THE BATTLE OF SHILOH.
Larger Image

FORT HENRY AND FORT DONELSON

In the East after the initial engagement at Bull Run “all was quiet along the Potomac” for some months. McClellan had loomed large as the rising hero of the war; but McClellan did not move with the celerity that was expected of him; the North became impatient and demanded that something be done. But while the public was still waiting there were two occurrences in the West that riveted the attention of the nation, sending a thrill of gladness through the North and a wave of depression over the Southland. These were the fall of Fort Henry and of Fort Donelson.

After Missouri had been saved to the Union in spite of the disaster at Wilson’s Creek in August, 1861, a Union army slowly gathered in southern Illinois. Its purpose was to dispute with the Confederates their hold on Kentucky, which had not seceded, and to regain control of the Mississippi. To secure the latter end a flank movement was decided upon—to open the mighty river by moving up the Cumberland and Tennessee—the greatest flanking movement in the history of warfare. It began at Fort Henry and ended at Vicksburg, covered a year and five months, and cost tens of thousands of human lives and millions of dollars’ worth of property—but it was successful.

Eastern Kentucky, in the early days of 1862, was also in considerable ferment. Colonel James A. Garfield had driven the Confederate commander, General Humphrey Marshall, and a superior force into the Cumberland Mountains, after a series of slight encounters, terminating at Paintsville on the Big Sandy River, on January 10th. But one later event gave great encouragement to the North. It was the first substantial victory for the Union arms. General Zollicoffer held the extreme Confederate right at Cumberland Gap and he now joined General George B. Crittenden near Mill Springs in central Kentucky. General Buell, in charge of the Army of the Ohio, had placed General George H. Thomas at Lebanon, and the latter promptly moved against this threatening Confederate force. A sharp engagement took place at Logan’s Cross Roads near Mill Springs on January 19th. The Confederate army was utterly routed and Zollicoffer was killed. The Union loss was about two hundred and sixty, and the Confederate over twice that number. It was not a great battle, but its effect on the North was most stimulating, and the people first learned to appreciate the abilities of their great general, George H. Thomas.

It was now February, 1862. General U. S. Grant was in command of the Union forces in western Kentucky and Tennessee. The opposing commander was Albert Sidney Johnston, then reputed the ablest general of the South. At Bowling Green, Kentucky, he had thirty thousand men. Believing, perhaps, that he could not hold Kentucky, he determined to save Tennessee for the South and took his stand at Nashville.

On February 2d, 1862, General Grant left Cairo with his army of seventeen thousand men and on transports moved up the Ohio and the Tennessee to attack Fort Henry. Accompanying him was Flag-Officer Foote with his fleet of seven gunboats, four of them ironclads.

Fort Henry was garrisoned by an army of about three thousand men under the command of General Lloyd Tilghman, a brave officer who was destined to give his life for the Confederate cause, the following year, near Vicksburg. It covered about three acres and mounted seventeen heavy guns. Grant’s plan of attack was to land his army four miles below the fort, to move across the country and seize the road leading to Fort Donelson, while Foote should move up the river with his fleet and turn his guns on the Confederate batteries.

On February 6th, Foote formed his vessels into two lines, the ironclads—the Cincinnati, the Carondelet, the Essex, and the St. Louis—forming a front rank. Slowly and cautiously he approached the fort, firing as he went, the guns on the parapet answering those of the fleet. Several of the Confederate guns were disabled. The fleet was yet unhurt when the first hour had passed. Then a 24-pound shot struck the Essex, crashed through her side and penetrated her boiler, instantly killing both her pilots and flooding the vessel from stem to stern with scalding steam. The Essex, wholly disabled, drifted down stream, while her companion ships continued their advance and increased their fire.

Presently, a sound exceeding the roar of cannon was heard above the tumult. A great gun in the fort had exploded, killing or disabling every man who served it. A great 10-inch columbiad was also destroyed. Tilghman, seeing that he had no hope of holding the fort, decided to save his army by sending it to Fort Donelson, on the Cumberland River. This he did, reserving fewer than a hundred men to work the guns. He then raised the white flag and surrendered the seventy-eight that remained. Grant had failed to reach the road to Fort Donelson until the Confederates had escaped. The Southerners hastened across the country and added their numbers to the defenders of Donelson—and by so doing they deferred surrender for ten days.

Fort Donelson was a fortified enclosure of a hundred acres that crowned a plateau on the Cumberland River. It was just south of the boundary between Kentucky and Tennessee and close by the little village of Dover, consisting of a court-house, a two-story tavern, and a few houses scattered about. Beneath the bluff and on the river bank were two powerful batteries commanding the approach to the river. Outside the fort and stretching far along the ridges that enclosed it were rifle-pits, lines of logs covered with yellow clay. Farther beyond, the hillsides were covered with felled trees whose interlacing branches were supposed to render the approach of the foe impossible under fire.

At this moment Donelson was held by eighteen thousand men under the command of General John B. Floyd, late Secretary of War in the cabinet of Buchanan. Next to him were Gideon J. Pillow and Simon B. Buckner. The Union army under Grant was divided into three parts under the respective commands of Charles F. Smith, a veteran of the regular army; John A. McClernand, an Illinois lawyer and member of Congress, and Lew Wallace, the future author of “Ben Hur.”

With waving banners the divisions of Smith and McClernand marched across country on February 12th, arriving at noon and encircling the doomed fort ere nightfall. Smith was stationed on the left and McClernand on the extreme right, near the village of Dover. This left an open space in the center, to be filled by Lew Wallace, who arrived with his division the next day. On the 13th there was a continuous bombardment from morning till night, punctuated by the sharp crack of the sharpshooter’s rifle.

