Part 22

The next great battle was at Shiloh, or Pittsburg Landing, begun by the Confederates Sunday, April 6, 1862, and lasting two days. The first day our men were driven back a mile with heavy loss. General Albert Sidney Johnston, the commander-in-chief of the Confederates, was struck about 2 P.M. by a minie-ball in the calf of the leg, which penetrated the boot and severed the main artery. His horse was shot in four places. He would not leave the field till compelled by loss of blood, and died soon after.

Dr. D. W. Yandell, who had been with Johnston, left him to establish a hospital for the wounded, among them many Federals. "These men were our enemies a moment ago," said Johnston; "they are our prisoners now. Take care of them." Had Yandell remained with him, his life would probably have been saved, as the wound would have been attended to.

"During the whole of Sunday," says Grant, "I was continually engaged in passing from one part of the field to another, giving directions to division commanders. In thus moving along the line, I never deemed it important to stay long with Sherman. Although his troops were then under fire for the first time, their commander, by his constant presence with them, inspired a confidence in officers and men that enabled them to render services on that bloody battle-field worthy of the best of veterans.

"A casualty to Sherman that would have taken him from the field that day would have been a sad one for the troops engaged at Shiloh. And how near we came to this! On the 6th, Sherman was shot twice--once in the hand, once in the shoulder, the ball cutting his coat and making a slight wound, and a third ball passed through his hat. In addition to this, he had several horses shot during the day."

Later, Colonel James B. McPherson's horse was shot quite through, just back of the saddle, but the poor creature carried his rider out of danger before he dropped dead.

Both armies slept on their arms that night in a pouring rain, and the next morning, April 7, renewed the fight, with a hard won victory for the Union forces. So dreadful was the conflict that Grant writes, "I saw an open field, in our possession on the second day, over which the Confederates had made repeated charges the day before, so covered with dead that it would have been possible to walk across the clearing in any direction, stepping on dead bodies, without a foot touching the ground.... On one part, which had evidently not been ploughed for several years, probably because the land was poor, bushes had grown up, some to the height of eight or ten feet. There was not one of these left standing unpierced by bullets. The smaller ones were all cut down."

Our loss in killed, wounded, and missing was 13,573; the Confederates reported their loss as 10,699, but General Grant thinks it was much greater.

The battle had been bravely and desperately fought on both sides. About five hundred yards east of Shiloh meeting-house there had been a deadly combat. Several times cartridges gave out; but Sherman appealed to the regiments to "stand fast," as their retiring would have a bad effect on others, and the men heroically kept their posts. Sherman's division lost over two thousand men.

Grant said, in his official report, "I feel it a duty to a gallant and able officer, Brigadier-General W. T. Sherman, to make mention that he was not only with his command during the entire two days of action, but displayed great judgment and skill in the management of his men."

Halleck said, "Sherman saved the fortunes of the day on the 6th, and contributed largely to the glorious victory on the 7th."

When on the 8th it was found that the enemy had retreated, "leaving killed, wounded, and much property by the way," says Sherman, "we all experienced a feeling of relief. The struggle had been so long, so desperate and bloody, that the survivors seemed exhausted and nerveless. We appreciated the value of the victory, but realized also its great cost of life."

Sherman was promoted to the position of major-general May 1. During June and July he was "building railroad-trestles and bridges, fighting off cavalry detachments coming from the South, and waging an everlasting quarrel with planters about the negroes and fences, they trying, in the midst of moving armies, to raise a crop of corn."

The desire now was to get complete possession of the Mississippi River. Admiral Farragut had taken New Orleans, after the dreadful passage of Forts Jackson and St. Philip. The brave old admiral had said, "If I die in the attempt, it will only be what every officer has to expect. He who dies in doing his duty to his country, and at peace with his God, has played the drama of life to the best advantage."

With his six sloops-of-war, sixteen gunboats, twenty-one schooners, and five other vessels, forty-eight in all, carrying two hundred guns, all led by the Hartford, Farragut pushed his way through a sea of fire. Five fire-rafts--flat boats, filled with dry wood smeared with tar and turpentine--blazed among his ships, while shot and shell strewed his decks with the dead; but he cut his way to victory, and won immortal honor.

