch the flow of blood. I called to a soldier who was passing, but he gave no heed. A second came, stood for a moment, simply remarked “he’s a dead man,” and passed on. I saw the poor fellow die without being able to render the slightest assistance. Passing on, I was soon out of range of the enemy, and in a moment I realized how utterly famished and worn out I was. My thirst was something absolutely appalling. I saw a soldier sitting upon the rough stump of a tree gazing toward the battle, and, observing that he had a canteen, I ran to him and begged him for a drink. He invited me to help myself. I kneeled beside the stump, and, taking his canteen, drained it to the last drop. He did not even deign to look at me during the performance, but he anxiously inquired how the battle was going in the front. I gave him information which did not please him in the least, and moved on toward the point known as the landing, toward which all our fugitives seemed to be tending. But my friend on the stump—I shall never forget him. How gratefully I remember that drink of warm water from his rusty canteen! Bless his military soul, he probably never knew what a kindness he rendered me!
A short distance beyond the place where I had obtained my water supply I found a squadron of jaded cavalry drawn up, and engaged in the interesting work of stopping stragglers. In the crowd of fear-stricken and dejected soldiers I found there, I saw a man who belonged to my father’s regiment; I recognized him by the letters and number on his hat. Inquiring the fate of the regiment, he told me that it had been entirely cut to pieces, and that he had personally witnessed the death of my father—he had seen him shot from his horse. This intelligence filled me with dismay, and I then determined, non-combatant that I was, that I would retire from that battlefield. Watching my opportunity, I joined an ambulance which was passing, loaded with wounded, and by some means escaped the vigilance of the cavalrymen, who seemed to be almost too badly scared to be on any sort of duty. When through this line, I pushed my way on down past the point where stragglers were being impressed and forced to carry sand bags up from the river, to aid in the construction of batteries for some heavy guns which had been brought up from the transports. I passed these temporary works, by the old warehouse, turned into a temporary field hospital, where hundreds of wounded men, brought down in wagons and ambulances, were being unloaded, and where their arms and legs were being cut off and thrown out to form gory, ghastly heaps. I made my way down the plateau overlooking the river. Below lay thirty transports at least, all being loaded with the wounded. All around me were baggage wagons, mule teams, disabled artillery teams, and thousands of panic-stricken men. I saw, here and there, officers gathering these men together into volunteer companies, and marching them away to the scene of battle. It took a vast amount of pleading to organize a company of even fifteen or twenty, and I was particularly struck by the number of officers who were engaged in this interesting occupation. It seemed to me that they were out of all proportion to the number of fugitives in the vicinity. While sitting on the bank, overlooking the road below, between the beach and the river, I saw General Grant. I had seen him the day before review his troops on the Purdy road, while a company of Confederate cavalrymen, a detachment of Johnston’s army, watched the performance from a skirt of woods some two miles away. When I saw him at this moment he was doing his utmost to rally his troops for another effort. It must have been about half past four in the afternoon. The General rode to the landing, accompanied by his staff and a bodyguard of twenty-five or thirty cavalrymen. I heard him begging the stragglers to go back and make one more effort to redeem themselves, accompanying his pleadings with the announcement that reinforcements would soon be on the field, and that he did not want to see his men disgraced. Again I heard him proclaim that if the stragglers before him did not return to their commands he would send his cavalry down to drive them out. In less than fifteen minutes his words were made good. A squadron of cavalry, divided at either end of the landing, and riding towards each other with drawn sabres, drove away every man found between the steep bank and the river. The majority of the skulkers climbed up the bank, hanging by the roots of the trees, and in less than ten minutes after the cavalry had passed, they were back in their old places. I never saw General Grant again until I saw him as President of the United States.