The chief action of the day that involved the infantry was an attempt to capture a battery on a hill, near the center of the Confederate line of battle, known as Maney’s Battery, commanded by Captain Maney, of Tennessee. This battery had annoyed McClernand greatly, and he delegated his third brigade to capture it. The charge was led by Colonel Morrison of Illinois, and a braver one never was made throughout the whole period of the war. The men who made it were chiefly youths from the farms and workshops of Illinois. With no apparent thought of danger they sallied forth, determined at all hazards to capture the battery on the hill, which stood out in relief against the sky. As they ran up the hill, firing as they went, their numbers were rapidly thinned by the terrific cross-fire from this battery and two others on adjoining hills. Still the survivors pushed on and their deadly fire thinned the ranks of the men at the battery. At length when they came within forty yards of the goal a long line of Confederate musketry beside the battery suddenly burst into flame and a storm of bullets cut down the brave boys of Illinois, with fearful slaughter. Even then they stood for fifteen minutes, returning volley for volley, before retreating. Reaching the foot of the hill, they rallied under the Stars and Stripes, and returned to the assault. Even a third time they charged, but the dry leaves on the ground now caught fire, the smoke stifled them, and they had to retreat. As they returned down the hill, Lew Wallace tells us, “their ears and souls were riven with the shrieks of their wounded comrades, upon whom the flames crept and smothered and charred where they lay.”

Thus ended the 13th of February. That night the river gunboats, six in number, four of them ironclads, under the command of Andrew H. Foote, arrived. Grant had sent them down the Tennessee to the Ohio and up the Cumberland, to support his army at Fort Donelson. On the 14th, about three in the afternoon, Foote steamed with his four ironclads to a point in the river within four hundred yards of the two powerful batteries on the river bank under the fort and opened fire with his cannon while continuing to advance. The reply from the Confederate batteries was terrific and many of their shots struck home. In a short time the decks of the vessels were slippery with human blood. Foote himself was severely wounded. At length a solid shot struck the pilot house of the flagship and tore away the pilot wheel. At almost the same moment another gunboat was disabled. The two vessels, one of which had been struck fifty-nine times, could no longer be managed; they turned about with the eddies of the river and floated down with the current. The others followed.

The Confederates raised a wild shout of joy at this, their second victory since the coming of the Union army. But what will be the story of the morrow? With the reënforcements brought by Foote, Lew Wallace’s division, Grant’s army was now swelled to twenty-seven thousand, and in spite of the initial repulse the Federals felt confident of ultimate victory. But a dreary night was before them. The springlike weather had changed. All that fearful night of February 14th there was a fierce, pitiless wind with driving sleet and snow. Thousands of the men, weary of the burden of their overcoats and blankets during the warm preceding days, had thrown them away. Now they spent the night lying behind logs or in ditches or wherever they could find a little protection from the wintry blasts. General Floyd, knowing that Grant’s army was much stronger than his own, decided, after consulting with Pillow and Buckner, to attack the Union right at dawn on the 15th.

The night was spent in preparing for this, and in the morning Pillow with ten thousand men fell upon McClernand, and Buckner soon joined him with an additional force. Toward noon many of McClernand’s men ran short of powder and he was forced to recede from his position. Pillow seems then to have lost his head. He felt that the whole Union army was defeated, and though the road to Nashville was open, the Confederates made no attempt to escape. Just then General Grant rode upon the scene. He had been absent all morning down the river consulting Foote, not knowing that the Confederates had planned an escape. This moment, says Lew Wallace, was the crisis in the life of Grant.

Hearing the disastrous news, his face flushed for a moment; he crushed some papers in his hand. Next instant he was calm, and said in his ordinary tone, to McClernand and Wallace, “Gentlemen, the position on the right must be retaken.” Then he galloped away to General Smith. In a short time the Union lines were in motion. General Smith made a grand assault on the Confederate outworks and rifle-pits. When his lines hesitated Smith waved his cap on the point of his sword and rode in front, up the hill, in the hottest fire of the foe, toward the rifle-pits—and they were carried. At the same moment Lew Wallace was leading his division up another slope with equal gallantry. Here again the Confederates retired, and the road to Nashville was no longer open. Furthermore, Smith held a position from which he could shell the fort on the inside, and nothing was left to the inmates but surrender or slaughter on the morrow.

A council was held by Floyd, Pillow, and Buckner. Buckner, who was a master in the art of warfare, declared that he could not hold his position for half an hour in the morning. The situation was hopeless. Floyd was under indictment at Washington for maladministration in the Buchanan cabinet. He declared that he must not be taken, and that with his Virginia troops he would escape on two little boats that were to arrive from Nashville in the morning. He passed the command to Pillow, and Pillow, declaring that he too would escape, passed it on to Buckner. Floyd and Pillow with their men made good their escape; so did Colonel Forrest, the cavalry leader, and his mounted force.

In the early morning Buckner sent a note to Grant offering to capitulate. The answer is well known. Grant demanded “unconditional surrender,” and added, “I propose to move immediately on your works.” Buckner was too good a soldier to sacrifice his men in needless slaughter. His men were so worn with eighty-four hours of fighting and watching that many of them had fallen asleep while standing in battle-line and under fire. He accepted the “ungenerous and unchivalrous terms,” as he pronounced them, and surrendered Fort Donelson and the army, consisting of at least fourteen thousand men, with all its stores of ammunition. The Union loss was over twenty-eight hundred men. The Confederate loss, killed and wounded, was about two thousand.

The capture of Fort Donelson did three things. First, it opened up the way for the Federal army to penetrate the heart of the western South and gave it control of Kentucky and of western Tennessee. Second, it electrified the North with confident hopes of ultimate success. It was the first great victory for the North in the war. Bull Run had been a moral victory to the South, but the vanquished were weakened scarcely more than the victors. At Donelson, the victors gained control of an extensive territory and captured a noble army which could ill be spared by the South and which could not be replaced. Third, the capture of Donelson forced before the nation a new man—Ulysses S. Grant.

CAIRO CITIZENS WHO MAY HAVE RECALLED THIS DAY.