Memphis had been captured by our gunboats and rams, under Admiral Davis, June 6. Of the eight Confederate gunboats in the flotilla, three, the Lovell, Beauregard, and Thompson, were destroyed by our vessels; four were captured and repaired for our use; while one, the Van Dorn, escaped. Five transports and some cotton were taken, and a large ram and two tugs on the stocks were destroyed.

Sherman was ordered to go to Memphis to take command of the district of West Tennessee. When he entered the city, the stores, churches, and schools were closed. He caused these and the places of amusement to be opened, and put the fugitive slaves to work on the fortifications, and gave them food and clothing.

The story is told of an Episcopal clergyman who came to Sherman, saying that he was embarrassed about his prayer for the President.

"Whom do you regard as President?" said Sherman.

"Mr. Davis," was his reply.

"Very well; pray for Jeff Davis if you wish. He needs your prayers badly. It will take a great deal of praying to save him."

"Then I will not be compelled to pray for Mr. Lincoln?"

"Oh, no. He is a good man, and don't need your prayers. You may pray for him if you feel like it, but there's no compulsion."

To some of the editors in Memphis, Sherman said, "If I find the press of Memphis actuated by high principle and a sole devotion to their country, I will be their best friend; but if I find them personal, abusive, dealing in innuendoes and hints at a blind venture, and looking to their own selfish aggrandizement and fame, then they had better look out; for I regard such persons as greater enemies to their country and to mankind than the men who, from a mistaken sense of State pride, have taken up muskets, and fight us about as hard as we care about."

Sherman went to the _Argus_ office one day, and, in his familiar manner, said to the young editors, as he sat down and rested his feet on the table: "Boys, I have been ordered to suppress your paper, but I don't like to do that. I just dropped in to warn you not to be so free with your pencils. If you don't ease up, you'll get into trouble."

When some complained of the acts of the soldiers, Sherman replied that he knew of several instances where their conduct had been provoked by sneering remarks about "Northern barbarians" and "Lincoln's hirelings." "People who use such language," he said, "must seek redress through some one else, for I will not tolerate insults to our country or cause."

All sorts of ruses were adopted by the Southern army to obtain things from Memphis. While General Van Dorn was at Holly Springs, he desired supplies for his men. Some of our soldiers found, in a farmer's barn, a large hearse with pall and plumes, which had been used at a big funeral. It was filled with medicines for Van Dorn's army! "It was a good trick," said Sherman, "but diminished our respect for such pageants afterward."

In December there was a concerted movement by Grant and Sherman to capture Vicksburg. The latter was to move down the river, and with Admiral Porter's gunboats, "proceed," said Grant, "to the reduction of that place in such manner as circumstances and your own judgment may dictate." Sherman was to make the attack by land, in the rear, while Porter attacked by river front. Three divisions of Sherman's army were landed in the low, marshy lands, cut by the Chickasaw Bayou and other creeks, where a slight rise in the Mississippi River would drown them all. The bluffs of Walnut Hills, on which Vicksburg stands, are two hundred feet high, and impregnable.

Against these the fearless troops were led Dec. 29, with great slaughter. De Courcy's brigade of Morgan's division, and Frank Blair's brigade of Steele's division, with the Fourth Iowa, were under the hottest fire. De Courcy lost 700, Blair 743, and the Fourth Iowa 111 men; the Confederate loss was only about 187.

Sherman says, "The men of the Sixth Missouri actually scooped out with their hands caves in the bank, which sheltered them against the fire of the enemy, who, right over their heads, held their muskets outside the parapet vertically, and fired down. So critical was the position, that we could not recall the men till after dark, and then one at a time. Our loss had been pretty heavy, and we had accomplished nothing."

