FROM CORINTH TO PITTSBURG LANDING.

285

• April 24, 1866.

way to a more hilly country within thirty or forty miles of Corinth. With an interesting traveling companion (John Yerger, of Jackson, Mississippi), the night passed pleasantly away. We arrived at the reviving village of Corinth, which had been nearly destroyed during the war, at about half-past eight o'clock in the morning," where we breakfasted. The writer spent the time until past noon in sketching the headquarters of officers, National and Confederate, around the village, and then started for Pittsburg Landing, about twenty miles distant, in a light wagon drawn by a powerful horse driven by an intelligent young man, a brother of the owner of the conveyance. He was a native of that region, and had been in the Confederate army. He was acquainted with all the roads in the direction of the Landing, and with most of the localities of interest connected with the great battle. With his knowledge, and the assistance of an official map of the battle, very little difficulty was found in identifying them.

We first visited the principal fortifications around Corinth. About two and a half miles northward of the village, we passed out through the inner line of Confederate works, and were soon beyond the desolated region that had been stripped of its trees by the army, and riding through magnificent red oak forests, whose leaves were yet too tiny to give much shelter from the sun, then shining with great warmth. For nearly nine miles the country was gently rolling, and well watered with little streams, when, approaching Pea Ridge, it became hilly and very picturesque. On that ridge we came to the site of the once pretty little hamlet of Monterey, where the only building that remained was a store-house, which the Confederates had used for a hospital. Near it was a ruined house, around which were the remains of what had doubtless been a fine flower-garden.

From Monterey to some distance beyond Lick Creek the country was hilly, very little cleared, and less cultivated, dotted here and there with miserable log-houses, and mostly covered with woods. Half-way between Monterey and Shiloh Meeting-house we crossed the recently overflowed Lick Creek Bottom, partly upon a log causeway built by the National army when moving on Corinth, and partly in the deep mud. Driftwood had been floated into barricades on the causeway in many places, and a more difficult journey cannot well be conceived. A horse less powerful than ours could not have dragged us through the sloughs. It gave us a vivid impression of the difficulties experienced by the armies in taking their artillery and wagon-trains through that region. Happily, our journey over that wooded and tangled "bottom" did not exceed half a mile in distance, when we forded clear and pebbly Lick Creek, climbed the hills on its opposite side, and, just at sunset, crossed a little tributary of Owl Creek, and halted in perplexity at the forks of the road, near the ruins of a house in open fields. It was the site of poor

286

A NIGHT ON SHILOH BATTLE-FIELD.

widow Rey's, not far from that of Shiloh Meeting-house, near which Hardee formed his forces for assault on the morning of the 6th.' We were, as we soon ascertained, at the parting of the ways for Hamburg and Pittsburg Landings. While deliberating which to take, and considering seriously where we might obtain supper and lodging, for the gloom of twilight was

OUR HOSTESS AT SHILOH

gathering in the woods, the questions were settled by a woman (Mrs. Sowell) on a gaunt gray horse, with her little boy, about six years of age, striding the animal's back behind her. She kindly consented to give us such entertainment as she could. "It is but little I have," she said, in a pleasant, plaintive voice, and we expressed our willingness to be content therewith.. So we followed her through the woods and a few open fields for nearly a mile in the direction of Pittsburg Landing, and at dark were at her home, not far from McClernand's camp on Sunday morning, where the battle raged with so much fury. All around it were the marks of war in scarred, decapitated, and shattered trees, and the remains of clothing and accouterments strewing the ground.

Our hostess was a widow, with six children. Her husband was dying with consumption when She did not leave him, but remained in the house with her children throughout that terrible storm of war. A heavy shell went

the battle commenced.

through her house, and several trees standing near it were cut off or shattered by them. "The Lord was with me," she piously said, as we sat at her humble table, lighted by a lamp composed of wick and melted lard in a tin dish, and supping upon hoe-cake without butter, just baked in the ashes, some fried bacon, and coffee without milk or sugar. "My husband died, but my children were spared," she said; "but God only knows what will become of them in this desolated country, without a school or a church." We had just

1 See page 270.

THE EFFECTS OF BATTLE.

287

come in from the enjoyment of the bright moonlight, and balmy April air, and the burden of the whippowil, and felt that peace and serenity imparted by nature in repose, that inclines one to forgive as we hope to be forgiven. The sweet spell was broken when, in that dingy and battered cabin, lighted by a few blazing fagots and the primitive lamp, with only one half-bottomed chair and a rude box or two to sit upon, we looked upon that lonely, suffering, educated woman, with her six really pretty and intelligent boys and girls, half clad, but clean, struggling for the right to live an example of like misery in thousands of households, once prosperous and happy, thus crushed into poverty by the wickedness of a few ambitious men. In that presence, the Rebellion seemed doubly infernal, and the spirit of forgiveness departed.