With his hands thrust in his pockets stands General Grant, next to General McClernand, who is directly in front of the pillar of the Cairo post-office. The future military leader had yet his great name to make, for the photograph of this gathering was taken in September, 1861, and when, later, the whole world was ringing with his praises the citizens who chanced to be in the group must have recalled that day with pride. Young Al Sloo, the postmaster’s son, leans against the doorway on Grant’s right, and next to him is Bob Jennings; then comes Dr. Taggart, then Thomas, the mason, and Jaques, the butcher. On the extreme right, facing the camera, is young Bill Thomas. Up in the windows sit George Olmstead and Will Smith. In his shirt sleeves, on General McClernand’s left, is C. C. Davidson. In the group about him are Benjamin Munn, Fred Theobold, John Maxey, and Phil. Howard. Perhaps these men told their children of the morning that Grant left his headquarters at the St. Charles Hotel and met them here. Who knows?

THE UNLUCKY ESSEX AFTER FORT HENRY.

The thousand-ton ironclad Essex received the severest punishment at Fort Henry. Fighting blood surged in the veins of Commander W. D. Porter, son of Admiral David Porter and brother of Admiral David D. Porter. The gunboat which he led into action at Fort Henry was named after the famous Essex which his father commanded in the War of 1812. Fifteen of the shots from Fort Henry struck and told upon the Essex, the last one penetrating her armor and piercing her middle boiler. Commander Porter, standing among his men directing the fight, was terribly scalded by the escaping steam, as were twenty-seven others. Wrongly suspected of disloyalty at the outbreak of the war, Commander Porter’s conduct during the struggle gave the lie to such calumny. He recovered after Fort Henry, and was made Commodore in July, 1862. Again in command of the Essex he attempted unsuccessfully to destroy the dread Confederate ram Arkansas at Vicksburg on July 22d. Porter and the Essex then joined Farragut’s fleet. His shells helped the Union forces to repulse the Confederates at Baton Rouge, August 5th, and he witnessed the blowing up of the Arkansas the following day. He died May 1, 1864.

COMMANDER W. D. PORTER.

THE ESSEX TWO YEARS LATER.

THE GUNBOAT THAT FIRED THE FIRST SHOT AT FORT HENRY.

Here, riding at anchor, lies the flagship of Foote, which opened the attack on Fort Henry in the first movement to break the backbone of the Confederacy, and won a victory before the arrival of the army. This gunboat, the Cincinnati, was one of the seven flat-bottom ironclads built by Captain Eads at Carondelet, Missouri, and Mound City, Illinois, during the latter half of 1861. When Grant finally obtained permission from General Halleck to advance the attack upon Fort Henry on the Tennessee River, near the border of Kentucky, Flag Officer Foote started up the river, February 2, 1862, convoying the transports, loaded with the advance detachment of Grant’s seventeen thousand troops. Arriving before Fort Henry on February 6th, the intrepid naval commander at once began the bombardment with a well-aimed shot from the Cincinnati. The eleven heavy guns of the fort responded in chorus, and an iron rain began to fall with telling effect upon the Cincinnati, the Essex, the Carondelet, and the St. Louis, which were steaming forward half a mile in advance of the rear division of the squadron. At a range of 1,700 yards the Cincinnati opened the engagement. After a little over an hour of heavy firing the colors on Fort Henry were lowered and General Tilghman surrendered it to Flag-Officer Foote. When General Grant arrived an hour later, Foote turned over the fort to him and returned to Cairo with his disabled gunboats.

FLAG-OFFICER FOOTE.

A GALLANT GUNBOAT—THE ST. LOUIS.

THE FLAG-SHIP ST. LOUIS VIEWED FROM ASTERN.

With the shots from the Confederate batteries ringing and bounding off her iron plates, this gallant gunboat that Foote had chosen for his flagship, entered the zone of fire at Fort Donelson. In the confined space of her smoke-filled gun-deck, the river sailors were loading and firing the heavy broadsides as fast as the great guns could be run out and aimed at the frowning line of entrenchments on the river bank. From them the concentrated hail of iron was poured upon her and the marksmanship was good. Fifty-nine times was this brave vessel struck. But her armored sides withstood the heavy shocks although the plating, dented and bent, bore record of each impact. Nearer and nearer grew the forts as up the narrow channel the flag-ship led the way, the Louisville, the Carondelet, and the Pittsburgh belching their fire at the wooded heights, as though endeavoring to attract the attention of the Confederate gunners to themselves and save the flag-ship from receiving more than her share. Up in the pilot-house the brave man who knew the channel stood at the wheel, his eyes firmly fixed ahead; and on the “texas,” as the upper deck was called, within speaking distance of him, stood Foote himself. A great shot, aimed accurately as a minie ball, struck the frail pilot-house. It was as if the vessel’s heart was pierced. The wheel was swept away from the pilot’s hand and the brave river guide was hurled into the corner, mangled, bleeding and soon to die. Flag Officer Foote did not escape. He fell badly wounded in the leg by a fragment of the shell—a wound from which he never fully recovered. Helpless now, the current swept the St. Louis’ bow around, and past her consorts that were still fighting, she drifted down the stream and out of action; later, in convoy of the Louisville, she returned to Cairo, leaving the Carondelet and Pittsburgh to escort the transports. Meanwhile on shore, Grant was earning his first laurels as a soldier in a big battle. The disabling of the gunboats caused the Confederates to make the fatal attack that resulted so disastrously for them. Assailing Grant’s right wing that held a strong position, on the 15th of February, 19,000 men were hurled against a force 8,000 greater in number. But the repulse was complete. Shattered they retreated to their works, and in the morning of the 16th, the Confederate general, Buckner, surrendered. About 14,000 prisoners were taken. The Federal loss was nearly 3,000, and that of the Southern cause about 1,000 less. For the capture of Fort Donelson Grant was made major-general. The first step to the conquest of the Mississippi had been achieved. In October, 1862, the river fleet was transferred from the Army to the Navy Department, and as there was another vessel in the service, bearing the same name the St. Louis was renamed the Baron de Kalb. At Fort Henry, she went into action lashed to the Carondelet on account of the narrowness of the stream; and later again, the gallant gunboat won laurels at Island No. 10, Fort Pillow, Memphis, and Vicksburg.

LOUISVILLE—A FIGHTER AT THE FORT.