It was evident that Vicksburg must be taken in some other manner. Grant decided to cut a canal across the peninsula opposite Vicksburg, that he might get below the city. All through January and February, Sherman's men were digging the canal, planned to be sixty feet wide and nine feet deep, and fighting off the Mississippi, which continued to rise, and threatened to drown them. When the men were not digging canals, they were clearing bayous, which were filled with cypress and cottonwood trees. Sometimes they marched at night through canebrakes, carrying lighted candles, Sherman walking with them, the water above his hips. The drummer-boys carried their drums on their heads, and the men slung their cartridge-boxes around their necks.

Admiral Porter, from his gunboats, used to send Sherman messages, written on tissue paper, concealed in a piece of tobacco. A negro carried them through the swamps.

Many weeks were spent on other canals, but all proved useless. Finally it was decided to move all the troops down the west bank of the river, cross over below Vicksburg, and attack it on the land side.

A series of battles followed at Port Gibson, Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hills, and Big Black. Grant had inflicted a loss upon the enemy during a few days of eight thousand in killed, wounded, and missing; had captured eighty-eight pieces of their artillery, and driven them into their defences at Vicksburg. "We must go back to the campaigns of Napoleon," says Francis Vinton Greene, lieutenant of engineers, "to find equally brilliant results accompanied in the same space of time with such small loss."

In these days of carnage, incidents even amusing happened. While Sherman and his troops were at Jackson, a fat man came to him and hoped that his hotel would not be burned, as he was a law-abiding Union man. Sherman said that this fact was manifest from the sign on his hotel, where the words "United States" had been faintly painted out and "Confederate Hotel" painted over it!

On May 22 the last assault was made on Vicksburg; and, though severe and bloody, it was unsuccessful, on account of the strength of the position, and the earnest fighting of the garrison.

"I have since seen the position at Sevastopol," writes Sherman, "and without hesitation I declare that at Vicksburg to have been the more difficult of the two."

It was during this dreadful assault that the drummer boy, Orion P. Howe, came to Sherman, calling out in a childish voice that one of the regiments was out of ammunition, and must abandon its position unless relief was sent. The general looked down from his horse upon the lad, and saw the blood running from a wound in the leg.

"All right, my boy," said Sherman, "I'll send them all they need; but as you seem to be badly hurt, you had better go to the rear and find a surgeon and let him fix you up."

The boy saluted and started for the rear; but again he came running back, shouting, "General, calibre fifty-eight, calibre fifty-eight!" fearing that the wrong size might be sent, and prove useless. He was afterwards, through Sherman, appointed a cadet at the Naval Academy, Annapolis.

The siege of Vicksburg was begun at once. Mines were dug by both sides and exploded. Chief Engineer S. H. Lockett, of the Confederates, tells how a private suggested the firing of a wicker case filled with cotton, which protected the Federals in their sapping. He took a piece of port-fire, put it into cotton soaked with turpentine and fired it from an old-fashioned bore musket. The wicker case took fire and burned up. Barrels of powder, lighted by a time-fuse, were thrown into the ranks of the besiegers.

As the weeks went by, the provisions for the soldiers and citizens of Vicksburg were well-nigh consumed. They ate rats and mules. Flour was five dollars a pound. Some of the people built rooms in the yellow clay banks, and thus escaped the shells.

The soldiers grew desperate. General Pemberton hoped they could cut their way out, and caused boats to be made out of some of the houses,--they planned to make two thousand,--which they could use in their escape down the river.

Finally, when all became hopeless, Pemberton said, "Far better would it be for me to die at the head of my army, even in a vain effort to force the enemy's lines, than to surrender it and live and meet the obloquy which I know will be heaped upon me. But my duty is to sacrifice myself to save the army which has so nobly done its duty to defend Vicksburg."

July 4, 1863, Pemberton surrendered his garrison of over thirty-one thousand men, sixty thousand muskets, and over one hundred and seventy cannon.

Grant said of Sherman, "His untiring energy and great efficiency during the campaign entitled him to a full share of all the credit due for its success. He could not have done more if the plan had been his own."

