Pride of place in the Confederate attack was given to Hardee’s veterans from the old Army of Central Kentucky. Strung out in line of battle, the 9,000 men of the 3rd Corps moved forward at 6:30 A.M. A quarter of a mile behind Hardee, Bragg’s corps, also in line of battle, followed the front. After Bragg was Polk’s corps, formed in columns of brigades along the Corinth road, and after Polk came Breckinridge, also deployed in brigade column. From the line of skirmishers out in front to the tail of Breckinridge’s corps, the Confederate formation stretched nearly two miles.115 Johnston ordered the attack for sunrise (6 A.M.). But it took an additional thirty minutes to get the sluggish battle line moving, and another hour until it closed on the Union camp. The loss of those precious ninety minutes of daylight would return to haunt the Confederates; the immediate effect was to squander the element of surprise. Prentiss’s division, though not dug in, had been alerted by the movement to its front and was deployed to receive the rebel attack, while a half mile to the west Sherman’s troops were being put into line.
At about 7:30 Hardee’s battle line struck Prentiss. Thirty minutes later the Confederate left hit Sherman. “We were dumbfounded by seeing an enormous force marching directly toward us,” wrote Private Charles Morton of the 25th Missouri.116 Another Missourian said it was a “sublime but awful scene as they advanced slowly, steadily and silently until within about 125 yards.”117 Beauregard was right in one respect: The initial impact of the Confederate assault was overwhelming. Once Hardee’s line was fully engaged, Johnston ordered Bragg’s corps forward, and then the leading brigade of Polk’s. Within the hour, eight of sixteen brigades of the Army of the Mississippi were deployed against Prentiss. Both Prentiss and Sherman called for reinforcements from the Union divisions to their rear, but the momentum of the Confederate attack swept through Prentiss’s camp before help could arrive. By 9 A.M., for all practical purposes the 6th Division of Grant’s army ceased to exist. Of the 5,400 troops who answered roll call that morning, over a thousand had been killed, wounded, or captured. Another 2,000 or so—not much more than a brigade—remained in the field under arms. The rest of the division melted away, fleeing northward to Pittsburg Landing. Union ambulance and wagon drivers whipped their teams to the rear as well, adding to the general panic.118
Sherman fared better. His troops had served together longer than Prentiss’s and the division occupied more favorable terrain. Protected from the initial rebel onslaught by a boggy branch bottom that slowed the attack, the division was drawn up in order of battle on the high ground beyond. Sherman’s line centered on a little country church called Shiloh—named by early Methodist settlers for the Israelite shrine established by Joshua after the conquest of the land of Canaan.VIII Until reinforcements could arrive, Sherman’s left was in the air, but his right was anchored by impassable Owl Creek—the western boundary of the Union position. With few exceptions, Sherman’s raw infantrymen held their ground like veterans and his artillery took a heavy toll of advancing Confederates. The 6th Mississippi, mostly farmers from the north-central woodlands of the state—an area where slavery was not significant—lost 300 of 425 men (a staggering 70.5 percent) in three suicidal attempts to storm Sherman’s line.
Grant arrived on the field about 8:30—too late to help Prentiss, but in time to stitch together the Union defense. He was at breakfast in Savannah when the low rumble of artillery sounded in the distance. It was not clear whether the firing came from Pittsburg Landing or from the isolated 3rd Division at Crump’s Landing. Grant sat motionless for a moment and then stood up. “Gentlemen,” he told his staff, “the ball is in motion. Let’s be off.”119 Within fifteen minutes the command group of the Army of the Tennessee—staff, clerks, orderlies, and horses—were aboard the mail packet Tigress steaming upriver. Grant paused only long enough to send three hasty dispatches. The first was a brief message to Bull Nelson instructing him to march his division overland “to the river opposite Pittsburg.”120 The second went to Brigadier General Thomas J. Wood, who commanded the 6th Division of Buell’s army. Wood was directed to move immediately to Savannah “where steamboats will be in waiting to transport you to Pittsburg.”121 Grant wrote a longer message to Buell: “Heavy firing heard up the river, indicating plainly that an attack has been made upon our most advanced positions. . . . This necessitates my joining the forces up the river instead of meeting you today as I had contemplated.”122 Grant did not know it, but Buell was already in Savannah, having spent the night at Nelson’s headquarters. Because of their chilled relationship, Buell chose not to call on Grant when he arrived and as a consequence Grant assumed the commander of the Army of the Ohio was still en route.