We slept soundly in one of the log houses, with our horse stabled in an adjoining room, nailed up for the night, to keep him from the clutches of prowling bushwhackers, and the pigs grunting under our open floor; and at dawn we went out, while the cuckoo's song was sweetest and the mocking-bird's varied carols were loudest,

and rambled far over the battle-field, meeting here a tree cut down by shot near its base, there a huge one split by a shell that passed through it and plunged deeply into another beyond, and everywhere little hillocks covering the remains of the slain. After an early breakfast we rode to Pittsburg Landing, and made the sketch seen. on page 263, and then, riding along the greater portion of the lines of battle from Lick Creek to Owl Creek, we visited the site of Shiloh Meeting-house, made a drawing of it, and again striking the Corinth road at the ruins of widow Rey's house, returned to that village by way of Farmington, where Paine and Marmaduke had a skirmish,' in time to take the afternoon train to the scene of another battle, Iuka Springs, twenty miles eastward.

1 See page 292.

288

SITUATION OF THE TWO ARMIES.

CHAPTER XI.

OPERATIONS IN SOUTHERN TENNESSEE AND NORTHERN MISSISSIPPI AND ALABAMA.

IEWING events in the light of fair analysis and comparison, it seems clear that a prompt and vigorous pursuit of the Confederates from Shiloh would have resulted in their capture or dispersion, and that the campaign in the Mississippi Valley might have ended within thirty days after the battle we have just considered. Within a few days afterward, the Lower Mississippi, with the great city of New Orleans on its banks, was in the absolute possession of the National forces. Mitchel was holding a line of unbroken communication across Northern Alabama, from Florence to the confines of East Tennessee; and the National gun-boats on the Mississippi were preparing, though at points almost a thousand miles apart, to sweep victoriously over its waters, brush away obstructions to navigation, and meet, perhaps, at Vicksburg, the next "Gibraltar" of the Valley. Little was to be feared from troops coming from the East. They could not be spared, for at that time General McClellan was threatening Richmond with an immense force, and the National troops were assailing the

strongholds of the Confederates all along the Atlantic coast and the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Beauregard's army was terribly smitten and demoralized, and he had sent an imploring cry to Richmond for immediate help.' The way seemed wide open for his immediate de

struction; but the judgment of General Halleck, the commander of both

1 On the day after his arrival at Corinth, Beauregard forwarded a dispatch, written in cipher, to General Cooper, at Richmond, saying he could not then number over 35,000 effective men, but that Van Dorn might join him in a few days with about 15,000. He asked for re-enforcements, for, he said, "if defeated here, we lose the Mississippi Valley, and probably our cause." This dispatch was intercepted by General Mitchel, at Huntsville, and gave, doubtless, a correct view of Beauregard's extreme weakness thirty-six hours after he fled from Shiloh. 2 This was the dwelling of Mr. Ford when the writer visited Corinth, late in April, 1866. It stood upon the brow of a gentle slope in the northwestern suburbs of the village.

VICTORY AND ITS FRUITS.

289

Grant and Buell, counseled against pursuit, and for about three weeks the combined armies of the Tennessee and Ohio, not far from seventy-five thousand strong, rested among the graves of the loyal and the disloyal (who fought with equal gallantry) on the field of Shiloh, while Beauregard, encouraged by this inaction, was calling to his standard large re-enforcements, and was casting up around the important post of Corinth a line of fortifications not less than fifteen miles in extent.

a April 6, 1862.

Meanwhile the people everywhere had become acquainted with the true outline history of the great battle of Shiloh, and began to perceive its significance. Jefferson Davis, who, on the reception of Beauregard's dispatch of Sunday evening," had sent an exultant message to the Confederate "Senate," had reason to change his tone of triumph; while the orders that went out from the War and Navy Departments at Washington' on the 9th,' for demonstrations of thanksgiving and 8 April. joy throughout the army and navy for the victories gained at Pea Ridge, New Madrid, Island Number Ten, and Shiloh, and the proclamation from the Executive Department recommending the same in the houses of public worship through

out the land, were not stripped of their power by the fingers of truth. They were substantial and most important victories for the Government, over which the loyal people had reason to rejoice. Yet the latter battle was a victory that carried terrible grief to the hearts of thousands, for in the fields and forests around Shiloh hundreds of

loved ones were buried, and the hospital vessels that went down the Tennessee with their human freight, carried scores of sick and wounded soldiers who never reached their homes alive.

General Halleck arrived from St. Louis, his head-quarters, on the 12th of April, and took command in person of the armies near Pittsburg Landing. He found General Grant busily engaged in prepa

• 1862.

1 He told them that, from "official dispatches received from official sources," he was able to announce, "with entire confidence," that it had "pleased Almighty God to crown the Confederate arms with a glorious and lecisive victory, after a hard-fought battle of ten hours." He spoke in feeling terms of the death of Johnston, nd of his loss as "irreparable."

2 The order from each Department directed that, on the Sunday next after receiving it, chaplains should offer n each behalf a prayer, "giving thanks to the Lord of Hosts for the recent manifestations of His power, in the overthrow of rebels and traitors," and invoking a continuance of His aid in delivering the nation, "by arms, from he horrors of treason, rebellion, and civil war."

The President recommended (April 10) to the people, at their "next weekly assemblage in their accustomed places of public worship" which should occur after notice of his proclamation should be received, to especially acknowledge and render thanks to "our Heavenly Father for the inestimable blessings He had bestowed, and to implore His continuance of the same;" also to implore Him to hasten the establishment of fraternal relations at home, and among all the countries of the earth."

64

VOL II.-57