THE ADVENTUROUS GUNBOAT CONESTOGA.

Lying at anchor in the Ohio River this little wooden gunboat is having the finishing touches put to her equipment while her officers and men are impatiently waiting for the opportunity to bring her into action. A side-wheel river steamer originally, she was purchased at Cincinnati by Commander John Rodgers in the spring of 1861 and speedily converted into a gunboat. Her boilers and steam pipes were lowered into the hold and the oaken bulwarks five inches thick which we see were put on her and pierced for guns. She got her first taste of fighting when, at Lucas Bend, she engaged the land batteries and a Confederate gunboat, September 10, 1861. She was present at Fort Henry in the second division of the attacking fleet, and also at Fort Donelson.

THE TYLER
A sister-ship of the Conestoga. She was present both at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson.

TWO UNWILLING GUESTS OF THE NORTH.

GENERAL FLOYD TILGHMAN.

The Captured Commanders of Forts Henry and Donelson.—It requires as much moral courage to decide upon a surrender, even when odds are overwhelming, as it does physical bravery, in maintaining a useless fight to the death. Brigadier-General Tilghman, who commanded the Confederate Fort Henry on the Tennessee and General Simon Bolivar Buckner in command of the Confederate Fort Donelson—a much stronger position on the Cumberland only a few miles away—were men who possessed this kind of courage. Both had the misfortune to hold untenable positions. Each displayed generalship and sagacity and only gave up to the inevitable when holding out meant nothing but wasted slaughter and the sacrifice of men who had been called upon to exert every human effort. Fort Henry, on the banks of the Tennessee, was held by a few thousand men and strongly armed with twenty guns including one 10-inch Columbiad. But on the 6th of February it fairly lay in the possession of the Federals before a shot had actually been fired, for Grant with 17,000 men had gained the rear of the fortification after his move from Cairo on the 30th of the previous month. The actual reduction of the fort was left to the gunboat flotilla under Flag Officer Foote, whose heavy bombardment began early in the morning. General Tilghman had seen from the first that the position could not be held. He was trapped on all sides, but he would not give way without a display of resistance. Before the firing began, he had sent off most of the garrison and maintained the unequal combat with the gunboats for an hour and a quarter with less than a hundred men, of whom he lost twenty-one. Well did this handful serve the guns on the river bank. One shot struck the gunboat Essex, piercing her boilers, and wounding and scalding twenty-eight men. But at last, enveloped on all sides, his retreat cut off—the troops who had been ordered to depart in the morning, some three thousand in number, had reached Fort Donelson, twelve miles away—General Tilghman hauled down his flag, surrendering himself and eighty-four men as prisoners of war. Here we see him—a brave figure of a man—clad in the uniform of a Southern Colonel. There was never the slightest doubt of his courage or of his proper discretion in making this surrender. Only for a short time was he held a prisoner, when he was exchanged and welcomed back with all honor into the ranks of the Confederacy, and given an important command. He did not, however, live long to serve his cause, for shortly after rejoining the army he was killed at the battle of Baker’s Creek, Mississippi, on the 16th of May, 1863.

It is not often that on the battlefield ties of friendship are cemented that last a lifetime, and especially is this so between conqueror and conquered. Fort Donelson, that was, in a measure, a repetition of Fort Henry, saw two fighting foes become thus united. It was impossible for the garrison of Fort Donelson to make its escape after the flotilla of gunboats had once appeared in the river, although General Floyd, its senior commander, the former Secretary of War under President Buchanan, had withdrawn himself from the scene tendering the command to General Pillow, who in his turn, after escaping with his own brigade, left the desperate situation to be coped with by General Buckner. Assailed in the rear by an army that outnumbered the defenders of the fort by nearly eight thousand and with the formidable gunboats hammering his entrenchments from the river, Buckner decided to cut his way out in a desperate charge, but being repulsed, saw his men flung back once more into the fort. There was nothing for it but to make terms. On February 16th, in a note to Grant he asked what might be granted him. Here, the coming leader won his nickname of “Unconditional Surrender” Grant. Buckner was informed that the Federal army was about to move upon his works. Hurt and smarting under his position, he sent back a reply that in a few short hours he would, perhaps, have been willing to recall. Yielding to circumstances he accepted what he bluntly pronounced, “ungenerous and unchivalrous terms.” But when the capitulation had taken place and nearly fifteen thousand men had surrendered, a greater number than ever before laid down their arms upon the continent, Grant was so generous, that then and there began the friendship that grew as close as if the two men were brothers of the blood. Most of the prisoners were paroled. Each one was allowed to retain his personal baggage, and the officers to keep their side arms. Grant had known Buckner in the Mexican War, and received him after the battle as his guest. For a short time General Buckner was kept a prisoner at Fort Warren until he was exchanged. But the friendship between the two leaders continued. When General Grant, after having been twice President, failed in his business career, Buckner sent him a check, trusting that it might be of use in his time of trouble. Grant, shortly before his death, wrote his old-time comrade and antagonist requesting that Buckner do him the final honors by becoming one of his pallbearers.

BUCKNER, THE DEFENDER OF DONELSON.

SHILOH—THE FIRST GRAND BATTLE

Meantime, the Union army had moved southward and was concentrating at Pittsburg Landing, on the Tennessee River, an obscure stopping place for boats in southern Tennessee, and some twenty miles northeast from Corinth. The name means more now than merely a landing place for river craft. It was clear that two mighty, hostile forces were drawing together and that ere long there would be a battle of tremendous proportions, such as this Western hemisphere had not then known.

General Grant had no idea that the Confederates would meet him at Pittsburg Landing. He believed that they would wait for an attack on their entrenchments at Corinth. The position his army occupied at the Landing was a kind of quadrilateral, enclosed on three sides by the river and several small streams that flow into it. As the early days of April passed there were ominous rumors of the coming storm; but Grant was so sure that Johnston would not attack that he spent the night of the 5th of April at Savannah, some miles down the Tennessee River.