When Grant reached Crump’s Landing—it was shortly after 8 A.M. — he found Lew Wallace waiting on the deck of his own headquarters boat. From the sound of guns in the distance it was clear the attack was at Pittsburg Landing. Without stopping, Grant called out to Wallace, “General, get your troops under arms and have them ready to move at a moment’s notice.” Wallace shouted back he had done so, Grant nodded, and Tigress eased back into the main channel.123
Little Tigress was one of the fastest boats on the river and as it hammered its way upstream at forced draft the din of battle grew louder. At Pittsburg Landing the roar was incredible. Even more incredible was the scene that greeted Grant: several thousand stragglers and deserters cowering under the bluff—untrained officers and men from Prentiss’s division who had discarded their weapons and run to the rear for safety. Grant was assisted onto his horse and rode into battle, a crutch strapped to his saddle like a carbine. His first task was to reestablish order at the landing site. Finding two Iowa regiments recently arrived and drawn up on the bluff awaiting orders, he formed a straggler line and added a battery of artillery with its guns trained on the road leading out of the uproar.
Riding forward on the Corinth road Grant met General William Wallace, who told him what he knew of the situation. “Prentiss is attacked and falling back on Hurlbut, who has formed in line. Sherman is falling back; McClernand is supporting him. I have been posted here on your orders, issued by [Colonel] McPherson, as a central reserve to be used to fill in the gaps between our center and right or left. McPherson is up now posting my First brigade, but ought to be back soon and can tell you how things are.”124
Grant could see for himself things looked grim, yet he remained supremely composed. Colonel McPherson, the senior staff officer on the spot, had assumed command of the Union center awaiting Grant’s arrival and appeared to be on top of the situation. It was also clear Johnston’s main force was engaged in the attack and Crump’s Landing was not endangered. Grant calmly turned to his adjutant, Captain Rawlins, and said, “Send [Captain Algernon S.] Baxter in the Tigress to tell [Lew] Wallace to march up at once.”125 Then he ordered his quartermaster officers to start the ammunition wagons forward. Resupply had been a problem at Donelson and Grant wanted to avoid his earlier mistake. Before riding on he wrote another message to Bull Nelson: “You will hurry up your command as fast as possible. The boats will be in readiness to transport all troops of your command across the river. All looks well, but it is necessary for you to push forward as fast as possible.”126
With ammunition and reinforcements provided for, Grant continued along the Corinth road. Up to now Johnston had things very much his way. When the troops of Hardee and Bragg stormed Prentiss’s camp, victory seemed within reach. The rebels paused to celebrate. Many had not eaten since Corinth, and the bountiful Sunday breakfast bubbling on Union cooking fires was a temptation few could resist.127 “The Yankees . . . left everything they had,” wrote Liberty Nixon of the 26th Alabama. “Corn, oats, pants, vests, drawers, shirts, shoes, and a great many other things of the finest quality.”128 For a moment the victorious Confederate phalanx dissolved into a disorganized rabble intent on plundering Prentiss’s camp. An hour ticked by while brigade and regimental commanders scurried about desperately trying to reestablish control. The delay was crucial because it allowed the Union center to re-form behind the sprawling tent city. As order was restored, Johnston heard sounds of a savage fight to the west. The six brigades of the Confederate left wing were driving on Sherman’s line at Shiloh church. It was axiomatic among military men in the nineteenth century to march toward the sound of the guns, and Johnston gave orders for the troops occupying Prentiss’s camp to veer northwest and assist the attack in progress. By ten o’clock five additional brigades joined the assault. The redirection of the main Confederate attack from northeast to northwest was Johnston’s second mistake—and a serious one. The original plan had been to turn Grant’s left and separate him from the Tennessee. Now the Confederate impetus was directed at Grant’s right, forcing him back on Pittsburg Landing and the Tennessee.