While sitting on the high bank of the river I looked across to the opposite side, and saw a body of horsemen emerging from the low cane brakes back of the river. In a moment I saw a man waving a white flag with a red square in the center. I knew that he was signalling, for I had seen the splendid corps of Buell’s army, and I recognized that the men with that flag were our friends. Sitting by me were two distracted fugitives, who also saw the movement on the other side of the river. Said one of them to his companion: “Bill, we are gone now. There’s the Texas cavalry on the other side of the river!” The red square had misled him. Fifteen minutes later I saw the head of a column of blue emerge from the woods beyond and move hurriedly down toward the river’s edge. Immediately the empty transports moved over to that side of the river, and the first boat brought over a figure which I recognized. The vessel was a peculiar one, belonging in Southern waters, and had evidently been used as a ferry boat. On its lower forward deck, which was long and protruding, sat a man of tremendous proportions, on a magnificent Kentucky horse, with bobbed tail. The officer was rigged out in all his regimentals, including an enormous hat with a black feather in it. I knew that this was General Nelson, commonly known as “Fighting Bull Nelson.” I ran down to the point where I saw his boat was going to land, and as she ran her prow up on the sandy beach, Nelson put spurs to his horse and jumped him over the gunwale. As he did this, he drew his sword and rode right into the crowd of refugees, shouting: “Damn your souls, if you won’t fight, get out of the way and let men come here who will!” I realized from the presence of Nelson that my regiment (the Twenty-fourth Ohio) was probably in that vicinity. I asked one of the boat hands to take me on board, and, after some persuasion, he did so. The boat recrossed, and as soon as I got on shore, I ran down to where the troops were embarking to cross the river to the battlefield. I soon found Ammen’s Brigade, and my regiment. Hurrying on board one of the transports, I climbed to the hurricane deck and there found my brother with his company. He was looking across the river, where the most appalling sight met his vision. The shore was absolutely packed with the disorganized, panic-stricken troops who had fled before the terrible Confederate onslaught, which had not ceased for one moment since early that morning. The noise of the battle was deafening. It may be imagined that my brother was somewhat surprised to see me. I made a hurried explanation of the circumstances which had brought me there, and gave him news of my father’s death. Then I asked him for something to eat. Astonished, he referred me to his negro servant, who luckily had a broiled chicken in his haversack, together with some hard bread. I took the chicken, and as we marched off the boat, I held a drumstick in each hand, and kept by my brother’s side as we forced our way through the stragglers, up the road from the landing and on to the plateau, where the battle was even then almost concentrating. Right there I saw a man’s head shot off by a cannon-ball and saw, immediately afterward, an aide on General Nelson’s staff dismounted by a shot, which took off the rear part of his saddle and broke his horse’s back. At the same time I did not stop eating. My nerves were settled, and my stomach was asserting its rights. My brother finally turned to me, and, after giving me some papers to keep, and some messages to deliver in case of death, shook me by the hand and told me to keep out of danger, and, above all things, to try and get back home. This part of his advice I readily accepted. I stood and saw the brigade march by, which, in less than ten minutes, met the advance of the victorious Confederates, and checked the battle for that day. It was then that the gunboats in the river, and the heavy siege guns on the bank above, added their remonstrating voices as the sun went down, and the roar of battle ceased entirely.