It was Saturday night. For two weeks the Union troops had occupied the undulating tableland that stretched away from the river at the Landing. There was the sound of the plashing streams overflowing from recent rains, there were revelry and mirth around the thousand camp-fires; but there was no sound to give warning of the coming of forty thousand men, who had for two days been drawing nearer with a steady tread, and during this night were deploying around the Union camp, only a mile away. There was nothing to indicate that the inevitable clash of arms was but a few hours in the future.

At the dawn of day on Sunday, April 6th, magnificent battle-lines, under the Confederate battle-flag, emerged from the woods on the neighboring hills within gunshot of the Federal camps. Whether the Union army was really surprised has been the subject of long controversy, which we need not enter. Certainly, the attack on it was most sudden, and in consequence it fought on the defensive and at a disadvantage throughout the day.

General Hardee’s corps, forming the first line of battle, moved against the outlying division of the Union army, which was commanded by General Benjamin Prentiss, of West Virginia. Before Prentiss could form his lines Hardee’s shells began bursting around him, but he was soon ready and, though pressed back for half a mile in the next two or three hours, his men fought like heroes. Meanwhile the further Confederate advance under Bragg, Polk, and Breckinridge was extending all along the line in front of the Federal camps. The second Federal force to encounter the fury of the oncoming foe was the division of General W. T. Sherman, which was cut to pieces and disorganized, but only after it had inflicted frightful loss on the Confederate army.

General Grant, as we have noted, spent the night at Savannah, a town nine miles by way of the river from Pittsburg Landing. As he sat at breakfast, he heard the distant boom of cannon and he quickly realized that Johnston’s army had attacked his own at the Landing. Instantly he took a boat and started for the scene of the conflict. At Crump’s Landing, about half way between the two, General Lew Wallace was stationed with a division of seven thousand men. As Grant passed Crump’s Landing, he met Wallace and ordered him to be ready for instant marching when he was called for. When Grant arrived at Pittsburg Landing, about eight o’clock in the morning, he found a tremendous battle raging, and he spent the day riding from one division commander to another, giving directions and cheering them on as best he could.

About two and a half miles from the Landing stood a little log church among the trees, in which for years the simple folk of the countryside had been wont to gather for worship every Sunday morning. But on this fateful Sunday, the demon of war reigned supreme. The little church was known as Shiloh to all the country around, and it gave its name to the great battle that raged near it on that memorable day.

General Prentiss had borne the first onset of the morning. He had been pressed back half a mile. But about nine o’clock, after being reënforced, he made a stand on a wooded spot with a dense undergrowth, and here he held his ground for eight long hours, until five in the afternoon, when he and a large portion of his division were surrounded and compelled to surrender. Time after time the Confederates rushed upon his position, but only to be repulsed with fearful slaughter. This spot came to be known as the “Hornet’s Nest.” It was not far from here that the Confederates suffered the irreparable loss of the day. Their noble commander, Albert Sidney Johnston, received his death wound as he was urging his troops to force back Hurlbut’s men. He was riding in the center of the fight, cheering his men, when a minie ball cut an artery of his thigh. The wound was not necessarily fatal. A surgeon could easily have saved him. But he thought only of victory and continued in the saddle, raising his voice in encouragement above the din of battle. Presently his voice became faint, a deadly pallor blanched his cheek. He was lifted from his horse, but it was too late. In a few minutes the great commander was dead, from loss of blood.

The death of Johnston, in the belief of many, changed the result at Shiloh and prevented the utter rout or capture of Grant’s army. One of Johnston’s subordinates wrote: “Johnston’s death was a tremendous catastrophe. Sometimes the hopes of millions of people depend upon one head and one arm. The West perished with Albert Sidney Johnston and the Southern country followed.” Jefferson Davis afterward declared that “the fortunes of a country hung by a single thread on the life that was yielded on the field of Shiloh.”

Beauregard succeeded to the command on the fall of Johnston and the carnage continued all the day—till darkness was falling over the valleys and the hills. The final charge of the evening was made by three Confederate brigades close to the Landing, in the hope of gaining that important point. But by means of a battery of many guns on the bluff of Dill’s Branch, aided by the gunboats in the river, the charge was repulsed. Beauregard then gave orders to desist from further attack all along his lines, to suspend operations till morning. When General Bragg heard this he was furious with rage. He had counted on making an immediate grand assault in the darkness, believing that he could capture a large part of the Federal army.

When the messenger informed him of Beauregard’s order, he inquired if he had already delivered it to the other commanders. “Yes,” was the reply. “If you had not,” rejoined the angry Bragg, “I would not obey it. The battle is lost.” But Bragg’s fears were not shared by his compatriots.

Further mention is due the two little wooden gunboats, Tyler and Lexington, for their share in the great fight. The Tyler had lain all day opposite the mouth of Dill’s Branch which flowed through a deep, marshy ravine, into the Tennessee just above the Landing. Her commander, Lieutenant Gwin, was eager for a part in the battle, and when he saw the Confederate right pushing its way toward the Landing, he received permission to open fire. For an hour his guns increased the difficulties of Jackson’s and Chalmers’ brigades as they made their way to the surrounding of Prentiss. Later on the Lexington joined her sister, and the two vessels gave valuable support to the Union cannon at the edge of the ravine and to Hurlbut’s troops until the contest ended. All that night, in the downpour of rain, Lieutenant Gwin, at the request of General Nelson, sent shot crashing through the trees in the direction where the Confederates had bivouacked. This completely broke the rest of the exhausted troops, and had a decided effect upon the next day’s result.

Southern hopes were high at the close of this first bloody day at Shiloh. Whatever of victory there was at the end of the day belonged to the Confederates. They had pressed the Federals back more than a mile and now occupied their ground and tents of the night before. They had captured General Prentiss with some thousands of his men as a result of his brave stand at the “Hornet’s Nest.”

But their hopes were mingled with grave fears. General Van Dorn with an army of twenty thousand men was hastening from Arkansas to join the Confederate forces at Shiloh; but the roads were bad and he was yet far away. On the other hand, Buell was coming from Nashville to join Grant’s army. Should he arrive during the night, the contest of the next day would be unequal and the Confederates would risk losing all that they had gained. Moreover, Beauregard’s army, with its long, muddy march from Corinth and its more than twelve hours’ continuous fighting, was worn and weary almost to exhaustion.