Grant arrived at Sherman’s position with the attack in progress. Cool and steady under fire, Sherman was magnificent in battle, shoring up his raw troops, inspiring them to hurl back the initial Confederate assaults, even instructing them how to cut the fuses for their artillery shells.129 Already he had been wounded twice, first in the hand, then by a spent minié ball that bruised his shoulder. Three horses would be shot from under him, and before dusk a bullet would pass through the crown of his hat. Grant told Sherman what he would repeat to each of his division commanders: Lew Wallace’s division would soon be up, Nelson was marching overland to the river, and the rest of Buell’s army was closing on Savannah. Sherman said one of his brigades disintegrated under fire but the others were holding firm. He worried that his men would run out of ammunition. Grant complimented the division’s performance and said ammunition wagons were rolling forward. Satisfied Sherman could hold his own, Grant rode eastward along the front.130 “I never deemed it important to stay long with Sherman,” he said later.131
Next to Sherman, Grant found McClernand’s 1st Division. The gap in the Union front had been closed and McClernand’s lines were stable. In the center, the veteran troops of William Wallace’s 2nd Division were now in place, joined by remnants of Prentiss’s depleted force. Here the Union line was sited along an eroded wagon trial, a sunken road one to three feet deep that ran along the front, forming a natural trench for the defenders. To the south of the road was a large open field across which the Confederates must advance; to the rear was a dense thicket that provided cover. Seven thousand men and twenty-five pieces of artillery were deployed along this half-mile segment of the front. Grant was pleased with the position and instructed Prentiss to “maintain it at all hazards.”132
On Prentiss’s left was Hurlbut’s 4th Division. Grant visited it next. Iowa soldiers who saw him ride up said his face “wore an anxious look, yet bore no evidence of excitement or trepidation.” Another soldier said Grant was smoking a cigar, seemingly as cool as if he were making a routine inspection. The sight reassured the men, who felt the worst must be over.133 Beyond Hurlbut a single brigade was posted on the Union left flank. Commanded by former Michigan congressman David Stuart, the 2,300 troops of the 2nd Brigade (detached from Sherman’s division) were positioned on favorable terrain behind Lick Creek but the line was stretched painfully thin. Fortunately for Grant, all was quiet in Stuart’s sector.
As Grant inspected his line, the fighting rose to a crescendo along that portion of the front held by Sherman and McClernand. Virtually all of Johnston’s army except Breckinridge’s corps was engaged in the assault—a tidal wave of gray rolling forward. Sherman sent an aide to locate Grant with a request for reinforcements, “if there are any.” If none were available, Sherman said he would fight with what he had. “We are holding them pretty well just now—but it’s hot as hell.”134 Shortly after ten o’clock the impact of three Confederate corps proved unstoppable. Sherman ordered his men to fall back and McClernand followed suit. The rebels took possession of two more Union camps. Once again precious minutes were wasted foraging through abandoned tents, liberating what the Yankees left behind. Three of five Union camps were in Confederate possession, but it was evident Beauregard’s attack plan had come unglued. The front was now almost three miles wide, Grant’s line had not cracked, and the troops of Hardee, Polk, and Bragg—initially deployed in echelon—had become hopelessly commingled. Acting on their own initiative, the three Confederate generals divided the front into sectors. Regardless of original corps designations, Hardee took command of the troops on the left, Polk the left-center, and Bragg the right-center. On the right, Johnston retained personal control, waiting the arrival of Breckinridge’s corps for what he assumed would be the final attack to drive the Union army from the field.
Changing the order of battle in midstream was anything but simple and additional time was lost as corps commanders sought to rework their chains of command and provide new supply channels to keep the offensive moving. By eleven o’clock units were in place and the attack on Sherman and McClernand resumed full force. Within thirty minutes the Union right was driven back another thousand yards. Sherman and McClernand struggled to stabilize their line and the Confederates paused to regroup, yet by 11:30 Grant’s right flank had been all but turned. Sherman and McClernand were no longer anchored on Owl Creek and were being slowly pushed back on Pittsburg Landing and the river. This was exactly opposite to what Johnston intended, although in the heat of battle no one noticed.135
After checking the front and consulting with each division commander, Grant rode back to the center of the Union line. McClernand was asking for reinforcements and Grant ordered the two Iowa regiments manning the straggler line to move forward. That left no straggler line and no central reserve but Lew Wallace was expected anytime and Nelson was on the way. It was now close to noon. Grant dispatched an aide to check on Wallace’s progress and then returned to the landing to look for Nelson. The right bank of the Tennessee offered an abundance of weed stalks and bushes, with a young cornfield in the distance, but no trace of the 4th Division of Buell’s army. Grant sent another message upriver, this time more anguished—not unlike the one he wrote to Foote at Donelson: “The appearance of fresh troops would have a powerful effect, both by inspiring our men and disheartening the enemy. If you will get upon the field, leaving all your baggage on the east bank of the river, it will be more to our advantage, and possibly save the day for us.” Grant said rebel forces numbered over 100,000 men, leaving it to Nelson to draw his own conclusion.136
The battle was just beginning. Grant wrote later that Shiloh was a case of “Southern dash against Northern pluck and endurance.”137 Wellington could have said something similar in 1815. On the Union right, Sherman and McClernand took advantage of the pause in the Confederate offensive to launch a counterattack. Twenty-two battered regiments moved forward, catching the rebels unprepared and driving them back almost a half mile with heavy losses. In the center, Breckinridge’s corps had come up and Johnston hurled it against the Union position along the sunken road. On Grant’s left, Confederate cavalry were probing the weak Federal flank and the all-important link to the Tennessee.