That night on the shore of the Tennessee River was one to be remembered. Wandering along the beach among the rows of wounded men waiting to be taken on board the transports, I found another member of the Seventieth Ohio named Silcott. He had a harrowing tale of woe to relate, in which nearly all his friends and acquaintances figured as corpses, and together we sat down on a bale of hay near the river’s edge. By this time the rain had set in. It was one of those peculiar, streaming, drenching, semi-tropical downpours, and it never ceased for a moment from that time until far into the next day. With darkness came untold misery and discomfort. After my companion had related the experiences of the day, I curled myself up on one side of the hay bale, while he occupied one edge of it, and soon fell asleep. Every few moments I was awakened by a terrible broadside, delivered from the two gunboats which lay in the center of the river a hundred yards or so above me. They were the Lexington and the A. O. Tyler, I believe; wooden vessels, reconstructed from western steamboats and supplied with ponderous columbiads. These black monsters, for some reason, kept up their fire all through the night, and the roar of this cannonading and the shrieking of the shells, mingled with the thunders of the rainstorm, gave very little opportunity for slumber. Still, I managed to doze very comfortably between broadsides. And my recollection of the night is that from these peaceful naps I was aroused every now and then by what appeared to be a tremendous flash of lightning, followed by the most awful thunder ever heard on the face of the earth. These discharges seemed to me to lift me four or five inches from my water-soaked couch. To add to the general misery the transports which were bringing over Buell’s troops had a landing within twenty feet of my lodgment. All night long they wheezed and groaned and came and went, with their freight of humanity, and right by my side marched all night long the poor fellows who were being pushed out to the front to take the places on the battle line for the morrow. By this time the roadway was churned into mud knee deep, and as regiment after regiment went by with that peculiar slosh, slosh of marching men in mud, and the rattling of canteens against bayonets and scabbards, so familiar to the ear of the soldier, I could hear in the intervals the low complaining of the men and the urging of the officers: “Close up, boys, close up,” until it seemed to me that if there was ever such a thing as Hades on earth, I was in the fullest enjoyment of it. As fast as a transport unloaded its troops, the gangway was hauled in, the vessel dropped out, and another took the vacant place and the same thing was gone over again. Now and then a battery of artillery would come off the boat, the wheels would stick in the mud, and then a grand turmoil of half an hour would follow, during which time every man found in the neighborhood would be impressed to aid in relieving the embargoed gun. The whipping of the horses and the cursing of the drivers was less soothing, if anything, than those soul shattering gunboat broadsides. There never was a night so long, so hideous, or so utterly uncomfortable.
As the gray streaks of dawn began to appear, the band of the Thirteenth Regulars on the deck of one of the transports, came into the landing, playing a magnificent selection from “Il Trovatore.” How inspiring that music was! Even the poor, wounded men lying in front on the shore seemed to be lifted up, and every soldier seemed to receive an impetus. Soon there was light enough to distinguish objects around, and then came the ominous patter of musketry over beyond the river’s bluff, which told that the battle was on again. It began just as a shower of rain began and soon deepened into a terrible hail storm, with the booming artillery for thunder accompaniment. I was up and around and started immediately toward the front, for everybody felt now that the battle was to be ours. Those fresh and sturdy troops from the Army of the Ohio had furnished a blue bulwark, behind which the incomparable one-day fighters of Grant and Sherman were to push to victory. The whole aspect of the field in the rear changed. The skulkers of the day before seemed to be imbued with genuine manhood, and thousands of them returned to the front to render good service. In addition to this, six thousand fresh men under General Lew Wallace, who had marched from Crump’s Landing, ten miles away, had arrived during the night, and the tide of battle was now setting towards Corinth. I met a comrade drying himself out by a log fire, about a quarter of a mile from the landing, who had by some process secured a canteen of what was known as Commissary Whisky. He gave me one drink of it and that constituted my breakfast. Cold, wet and depressed, as I was, that whisky, execrable though it was, brought such consolation as I had never found before. I have drunk champagne in Epernay, I have sipped Johannisberger at the foot of its sunny mount, I have tasted the regal Montpulsanio, but, by Jove, I never enjoyed a drink as I did that swig of common whisky, on the morning of the 7th of April, 1862! While drying myself by this fire I saw a motley crowd of Confederate prisoners marched past, under guard. As they waded along the muddy road, some of the cowardly skulkers indulged in the badinage usual on such occasions, and one of our fellows called out to know what company that was. A proud young chap in gray threw his head back, and replied, “Company Q, of the Southern Invincibles, and be damned to you.” That was the spirit of the day and the hour.
