The Guns of Shiloh: A Story of the Great Western Campaign

“But you see and you know a lot about war.”

“Well, you’ve noticed that the army ain’t gettin’ ready to march. When General Buell gets here we’ll have nigh onto seventy thousand men, and seventy thousand men can’t lift themselves up by their bootstraps an’ leave, all in a mornin’.”

“But we don’t have to hurry,” said Pennington. “There’s no Southern army west of the Alleghanies that could stand before our seventy thousand men for an hour.”

“General Buell ain’t here yet.”

“But he’s coming.”

“But he ain’t here yet,” persisted the sergeant, “an’ he can’t be here for several days, ‘cause the roads are mighty deep in the spring mud. Don’t say any man is here until he is here. An’ I tell you that General Johnston, with whom we’ve got to deal, is a great man. I wasn’t with him when he made that great march through the blizzards an’ across the plains to Salt Lake City to make the Mormons behave, but I’ve served with them that was. An’ I’ve never yet found one of them who didn’t say General Johnston was a mighty big man. Soldiers know when the right kind of a man is holdin’ the reins an’ drivin’ ‘em. Didn’t we all feel that we was bein’ driv right when General Grant took hold?”

“We all felt it,” said the three in chorus.

“Of course you did,” said the sergeant, “an’ now I’ve got a kind of uneasy feelin’ over General Johnston. Why don’t we hear somethin’ from him? Why don’t we know what he’s doin’? We haven’t sent out any scoutin’ parties. On the plains, no matter how strong we was, we was always on the lookout for hostile Indians, while here we know there is a big Confederate army somewhere within fifty miles of us, but don’t take the trouble to look it up.”

“That’s so,” said Warner. “Caution represents less than five per cent of our effectiveness. But I suppose we can whip the Johnnies anyway.”

“Of course we can,” said Pennington, who was always of a most buoyant temperament.

Sergeant Whitley went to the shutterless window, and looked out at the forest and the long array of tents.

“The rain is about over,” he said. “It was just a passin’ shower. But it looks as if it had already added a fresh shade of green to the leaves and grass. Cur’us how quick a rain can do it in spring, when everything is just waitin’ a chance to grow, and bust into bloom. I’ve rid on the plains when everything was brown an’ looked dead. ‘Long come a big rain an’ the next day everything was green as far as the eye could reach an’ you’d see little flowers bloomin’ down under the shelter of the grass.”

“I didn’t know you had a poetical streak in you, sergeant,” said Dick, who marked his abrupt change from the discussion of the war to a far different topic.

“I think some of it is in every man,” replied Sergeant Whitley gravely. “I remember once that when we had finished a long chase after some Northern Cheyennes through mighty rough and dry country we came to a little valley, a kind of a pocket in the hills, fed by a fine creek, runnin’ out of the mountains on one side, into the mountains on the other. The pocket was mebbe two miles long an’ mebbe a mile across, an’ it was chock full of green trees an’ green grass, an’ wild flowers. We enjoyed its comforts, but do you think that was all? Every man among us, an’ there was at least a dozen who couldn’t read, admired its beauties, an’ begun to talk softer an’ more gentle than they did when they was out on the dry plains. An’ you feel them things more in war than you do at any other time.”

“I suppose you do,” said Dick. “The spring is coming out now in Kentucky where I live, and I’d like to see the new grass rippling before the wind, and the young leaves on the trees rustling softly together.”

“Stop sentimentalizing,” said Warner. “If you don’t it won’t be a minute before Pennington will begin to talk about his Nebraska plains, and how he’d like to see the buffalo herds ten million strong, rocking the earth as they go galloping by.”

Pennington smiled.

“I won’t see the buffalo herds,” he said, “but look at the wild fowl going north.”

They left the window as the rain had ceased, and went outside. All this region was still primitive and thinly settled, and now they saw flocks of wild ducks and wild geese winging northward. The next day the heavens themselves were darkened by an immense flight of wild pigeons. The country cut up by so many rivers, creeks and brooks swarmed with wild fowl, and more than once the soldiers roused up deer from the thickets.

The second day after the talk of the four in the little church Dick, who was now regarded as a most efficient and trusty young staff officer, was sent with a dispatch to General Buell requesting him to press forward with as much speed as he could to the junction with General Grant. Several other aides were sent by different routes, in order to make sure that at least one would arrive, but Dick, through his former ride with Colonel Winchester to Nashville, had the most knowledge of the country, and hence was likely to reach Buell first.

As the boy rode from the camp and crossed the river into the forest he looked back, and he could not fail to notice to what an extent it was yet a citizen army, and not one of trained soldiers. The veteran sergeant had already called his attention to what he deemed grave omissions. In the three weeks that they had been lying there they had thrown up no earthworks. Not a spade had touched the earth. Nor was there any other defense of any kind. The high forest circled close about them, dense now with foliage and underbrush, hiding even at a distance of a few hundred yards anything that might lie within. The cavalry in these three weeks had made one scouting expedition, but it was slight and superficial, resulting in nothing. The generals of divisions posted their own pickets separately, leaving numerous wide breaks in the line, and the farmer lads, at the change of guard, invariably fired their rifles in the air, to signify the joy of living, and because it was good to hear the sound.

Now that he was riding away from them, these things impressed Dick more than when he was among them. Sergeant Whitley’s warning and pessimistic words came back to him with new force, but, as he rode into the depths of the forest, he shook off all depression. Those words, “Seventy thousand strong!” continually recurred to him. Yes, they would be seventy thousand strong when Buell came up, and the boys were right. Certainly there was no Confederate force in the west that could resist seventy thousand troops, splendidly armed, flushed with victory and led by a man like Grant.