The Union army was stunned and bleeding, but not disabled, at the close of the first day’s battle. Caught unawares, the men had made a noble stand. Though pressed back from their position and obliged to huddle for the night around the Landing, while thousands of their comrades had fallen on the gory field, they had hopes of heavy reënforcements during the night. And, indeed, early in the evening the cry ran along the Union lines that Buell’s army had come. The advance guard had arrived late in the afternoon and had assisted Hurlbut in the closing scene on the bluff of Dill’s ravine; others continued to pour in during the night. And, furthermore, General Lew Wallace’s division, though it had taken a wrong road from Crump’s Landing and had not reached the field in time for the fighting of the 6th, now at last had arrived. Buell and Wallace had brought with them twenty-five thousand fresh troops to be hurled on the Confederates on the morning of the 7th. But Van Dorn had not come. The preponderance of numbers now was with the Union army.

Everyone knew that the battle was not over, that the issue must be decided on the coming day, and the weary thousands of both sides sank down on the ground in a drenching rain to get a little rest and to gain a little strength for the desperate struggle that was sure to come on the morrow.

Beauregard rested hopes upon a fresh dispatch announcing that Buell was delayed and the dreaded junction of two Federal armies therefore impossible. Meanwhile Grant and Buell were together in Sherman’s camp and it was decided that Buell’s troops should attack Beauregard next morning. One division of Buell stood to arms all night.

At the break of day on Monday, April 7th, all was astir in both camps on the field of Shiloh, and the dawn was greeted with the roar of cannon. The troops that Grant now advanced into the contest were all, except about ten thousand, the fresh recruits that Wallace and Buell had brought, while the Confederates had not a single company that had not been on the ground the day before. Some military historians believe that Beauregard would have won a signal victory if neither army had been reënforced during the night. But now under the changed conditions the Confederates were at a great disadvantage, and yet they fought for eight long hours with heroic valor.

The deafening roar of the cannon that characterized the beginning of the day’s battle was followed by the rattle of musketry, so continuous that no ear could distinguish one shot from another. Nelson’s division of Buell’s army was the first to engage the Confederates. Nelson commanded the Federal left wing, with Hardee and Breckinridge immediately opposed to him. The Union center was under the command of Generals McCook and Crittenden; the right wing was commanded by McClernand, with Hurlbut next, while Sherman and Lew Wallace occupied the extreme right. The Confederate left wing was commanded by the doughty Bragg and next to him was General Polk.

Shiloh Church was again the storm center and in it General Beauregard made his headquarters. Hour after hour the columns in blue and gray surged to and fro, first one then the other gaining the advantage and presently losing it. At times the smoke of burning powder enveloped the whole field and hid both armies from view. The interesting incidents of this day of blood would fill a volume. General Hindman of the Southern side had a novel experience. His horse was struck by a bursting shell and torn to a thousand fragments. The general, thrown ten feet high, fell to the ground, but leaped to his feet unhurt and asked for another horse.

Early in the afternoon, Beauregard became convinced that he was fighting a losing battle and that it would be the part of prudence to withdraw the army before losing all. He thereupon sent the members of his staff to the various corps commanders ordering them to prepare to retreat from the field, at the same time making a show of resuming the offensive. The retreat was so skilfully made, the front firing-line being kept intact, that the Federals did not suspect it for some time. Some hours before nightfall the fighting had ceased. The Federals remained in possession of the field and the Confederates were wading through the mud on the road to Corinth.

It was a dreary march for the bleeding and battered Confederate army. An eye-witness described it in the following language:

“I made a detour from the road on which the army was retreating that I might travel faster and get ahead of the main body. In this ride of twelve miles alongside of the routed army, I saw more of human agony and woe than I trust I will ever again be called upon to witness. The retreating host wound along a narrow and almost impassable road, extending some seven or eight miles in length. Here was a line of wagons loaded with wounded, piled in like bags of grain, groaning and cursing; while the mules plunged on in mud and water belly-deep, the water sometimes coming into the wagons. Next came a straggling regiment of infantry, pressing on past the wagons; then a stretcher borne on the shoulders of four men, carrying a wounded officer; then soldiers staggering along, with an arm broken and hanging down, or other fearful wounds, which were enough to destroy life. And, to add to the horrors of the scene, the elements of heaven marshaled their forces—a fitting accompaniment of the tempest of human desolation and passion which was raging. A cold, drizzling rain commenced about nightfall, and soon came harder and faster, then turned to pitiless, blinding hail. This storm raged with violence for three hours. I passed long wagon trains filled with wounded and dying soldiers, without even a blanket to shelter them from the driving sleet and hail, which fell in stones as large as partridge eggs, until it lay on the ground two inches deep.

“Some three hundred men died during that awful retreat, and their bodies were thrown out to make room for others who, although wounded, had struggled on through the storm, hoping to find shelter, rest, and medical care.”

Four days after the battle, however, Beauregard reported to his government, “this army is more confident of ultimate success than before its encounter with the enemy.” Addressing the soldiers, he said: “You have done your duty.... Your countrymen are proud of your deeds on the bloody field of Shiloh; confident in the ultimate result of your valor.”

The news of these two fearful days at Shiloh was astounding to the American people. Never before on the continent had there been anything approaching it. Bull Run was a skirmish in comparison with this gigantic conflict. The losses on each side exceeded ten thousand men. General Grant tells us that after the second day he saw an open field so covered with dead that it would have been possible to walk across it in any direction stepping on dead bodies, without a foot touching the ground. American valor was tried to the full on both sides at Shiloh, and the record shows that it was equal to the test.

GENERAL A. S. JOHNSTON, C. S. A.