Fighting was heavy all along the front, but the growing fury in the center was unprecedented. Johnston ordered Bragg’s corps to join Breckinridge in the assault, and by early afternoon upward of 18,000 men were pressing forward along a half-mile segment. Union troops on the sunken road and its flanks—the combined forces of William Wallace, Prentiss, and Hurlbut—held their ground and fired relentlessly at the advancing Confederates. “It’s a hornets’ nest in there,” rebel soldiers cried,138 recoiling from charge after charge at what appeared to be an impregnable position.
It was about this time that General Buell and his staff arrived by steamer at Pittsburg Landing. The scene was more chaotic than when Grant arrived earlier that morning. With no straggler line to arrest deserters, the number of malingerers on the riverbank had multiplied. Buell estimated a quarter of Grant’s army was huddled under the bluff. Disaster, he thought, was imminent. His meeting with Grant was brief. Judging from Buell’s report of the encounter he was not entirely unhappy with Grant’s predicament.139 Germans have a word for it: Schadenfreude—to take pleasure in the misfortune of others. Grant explained the situation, indicating the battle had reached a critical stage. “What preparations have you made for retreating?” asked Buell. None, said Grant. “I haven’t despaired of whipping them yet.”140
While Grant was meeting with Buell, Johnston was rallying Breckinridge’s corps for another assault on Hurlbut’s line, slightly east of the sunken road. A peach orchard and a large open field separated the Union and Confederate troops. Three times the Southerners charged and three times they were repulsed with heavy losses. Breckinridge told Johnston one of his brigades was unwilling to attack again. Johnston said he would help. Riding among the reluctant troops, he spoke gently and tapped their bayonets with a little tin cup he had taken from Prentiss’s camp. “Men, they are stubborn. We must use the bayonet.” When the brigade was formed, 300 yards south of the orchard, Johnston rode to the center of the line. “Follow me, I will lead you.” The men surged forward and this time the charge was not repulsed. With five Confederate brigades joining the assault, the peach orchard fell and Hurlbut retreated to the woods beyond. For Johnston, victory was in the offing. Grant’s left, which had stalled the Confederate advance four hours, finally yielded. As Johnston watched his men celebrate he suddenly reeled in the saddle and went pale.
“General—are you hurt?” an officer asked.
“Yes, and I fear seriously,” Johnston replied.141
Toward the end of the attack, Johnston had been hit in the calf of his right leg with a minié ball, severing an artery. He apparently did not feel the shot and no effort was made to stop the bleeding.IX He died from an acute loss of blood at 2:45 P.M.—the highest ranking officer of either army killed during the war.
Johnston’s loss was tragic, but the blow did not doom the Confederate cause. Throughout the battle Johnston had exposed himself recklessly, leading regiments and exhorting brigades to close with the enemy. His leadership was inspirational. But his command of the battlefield had been nominal. Despite his seniority Johnston had never commanded more than a regiment in combat, and at Shiloh he acted as a regimental commander. Because of his unfamiliarity with handling large formations he left the attack plan to Beauregard; after Prentiss’s camp was taken he instinctively but mistakenly shifted the Confederate thrust northwest instead of northeast, undermining his goal of separating Grant from the Tennessee; and he did not sort out the confusion caused by the intermingling of assault waves, leaving it to corps commanders to make their own adjustments. Grant, by contrast, seized control of the Union side of the battlefield the moment he arrived. He had learned progressively in the hard school of experience how to command ever-larger formations in battle. In central Missouri a year earlier he commanded a regiment; at Belmont in the autumn, a brigade; two divisions at Fort Henry, and three at Donelson. At Belmont and Donelson he faced an enemy under almost equal conditions. He learned the importance of ammunition resupply, of seeing the front as a whole, and providing general direction for his division commanders. Grant handled the Army of the Tennessee by handling his division commanders and relying on them to fight the troops under their control.