Before sunset of July 4, Sherman, with fifty thousand men, was in pursuit of Johnston, who had been trying to aid Pemberton. Johnston marched rapidly, driving all cattle, hogs, and sheep into the ponds, and shooting them, so that they should not furnish food for the Federals, and also to spoil the water. Johnston made a stand at Jackson, but soon evacuated the place.

For bravery and success in this campaign, Grant was made major-general in the regular army, the highest grade then allowed by law, and Sherman and McPherson brigadier-generals in the regular army.

After the fall of Vicksburg, Sherman's family, Mrs. Sherman, Minnie, Lizzie, Willie, and Tom, came from Ohio to visit him. Willie was nine years old, fond of the parade of war, and was made a "sergeant" in the regular battalion. He became ill in the low marshy country, and died of typhoid fever, just after the family reached the Gayoso Hotel in Memphis.

This death was a great blow to Sherman, as he showed in a letter which he wrote to Captain C. C. Smith, commanding Battalion Thirteenth United States Regulars: "I cannot sleep to-night till I record an expression of the deep feelings of my heart to you, and to the officers and soldiers of the battalion, for their kind behavior to my poor child.... The child that bore my name, and in whose future I reposed with more confidence than I did in my own plan of life, now being carried by steamer a mere corpse, seeking a grave in a distant land, with a weeping mother, brother, and sisters clustered about him. For myself I ask no sympathy. On, on I must go, to meet a soldier's fate, or live to see our country rise superior to all factions, till its flag is adored and respected by ourselves and by all the powers of the earth....

"Child as he was, he had the enthusiasm, the pure love of truth, honor, and love of country, which should animate all soldiers.... Assure each and all, if in after years they call on me or mine, and mention that they were of the Thirteenth Regulars when Willie was a sergeant, they will have a key to the affections of my family that will open all it has; that we will share with them our last blanket, our last crust!"

In the spring of 1867, Willie's body was removed from Lancaster, Ohio, to St. Louis, and buried by the side of another child, Charles, born in 1864. Sherman's officers and men erected a beautiful monument to Willie, and had inscribed on it, "Our little Sergeant Willie, from the First Battalion Thirteenth United States Infantry."

After the dreadful battle of Chickamauga, Ga., Sept. 20, 1863, in which we lost 15,851 men, and the Confederates 17,804, Grant went to Chattanooga to retrieve that disaster. In this battle Thomas, "who," says General Fullerton, "never retreated and had never been defeated," so wonderfully held his ground that he was ever afterwards called the "Rock of Chickamauga."

"With but twenty-five thousand men," said General Garfield, "formed in a semicircle, of which he himself was the centre and soul, he successfully resisted for more than five hours the repeated assaults of an army of sixty-five thousand men, flushed with victory and bent on his annihilation.

"Towards the close of the day his ammunition began to fail. One by one of his division commanders reported but ten rounds, five rounds, and two rounds left. The calm, quiet answer was returned, 'Save your fire for close quarters, and when your last shot is fired give them the bayonet.

"On a portion of this line the last assault was repelled by the bayonet, and several hundred rebels were captured. When night had closed over the combatants, the last sound of battle was the booming of Thomas's shells bursting among his baffled and retreating assailants."

Grant telegraphed to Thomas to hold Chattanooga at all hazards; and Thomas, with his troops on less than half rations for the past month, replied, "We will hold the town till we starve." He urged Sherman to come at once. Then followed those memorable battles of Lookout Mountain, when Hooker fought his "Battle above the clouds," and Missionary Ridge, when Wood's and Sheridan's divisions under Thomas lost in one hour's storming 2,287 men.

"Sherman was fighting the heavy column of the enemy on our left," said General Henry M. Cist, "and the main part of the battle had been his share." He lost about two thousand men.

At three o'clock the first rifle-pits on the ridge were to be carried, and there they were to halt to await orders. There was some delay, so that the order was not given till half-past three, when the guns sounded, one, two, up to six, for the charge.