A brilliant Southern leader, whose early loss was a hard blow to the Confederacy, Albert Sidney Johnston was a born fighter with a natural genius for war. A West Pointer of the Class of ’26, he had led a strenuous and adventurous life. In the early Indian wars, in the border conflicts in Texas, and in the advance into Mexico, he had always proved his worth, his bravery and his knowledge as a soldier. At the outbreak of the Civil War he had already been brevetted Brigadier-General, and had been commander of the military district of Utah. An ardent Southerner, he made his choice, dictated by heart and conscience, and the Federal authorities knew the loss they would sustain and the gain that would be given to the cause of the Confederacy. In ’61 he was assigned to a district including Kentucky and Tennessee with the rank of General. At once he displayed his gifts as an organizer, but Shiloh cut short a career that would have led him to a high place in fame and history. The early Confederate successes of the 6th of April were due to his leadership. His manner of death and his way of meeting it attested to his bravery. Struck by a minie ball, he kept in the saddle, falling exhausted and dying from the loss of blood. His death put the whole South into mourning.

CAMP OF THE NINTH MISSISSIPPI.
Southern soldiers in shirtsleeves a few months before they fought bravely at Shiloh.
General Chalmers, waving the flag of this regiment, led it in a gallant charge on the second day.

To no one who was close to him in the stirring scenes of the early conflict in the West did Grant pay higher tribute than to this veteran of the Mexican War who was his Chief of Staff. He was a man to be relied upon in counsel and in emergency, a fact that the coming leader recognized from the very outset. An artillery officer and engineer, his military training and practical experience made him a most valuable executive. He had also the gift of leading men and inspiring confidence. Always cool and collected in the face of danger, and gifted with a personality that won friends everywhere, the reports of all of his superiors show the trust and confidence that were reposed in him. In April, 1861, he had taken charge of the fortifications at Cairo, Illinois. He was with Grant at Paducah, at Forts Henry and Donelson, and at Shiloh where he collected the artillery near the Landing that repelled the final Confederate attack on April 6th. He remained Chief of Staff until October, 1862. On October 14th, he was made a Brigadier-General of Volunteers, and was appointed superintendent of military railroads in the Department of Tennessee. Later he was Chief of Staff to General Sherman, and again proved his worth when he was with General Thomas at Hood’s defeat before Nashville in December, 1864. On March 13, 1865, he received the brevet of Major-General of Volunteers.

BRIG.-GEN. J. D. WEBSTER

COPYRIGHT, 1911, REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO.

WAITING FOR THE SMELL OF POWDER—CONFEDERATES BEFORE SHILOH

Some very youthful Louisiana soldiers waiting for their first taste of battle, a few weeks before Shiloh. These are members of the Washington Artillery of New Orleans. We see them at Camp Louisiana proudly wearing their new boots and their uniforms as yet unfaded by the sun. Louisiana gave liberally of her sons, who distinguished themselves in the fighting throughout the West. The Fifth Company of the Washington Artillery took part in the closely contested Battle of Shiloh. The Confederates defeated Sherman’s troops in the early morning, and by night were in possession of all the Federal camps save one. The Washington Artillery served their guns handsomely and helped materially in forcing the Federals back to the bank of the river. The timely arrival of Buell’s army the next day at Pittsburg Landing enabled Grant to recover from the reverses suffered on that bloody “first day”—Sunday, April 6, 1862.

COPYRIGHT, 1911, REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO.

COPYRIGHT, 1911, REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO.

“ON THE SLOPES OF SHILOH FIELD”
PITTSBURG LANDING—A FEW DAYS AFTER THE BATTLE

By the name of “Pittsburg Landing,” this Tennessee River point, Southerners designate the conflict of April 6 and 7, 1862. The building upon the left and one farther up the bank were the only ones standing at the time of the battle. Of the six steamers, the name of the Tycoon, which brought hospital supplies from the Cincinnati branch of the Sanitary Commission, is visible. Johnston’s plan in the attack on the Federal forces was to pound away on their left until they were driven away from the Landing and huddled in the angle between the Tennessee River and Snake Creek. The onset of the Confederates was full of dash. Sherman was at length driven from Shiloh Church, and the command of Prentiss was surrounded and forced to surrender. It looked as if Johnston would crush the left. Just at this point he was struck down by a minie-ball from the last line of a Federal force that he had victoriously driven back. The success of the day now begins to tell on the Confederate army. Many of the lines show great gaps. But the men in gray push vigorously toward the point where these boats lie anchored. Some heavy guns are massed near this point. Reenforcements are arriving across the river, but General Beauregard, who succeeds Johnston in command, suspends the battle till the morrow. During the night 24,000 fresh troops are taken across the river by the transports here pictured. They successfully withstand the attempt of Beauregard, and with the arrival of Lew Wallace from up the river victory shifts to the Stars and Stripes.

THE GUNBOATS AT SHILOH

In the river near Pittsburg Landing, where the Federal transports lay, were two small gunboats, and what they did during the battle of April 6th makes a separate chapter in the action. In the early morning they were out of sight, though within sound of the continuous firing. How the battle was going, however, was evident. The masses of the blue-clad troops appeared through the trees on the river bank, showing that under the continuous and fierce assaults they were falling back upon the Landing. The Tyler, commanded by Lieutenant Gwin, and afterward the Lexington, commanded by Lieutenant Shirk, which arrived at four o’clock, strove to keep the Confederate army from the Landing. After the surrender of Prentiss, General Withers set his division in motion to the right toward this point. Chalmers’ and Jackson’s brigades marched into the ravine of Dill’s Branch and into the range of the Federal gunboats and batteries which silenced Gage’s battery, the only one Withers had, and played havoc with the Confederate skirmishers. All the rest of the afternoon, until nightfall, the river sailors kept up their continuous bombardment, and in connection with the field batteries on the bank checked General Withers’ desperate attempt on the Landing. The dauntless brigade of Chalmers, whose brave Southerners held their ground near the foot of the ravine and maintained the conflict after the battle was ended elsewhere, was swept by the gunboats’ fire. When Buell’s army, that had been hurrying up to Grant’s assistance, reached the battle-field, Gwin sent a messenger ashore in the evening to General Nelson, who had just arrived, and asked in what manner he could now be of service. It was pitch dark; except for the occasional firing of the pickets the armies were resting after the terrific combat. In reply to Gwin’s inquiry, General Nelson requested that the gunboats keep on firing during the night, and that every ten minutes an 8-inch shell should be launched in the direction of the Confederate camp. With great precision Gwin followed out this course. Through the forest the shells shrieked and exploded over the exhausted Confederates, showering branches and limbs upon them where they slept, and tearing great gashes in the earth. The result was that they got little rest, and rest was necessary. Slowly a certain demoralization became evident—results that bore fruit in the action that opened on the morrow. Here we see pictured—in the lower part of the page—the captain’s gig and crew near the Lexington, ready to row their commander out into the stream.