One of Grant’s most serious problems the first afternoon at Shiloh was that one of his division commanders was missing. Lew Wallace’s 3rd Division, which should have been on the field by noon, was nowhere in sight. Shortly after leaving Buell, Grant dispatched Colonel McPherson and Rawlins to find the errant division and bring it onto line, reinforcing the Union center. Although the reasons remain cloaked in controversy, Lew Wallace never understood the urgency of the situation. His troops ate a leisurely Sunday dinner, did not get underway until twelve o’clock, and then took the wrong road. McPherson and Rawlins found them marching west from Crump’s Landing, not south. Wallace wrote later he intended to come around behind the front and hit the Confederates in the rear.142 But that is not where Grant needed him.143 When Grant’s messengers peremptorily ordered him to reverse direction and march to Pittsburg Landing, Wallace led the front of the column back through the formation (instead of about facing) and continued at what Rawlins described as a “cool and leisurely pace.”144 Despite McPherson’s urgings to move rapidly, Wallace’s advance guard did not arrive until 7:15 P.M. and the day’s fighting was over. It had taken ten hours instead of the usual two to march six miles from Crump’s Landing. Wallace spent the rest of his life trying to live down his mistake, and the episode is one of the few instances in which Grant was unforgiving. Later he said that if Morgan L. Smith, the senior colonel, had been in command, the 3rd Division would have been on the field by noon.145
When Hurlbut was forced to withdraw from the peach orchard, Grant recognized that without Lew Wallace’s division the center could not hold indefinitely. He turned to his chief of staff, Colonel Joseph Webster, and informed him he was now the army’s chief of artillery. Webster was instructed to assemble every gun he could lay his hands on for a last-ditch stand at the landing. Grant then redeployed his cavalry (which was of little use in the broken terrain) as a new straggler line, after which he rode to the front. He found Hurlbut had re-formed on the left-center and Prentiss was holding firm. Grant said Prentiss “was as cool as if expecting victory.”146 William Wallace’s troops on the right-center were under heavy attack and were also standing fast. On the far right, Sherman and McClernand could not hold the ground they recaptured and had fallen back under heavy pressure. Stung by the Union counterattack, Beauregard committed the last Southern reserves and by mid-afternoon the lines were back more or less where they were at noon. Once again the Confederates paused to regroup while Sherman and McClernand, doubtful they could hold their line without reinforcements, retreated to high ground less than a mile from Pittsburg Landing. The noose around the Union position was tightening, but Grant’s line had not broken.
By three o’clock Beauregard knew Johnston was dead. He also knew Sherman and McClernand had fallen back and that there was heavy fighting in the vicinity of the hornets’ nest, where the Confederate drive had come to a standstill in front of Prentiss’s position. At this point Beauregard did what should have been done earlier and redeployed the bulk of the rebel forces from the left to the right. Hardee would continue to peck at Sherman’s line, but for the remainder of the day the heaviest fighting would be done on the eastern half of the battlefield. Eventually fourteen of the sixteen Confederate brigades on the field would move against the hornets’ nest.147
Late in the afternoon, confronted with overwhelming odds, Hurlbut gave way on the left side of Prentiss and retreated on Pittsburg Landing. The fourth Union camp fell into Confederate hands. To the right of Prentiss, William Wallace’s flank was exposed when McClernand pulled back. Prentiss and Wallace bent their lines back and continued to hold their ground, but there was nothing on either side of them except Confederates. The hornets’ nest became an isolated salient resembling a mule shoe. Twelve separate assaults were launched against the Union position and all twelve were repulsed. Grant wrote the ground was “so covered with dead that it would have been possible to walk across, in any direction, stepping on dead bodies, without a foot touching the ground.”148
Rather than bypass the Prentiss-Wallace salient and strike Grant’s depleted force at the landing, Beauregard insisted the pocket be taken. The Confederates massed their artillery and at 4:30 fifty-three guns—the largest battlefield concentration of field artillery on the North American continent to date—opened an intense bombardment of the hornets’ nest. Incoming rounds hit with the force of a hurricane. At five o’clock Wallace ordered the remnants of his division to withdraw. Confederate troops converged on the salient and Wallace was mortally wounded as his men pulled back. Prentiss’s line on the sunken road continued to hold. At 5:30, after six hours of continuous fighting, the back door to the hornets’ nest was slammed shut when Confederate forces comprising the right and left wings of the army came together in Prentiss’s rear, sealing him off from the Union line at Pittsburg Landing. Further resistance was futile. White flags went up and bugles sounded cease-fire. The 2,250 survivors of the hornets’ nest surrendered. Grant had ordered Prentiss to hold the position at all hazards, and he did so literally. As one historian wrote, Prentiss lost everything except honor: men, guns, colors, and finally the position itself.149 But his resistance saved the Union army. It was almost 6 P.M., dusk was settling over the battlefield, and Ammen’s brigade of Nelson’s division had crossed the Tennessee and come on line. Beauregard, miscalculating Grant’s resilience, frittered away the opportunity to hit him at the landing when he was weakest.
