portant successes which the Union forces had yet won, as it opened the Mississippi down to Fort Pillow, a hundred miles below and about forty above Memphis. While it carried joy to the hearts of all in the loyal States, it caused many a Confederate to despair of the future, for it seemed almost certain that the armored gunboats of the Union would soon navigate the whole of the Mississippi and cut off the western from the eastern part of the Confederacy.

CHAPTER XVII.

SHILOH.-MEMPHIS.

BEAUREGARD AT CORINTH.-GRANT AND HALLECK.-PITTSBURG LANDING.-ALBERT SYDNEY JOHNSTON JOINS BEAUREGARD.-MARCHES AGAINST GRANT.-SHILOH CHURCH.-AN UNCOMFORTABLE NIGHT. WE SHALL SLEEP IN THE ENEMY'S CAMP.-THE UNION ARMY SURPRISED. -SHERMAN AND HIS MEN.-SKULKERS.-DEATH OF JOHNSTON.-GRANT AT BAY.--BEAUREGARD KEEPS HIS PROMISE.-BUELL TO THE RESCUE.-THE GUNBOATS DO GOOD SERVICE.-A DREADFUL RETREAT.-BOATS ENOUGH.-KENTUCKIANS AT SHILOH.-HOLD, BILL! THAT'S FATHER-SCHPIKE DEM GUNS!-MITCHELL IN HUNTSVILLE.-HALLECK RELIEVES GRANT OF COMMAND.-CORINTH.-QUAKER GUNS.-FORT PILLOW.-BATTLE OF GUNBOATS.-MEMPHIS

TAKEN.

THE

HE Confederates under General Albert Sydney Johnston had fallen back to Murfreesboro, so as to be between the Union forces advancing into Tennessee and the important railway centre at Chattanooga. General Beauregard meanwhile had taken his position at Corinth, in the northeast corner of Mississippi and about sixteen miles from Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River in Tennessee. Corinth was, like Bowling Green, an important railway centre, it being a station of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, the principal route connecting the eastern and the western parts of the Confederacy, and also of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, running directly to the Gulf of Mexico. Beauregard, seeing the necessity of defending this position, had gathered there General Polk's forces and the troops of General Braxton Bragg from Pensacola. He also fortified the high bluffs about forty miles above Memphis by building several earthworks, called Forts Pillow, Harris, Randolph, and Wright.

After the fall of Fort Donelson General Halleck ordered General Grant to push on up the Tennessee River; but Grant, at the request of General Buell, went to Nashville to consult with him. Halleck was angry, and telegraphed to Grant to give up the command to General C. F. Smith, and to remain himself at Fort Henry. But General Smith was then so ill that Grant could not be spared, and General Smith's death soon put him in command again. Smith had ordered the army to go to Pittsburg Landing, because it was a good point from which to strike the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, and about thirty

thousand men were soon landed there from transports. General Buell, who had forty thousand men, was ordered to march from Nashville to aid this movement.

General Sydney Johnston, seeing that General Buell's advance freed Chattanooga from danger, hastened with his army to join Beauregard at Corinth, where he took the chief command, Beauregard being second to him. The whole force there amounted then to about forty-five thousand men, while about thirty thousand more were on the way from Arkansas. The latter were the troops of Van Dorn and Price, who after the retreat of General Curtis into Missouri had marched to rein

force Beauregard, with the hope of aiding him to win back by one crushing blow all that the Confederates had lost in the West. Johnston, who knew through his spies all about Grant's and Buell's movements, saw at once that his best plan was to try to crush Grant before Buell could join him. The advance was begun on the morning of April 3. The distance to Pittsburg Landing is only about sixteen

miles, but the roads were in a very bad condition, and the army did not arrive until the night of the 4th. Orders were given to attack at dawn of the 5th, but soon after midnight a furious rain-storm set in and so flooded the country as to make an attack impossible.

The whole country around Pittsburg Landing was covered with woods, partly underbrush and partly large trees. The place where Grant's army lay was a kind of plateau on the bank of the river, crossed by several little streams and ravines, and bounded on the sides by two creeks, called Lick Creek and Snake Creek. About the middle of the plateau, two miles from the landing, was Shiloh Church, built out of rough logs. Nothing had been done by the Union troops to fortify their

1862.]

BATTLE OF SHILOH.

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position, for no one thought there was any danger of an attack from the Confederates; indeed, it was supposed that they had not troops enough at Corinth.

Johnston's army lay, on the night of April 5, on the wet ground in the woods, within a mile of the careless Union pickets, whose camp-fires could be seen through the trees and whose noise could be plainly heard. The few fires around which the drenched Confederates hovered were carefully hidden in holes in the ground. In a little ravine, sheltered by trees, Johnston and his generals gathered around a small fire to talk over the plan of battle for the morrow. Chief among these was Beauregard, already famous as the victor of Sumter and Manassas. There also were Hardee, of Georgia, who had won rank in the old army for gallantry in the Mexican war, and who had long been the commandant of cadets at West Point; Braxton Bragg, of North Carolina, who won fame at Buena Vista, where he was the hero of General Taylor's "a little more grape, Captain Bragg;" Polk, of Louisiana, the bishop who had laid down. the crozier for the sword; and Breckinridge, of Kentucky, late Vice-President of the United States. These leaders talked long and earnestly over the situation, telling of their hopes and their fears, but at last it was decided that the attack must be made in the morning. As they parted about ten o'clock, each to try to get a little rest before the struggle, Beauregard pointed toward the river and said with a smile, "Gentlemen, to-morrow night we shall sleep in the enemy's camp."

Sunday morning, April 6, opened clear and warm. The woods, whose buds had just burst into green, were enlivened by the songs of birds or the gentle sough of the wind; but few other sounds reached the ear, for the Union troops were sleeping in fancied safety, and the Confederates made their preparations with the utmost quietness. The attack was made just at the gray of dawn. The Union army, taken by surprise, was first made conscious of the danger when the frightened pickets, driven from their posts in the woods by the Confederate advance, came running into camp with wild cries that the rebels were upon them. Closely following charged the lines of the enemy, rushing through the woods, and firing volleys of musketry as they came, while shells and cannon-shot began to crash into the camps. The Confederates were among the tents al

most as soon as the flying pickets. Most of the men were engaged in washing and cooking, their accoutrements lying round in confusion and many of their guns unloaded. Some sprang for their weapons, some were shot down as they were running, coatless and hatless, toward the river. It is said that several whole regiments ran without firing a gun.

*

Some of the shattered regiments of General W. T. Sherman's brigade, whose men had fallen back toward the river, gained at last a wooded ridge, where they succeeded in checking the

enemy's advance long enough to form in line. Sherman was in the thickest of the fight, encouraging his men and freely exposing his life, though he escaped with only a bullet through his hand. Through his energy and gallantry the whole army was saved from a disgraceful rout. General Grant was at Savannah, a few miles up the river, on the other side, when the fight began, having a talk with General Buell, who had arrived there with his army on Saturday.. Hearing the firing in the morning, Grant hastened down in a steamboat and reached the

*This is the story told by most writers of the time; but General Sherman says in his Memoirs that there was no surprise, and that his men were in line of battle when attacked.