The enemy had four lines of breastworks, but one had been captured by Thomas the day before. Three rifle-pits remained. As our men approached, cheering, and breaking into a double-quick, the enemy poured upon them shot and shell from their batteries, changing it soon to grape and canister, with a terrific fire of musketry.

"Dashing through this over the open plain," says General Cist, "the soldiers of the army of the Cumberland swept on, driving the enemy's skirmishers, charging down on the line of works at the foot of the ridge, capturing it at the point of the bayonet, and routing the rebels, sending them at full speed up the ridge, killing and capturing them in large numbers. These rifle-pits were reached simultaneously by the several commands, when the troops, in compliance with their instructions, lay down at the foot of the ridge awaiting further orders."

Here they waited under a hot fire. The orders did not come; and then without orders, first one regiment and then another, with their colors raised, pushed up the mountain covered with rocks and fallen timber.

The centre of Sheridan's division reached the crest first, and almost at the same time the ridge was carried in six places. Almost entire regiments were taken from the enemy, and batteries, the Confederates often bayoneted at their guns. In an hour the work had been accomplished, and the storming of Missionary Ridge had passed into history as a memorable instance of bravery. "After it was over," says General Fullerton, "some madly shouted, some wept from very excess of joy, some grotesquely danced out their delight,--even our wounded forgot their pain to join in the general hurrah."

Grant and Thomas were watching the battle through their glasses. Grant asked, "By whose orders are those troops going up the hill?"

"I don't know," said Thomas, "I did not."

"I didn't order them up," said Sheridan, "but we are going to take the ridge."

Grant remarked that "it was all right if it turned out all right, but, if not, some one would suffer."

By the capture of the ridge, Sherman was enabled to take the tunnel as he had been ordered. Captain S. H. M. Byers, who was captured at the tunnel with sixty of his regiment and put in Libby prison for seven months--the sixty were soon reduced to sixteen by death--thus describes the scene. "As the column came out upon the ground, and in sight of the rebel batteries, their renewed and concentrated fire knocked the limbs from the trees above our heads.... In front of us was a rail-fence. 'Jump the fence, boys,' was the order, and never was a fence scaled more quickly. It was nearly half a mile to the rebel position, and we started on the charge, running across the open fields. I had heard the roaring of heavy battle before, but never such shrieking of cannon balls and bursting of shells as met us on that run."

Sherman, in his official report, gave his officers and men due credit for their "patience, cheerfulness, and courage." "For long periods," he said, "without regular rations or supplies of any kind, they have marched through mud and over rocks, sometimes barefooted, without a murmur. Without a moment's rest after a march of over four hundred miles, without sleep for three successive nights, we crossed the Tennessee, fought our part of the battle of Chattanooga, pursued the enemy out of Tennessee, and then turned more than a hundred and twenty miles north, and compelled Longstreet to raise the siege of Knoxville."

Congress soon passed a resolution of thanks to Sherman and his army for their "gallant and arduous services in marching to the relief of the Army of the Cumberland, and for their gallantry and heroism in the battle of Chattanooga, which contributed in a great degree to the success of our arms in that glorious victory."

The grade of lieutenant-general was now revived in the army, and bestowed upon Grant. He wrote Sherman at once to "express my thanks to you and McPherson, as _the men_ to whom, above all others, I feel indebted for whatever I have had of success. How far your advice and suggestions have been of assistance, you know. How far your execution of whatever has been given you to do entitles you to the reward I am receiving, you cannot know as well as I do."

And Sherman wrote back: "I believe you as brave, patriotic, and just as the great prototype Washington; as unselfish, kind-hearted, and honest as a man should be; but the chief characteristic in your nature is the simple faith in success you have always manifested, which I can liken to nothing else than the faith a Christian has in his Saviour.

"This faith gave you victory at Shiloh and Vicksburg. Also, when you have completed your best preparations, you go into battle without hesitation, as at Chattanooga--no doubts, no reserve; and I tell you that it was this that made us act with confidence. I knew, wherever I was, that you thought of me, and if I got in a tight place you would come--if alive."