Seventy thousand strong! Dick’s heart beat high at the unuttered words. Why should Grant fortify? It was for the enemy, not for him, to do such a thing. Nor was it possible that Johnston even behind defenses could resist the impact of the seventy thousand who had been passing from one victory to another, and who were now in the very heart of the enemy’s country.

His heart continued to beat high and fast as he rode through the green forest. Its strong, sweet odors gave a fillip to his blood, and he pressed his horse to new speed. He rode without interruption night and day, save a few hours now and then for sleep, and reached the army of Buell which deep in mud was toiling slowly forward.

Buell was not as near to Shiloh as Dick had supposed, but his march had suffered great hindrances. Halleck, in an office far away in St. Louis, had undertaken to manage the campaign. His orders to Buell and his command to Grant had been delayed. Buell, who had moved to the town of Columbia, therefore had started late through no fault of his.

Duck River, which Buell was compelled to cross, was swollen like all the other streams of the region, by the great rains and was forty feet deep. The railway bridge across it had been wrecked by the retreating Confederates and he was compelled to wait there two weeks until his engineers could reconstruct it.

War plays singular chances. Halleck in St. Louis, secure in his plan of campaign, had sent an order after Dick left Shiloh, for Buell to turn to the north, leaving Grant to himself, and occupy a town that he named. Through some chance the order never reached Buell. Had it done so the whole course of American history might have been changed. Grant himself, after the departure of the earlier messengers, changed his mind and sent messengers to Nelson, who led Buell’s vanguard, telling him not to hurry. This army was to come to Pittsburg Landing or Shiloh partly by the Tennessee, and Grant stated that the vessels for him would not be ready until some days later. It was the early stage of the war when generals behaved with great independence, and Nelson, a rough, stubborn man, after reading the order marched on faster than ever. It seemed afterward that the very stars were for Grant, when one order was lost, and another disobeyed.

But Dick was not to know of these things until later. He delivered in person his dispatch to General Buell, who remembered him and gave him a friendly nod, but who was as chary of speech as ever. He wrote a brief reply to the dispatch and gave it sealed to Dick.

“The letter I hand you,” he said, “merely notifies General Grant that I have received his orders and will hurry forward as much as possible. If on your return journey you should deem yourself in danger of falling into the hands of the enemy destroy it at once.”

Dick promised to do so, saluted, and retired. He spent only two hours in General Buell’s camp, securing some fresh provisions to carry in his saddle bags and allowing his horse a little rest. Then he mounted and took as straight a course as he could for General Grant’s camp at Pittsburg Landing.

The boy felt satisfied with himself. He had done his mission quickly and exactly, and he would have a pleasant ride back. On his strong, swift horse, and with a good knowledge of the road, he could go several times faster than Buell’s army. He anticipated a pleasant ride. The forest seemed to him to be fairly drenched in spring. Little birds flaming in color darted among the boughs and others more modest in garb poured forth a full volume of song. Dick, sensitive to sights and sounds, hummed a tune himself. It was the thundering song of the sea that he had heard Samuel Jarvis sing in the Kentucky Mountains:

They bore him away when the day had fled,

And the storm was rolling high,

And they laid him down in his lonely bed

By the light of an angry sky.

The lightning flashed and the wild sea lashed

The shore with its foaming wave,

And the thunder passed on the rushing blast,

As it howled o’er the rover’s grave.

He pressed on, hour after hour, through the deep woods, meeting no one, but content. At noon his horse suddenly showed signs of great weariness, and Dick, remembering how much he had ridden him over muddy roads, gave him a long rest. Besides, there was no need to hurry. The Southern army was at Corinth, in Mississippi, three or four days’ journey away, and there had been no scouts or skirmishers in the woods between.

After a stop of an hour he remounted and rode on again, but the horse was still feeling his great strain, and he did not push him beyond a walk. He calculated that nevertheless he would reach headquarters not long after nightfall, and he went along gaily, still singing to himself. He crossed the river at a point above the army, where the Union troops had made a ferry, and then turned toward the camp.

About sunset he reached a hill from which he could look over the forest and see under the horizon faint lights that were made by Grant’s campfires at Pittsburg Landing. It was a welcome sight. He would soon be with his friends again, and he urged his horse forward a little faster.

“Halt!” cried a sharp voice from the thicket.

Dick faced about in amazement, and saw four horsemen in gray riding from the bushes. The shock was as great as if he had been struck by a bullet, but he leaned forward on his horse’s neck, kicked him violently with his heels and shouted to him. The horse plunged forward at a gallop. The boy, remembering General Buell’s instructions, slipped the letter from his pocket, and in the shelter of the horse’s body dropped it to the ground, where he knew it would be lost among the bushes and in the twilight.

“Halt!” was repeated more loudly and sharply than ever. Then a bullet whizzed by Dick’s ear, and a second pierced the heart of his good horse. He tried to leap clear of the falling animal, and succeeded, but he fell so hard among the bushes that he was stunned for a few moments. When he revived and stood up he saw the four horsemen in gray looking curiously at him.

“‘Twould have been cheaper for you to have stopped when we told you to do it,” said one in a whimsical tone.

Dick noticed that the tone was not unkind—it was not the custom to treat prisoners ill in this great war. He rubbed his left shoulder on which he had fallen and which still pained him a little.

“I didn’t stop,” he said, “because I didn’t know that you would be able to hit either me or my horse in the dusk.”

“I s’pose from your way of lookin’ at it you was right to take the chance, but you’ve learned now that we Southern men are tol’able good sharpshooters.”

“I knew it long ago, but what are you doing here, right in the jaws of our army? They might close on you any minute with a snap. You ought to be with your own army at Corinth.”