THE LEXINGTON

COPYRIGHT, 1911, REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO.

FOURTEENTH IOWA VETERANS
AT LIBBY PRISON, RICHMOND, IN 1862, ON THEIR WAY TO FREEDOM

In the battle of Shiloh the Fourteenth Iowa Infantry formed part of that self-constituted forlorn hope which made the victory of April 7, 1862, possible. It held the center at the “Hornet’s Nest,” fighting the live-long day against fearful odds. Just as the sun was setting, Colonel William T. Shaw, seeing that he was surrounded and further resistance useless, surrendered the regiment. These officers and men were held as prisoners of war until October 12, 1862, when, moving by Richmond, Virginia, and Annapolis, Maryland, they went to Benton Barracks, Missouri, being released on parole, and were declared exchanged on the 19th of November. This photograph was taken while they were held at Richmond, opposite the cook-houses of Libby Prison. The third man from the left in the front row, standing with his hand grasping the lapel of his coat, is George Marion Smith, a descendant of General Marion of Revolutionary fame. It is through the courtesy of his son, N. H. Smith, that this photograph appears here. The Fourteenth Iowa Infantry was organized at Davenport and mustered in November 6, 1861. At Shiloh the men were already veterans of Forts Henry and Donelson. Those who were not captured fought in the battle of Corinth, and after the prisoners were exchanged they took part in the Red River expedition and several minor engagements. They were mustered out November 16, 1864, when the veterans and recruits were consolidated in two companies and assigned to duty in Springfield, Illinois, till August, 1865. These two companies were mustered out on August 8th. The regiment lost during service five officers and fifty-nine enlisted men killed and mortally wounded, and one officer and 138 enlisted men by disease. Iowa sent nine regiments of cavalry, four batteries of light artillery and fifty-one regiments of infantry to the Union armies, a grand total of 76,242 soldiers.

THE MOUNTED POLICE OF THE WEST.

Stalwart horsemen such as these bore the brunt of keeping order in the turbulent regions fought over by the armies in the West. The bugle call, “Boots and Saddles!” might summon them to fight, or to watch the movements of the active Confederates, Van Dorn and Price. It was largely due to their daring and bravery that the Confederate forces were held back from the Mississippi so as not to embarrass the movements of Grant and the gunboats. Of this unattached cavalry of the Army of the Ohio were the men in the upper picture—Company D, Fourth Kentucky Volunteers, enlisted at Louisville, December, 1861.

OFFICERS OF THE FOURTH KENTUCKY CAVALRY.

COPYRIGHT, 1911, PATRIOT PUB. CO.

THE FLEET THAT CLEARED THE RIVER

“A spear-thrust in the back” was delivered to the Confederacy by the inland-river fleet that cut it in two. The squadron of Flag-Officer Davis is here lying near Memphis. Thus appeared the Federal gunboats on June 5, 1862, two miles above the city. Fort Pillow had been abandoned the previous day, but the Confederate river-defense flotilla still remained below and the Federals, still smarting from the disaster inflicted on the “Cincinnati,” were determined to bring on a decisive engagement and, if possible, clear the river of their antagonists. Meanwhile four new vessels had joined the Federal squadron. These were river steamers which Charles Ellet, Jr., had converted into rams in the short space of six weeks. Their principle was as old as history, but it was now to be tried for the first time in aid of the Federal cause. On these heights above the river the inhabitants of Memphis were crowded on the morning of June 6, 1862, as the Federal squadron moved down-stream against the Confederate gunboats that were drawn up in double line of battle opposite the city. Everyone wanted to see the outcome of the great fight that was impending, for if its result proved adverse to the Confederates, Memphis would fall into Federal hands and another stretch of the Mississippi would be lost to the South. In the engagement at Memphis two of the Ellet rams accompanied the squadron—the “Queen of the West” commanded by Charles Ellet, and the “Monarch” commanded by his younger brother, Major Alfred Ellet. The Confederate flotilla was destroyed, but with the loss of Charles Ellet, from a mortal wound.

MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE ON THE HEIGHTS

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL ALFRED W. ELLET
ONE OF THE THREE ELLETS AT MEMPHIS

COPYRIGHT, 1911, REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO.

A LOCOMOTIVE THAT HANGED EIGHT MEN AS SPIES

In April, 1862, J. J. Andrews, a citizen of Kentucky and a spy in General Buell’s employment, proposed seizing a locomotive on the Western and Atlantic Railroad at some point below Chattanooga and running it back to that place, cutting telegraph wires and burning bridges on the way. General O. M. Mitchel authorized the plan and twenty-two men volunteered to carry it out. On the morning of April 12th, the train they were on stopped at Big Shanty station for breakfast. The bridge-burners (who were in citizens’ clothes) detached the locomotive and three box-cars and started at full speed for Chattanooga, but after a run of about a hundred miles their fuel was exhausted and their pursuers were in sight. The whole party was captured. Andrews was condemned as a spy and hanged at Atlanta, July 7th. The others were confined at Chattanooga, Knoxville, and afterward at Atlanta, where seven were executed as spies. Of the fourteen survivors, eight escaped from prison; and of these, six eventually reached the Union lines. Six were removed to Richmond and confined in Castle Thunder until they were exchanged in 1863. The Confederates attempted to destroy the locomotive when they evacuated Atlanta.