At 10 o’clock, the sound of the battle indicated that our lines were being pushed forward, and I made up my mind to go to the front. I started with my companion, and in a very short time we began to see about us traces of the terrible battle of the day before. We were then on the ground which had been fought over late Sunday evening. The underbrush had literally been mowed off by the bullets and great trees had been shattered by the terrible artillery fire. In places, the bodies of the slain lay upon the ground so thick that I could step from one to the other. This without exaggeration. The pallid faces of the dead men in blue were scattered among the blackened corpses of the enemy. This to me was a horrible revelation, and I have never yet heard a scientific explanation of why the majority of the dead Confederates on that field turned black. All the bodies had been stripped of their valuables, and scarcely a pair of boots or shoes could be found upon the feet of the dead. In most instances, pockets had been cut open, and one of the pathetic sights that I remember was a poor Confederate, lying on his back, while by his side was a heap of ginger cakes and sausage, which had tumbled out of his trousers pockets, cut by some infamous thief. The unfortunate man had evidently filled his pocket the day before with the edibles, found in some sutler’s tent, and had been killed before he had an opportunity to enjoy his bountiful store. There was something so sad about this that it brought tears to my eyes. Farther on I passed by the road the corpse of a beautiful boy in gray, who lay with his blonde curls scattered about his face, and his hands folded peacefully across his breast. He was clad in a bright and neat uniform, well garnished with gold, which seemed to tell the story of a loving mother and sisters who had sent their household pet to the field of war. His neat little hat lying beside him bore the number of a Georgia regiment, embroidered, I am sure, by some tender fingers, and his waxen face, washed by the rain of the night before, was that of one who had fallen asleep, dreaming of loved ones who waited his coming in some anxious home. He was about my age. He may have been a drummer! At the sight of that poor boy’s corpse I burst into tears, and started on. Here beside a great oak tree I counted the corpses of fifteen men. One of them sat stark against the tree, and the others lay about as though during the night, suffering from wounds, they had crawled together for mutual assistance and there had died. The blue and the gray were mingled together. This peculiarity I observed all over the field. It was no uncommon thing to see the bodies of Federal and Confederate lying side by side as though they had bled to death, while trying to aid each other. In one spot I saw an entire battery of Federal artillery, which had been dismantled in Sunday’s fight, every horse of which had been killed in his harness, every tumbrel of which had been broken, every gun of which had been dismounted, and in this awful heap of death lay the bodies of dozens of cannoneers. One dismounted gun was absolutely spattered with the blood and brains of the men who had served it. Here and there in the field, standing in the mud, were the most piteous sights of all the battlefield—poor, wounded horses, their heads drooping, their eyes glassy and gummy, waiting for the slow coming of death, or for some friendly hand to end their misery. How those helpless brutes spoke in pleading testimony of the horror, the barbarism and the uselessness of war! No painter ever did justice to a battlefield such as this, I am sure.
As I pushed onward to the front, I passed the ambulances and the wagons bringing back the wounded, and talked with the poor, bleeding fellows who were hobbling toward the river, along the awful roads or through the dismal chaparral. They all brought news of victory. Toward evening I found myself in the neighborhood of the old Shiloh Church, but could get no tidings of my father’s regiment. Night came on and I lay down and fell asleep at the foot of a tree, having gathered up a blanket soaked with water, which I could only use for a pillow. It rained all night. The battle had practically ended at 4 o’clock that evening, and the enemy had slowly and silently withdrawn toward Corinth. Next morning I learned that my father’s regiment had been sent in pursuit of the enemy, and nobody could tell when it would return. I found the camp, and oh, what desolation reigned there! Every tent had been pillaged, and in my father’s headquarters, the gentlemen of the enemy who had camped there two nights before had left a duplicate of nearly everything they had taken. They had exchanged their dirty blankets for clean ones, and had left their old, worn brogans in the place of boots and shoes which they had appropriated, and all about were the evidences of the feasting that had gone on during that one night of glorious possession. I remained there during the day, and late that evening the Seventieth Ohio came back to its deserted quarters after three days and two nights of most terrible fighting and campaigning.
At its head rode my father, whom I had supposed to be dead, pale, haggard and worn, but unscathed. He had not seen me nor heard of me for sixty hours. He dismounted, and, taking me in his arms, gave me the most affectionate embrace my life had ever known, and I realized then how deeply he loved me. That night we stayed in the old bullet ridden and shot torn tent and told of our adventures, and the next day I had the pleasure of hearing General Sherman compliment my father for his bravery, and say, “Colonel, you have been worth your weight in gold to me.”