At five o’clock, as Confederate artillery pounded the hornets’ nest, Bull Nelson arrived at the riverbank opposite Pittsburg Landing. Despite Grant’s order to march to the Tennessee, Buell had kept the 4th Division at Savannah until 1:30 waiting for the situation to clarify. When Buell and his staff departed to meet Grant, Nelson put his division in motion overland. Five hours had been lost, but the former naval officer pressed through the black-mud swamp at what seafarers called flank speed. “The roar of cannon continues, and volleys of musketry can be distinguished,” Colonel Ammen noted in his diary. “The men appear cool yet march at a good rate through the mud, anxious to meet the foe.”150 Nelson, mounted on an enormous Kentucky stallion and attired in battle regalia General Winfield Scott might envy, led the troops ashore through the mass of deserters cowering along the bank. “Draw your sabers, gentlemen, and trample these bastards in the mud.”151 With regimental bands sounding the strains of “Hail, Columbia,” the 10th Brigade marched up the bluff where Grant and Buell were waiting. One of Grant’s soldiers wrote he could never forget the new hope that came to him when he heard Nelson’s bands, and he said the men all around him cheered “till the whole woods fairly shook for joy.”152
Nelson arrived just in time. Colonel Webster had worked frantically all afternoon to piece together a defense line at Pittsburg Landing. Known by historians as Grant’s last line, the Union position stretched from the river, up the slope, and along the high ground for about 2,000 yards. Along this ridge Webster emplaced almost seventy cannon, including a battery of enormous siege guns. The gunboats Tyler and Lexington, Grant’s old friends from Belmont and Fort Henry, anchored the left of the line, while Sherman and McClernand held the right. Hurlbut, plus the survivors of William Wallace’s division, took position next to McClernand. Altogether about 18,000 Union infantry formed up in front of the artillery. But there was a quarter-mile gap on the left end of the line between Hurlbut and the river with no troops whatever. The guns were exposed without infantry support. Grant posted Nelson at that end of the line. Ammen’s brigade moved quickly and was in position when the Confederates began their final assault.
It had taken Beauregard some time to reorganize his forces after the hornets’ nest fell, but as the sun sank toward the horizon he launched a final go-for-broke attack to separate Grant from the Tennessee. The men were exhausted, the terrain was difficult, and Grant was ready. Nevertheless 8,000 troops moved forward under Bragg’s command to challenge the Union left. “One more charge, my men, and we shall capture them all.”153 There was irony in Bragg’s exhortation. At Buena Vista his battery broke the final Mexican charge for Zachary Taylor. Now he was on the other side of the muzzle. When the rebel assault wave came into view, Webster’s guns erupted with an intensity that surpassed the Confederate cannonade at the hornets’ nest: Grape and canister from the field artillery, shot and shell from the siege guns and gunboats. Less than half of Bragg’s 8,000 men advanced far enough to close with the Union infantry and they were repulsed easily. Bragg was ready to try again when Beauregard called him off. “The victory is sufficiently complete; it is needless to expose our men to the fire of the gunboats.”154 Like Pillow at Donelson, Beauregard believed the battle had been won. He ordered his troops to pull back and spend the night in the captured Union camps. Bragg was less sanguine. For a moment he considered disobeying Beauregard’s order, then he saw Polk and Breckinridge falling back. “My God, my God, it is too late.”155
Mounted among his smoking cannon, Grant watched the Confederate attack fade away. For a moment he was alone with his thoughts. An aide heard him mutter under his breath and to no one in particular, “Not beaten yet. Not by a damn sight.”156 Then Grant turned his horse and went about the business of preparing for tomorrow. Union losses were enormous. At least 7,000 men had been killed or wounded, and as many as 3,000 captured. Another 5,000 to 10,000 milled along the riverbank, too frightened to be of service. Two divisions—the 2nd and the 6th—no longer existed. General William Wallace was missing and Prentiss a prisoner. Forty pieces of artillery had been lost or destroyed, and four of five division camps had been captured by the Confederates. Tons of supplies, ammunition, and foodstuffs had fallen into rebel hands. Grant was holding little more than a beachhead. The front was two miles behind where it had been that morning, junior officers commanded the remnants of shattered regiments, and Lew Wallace’s 3rd Division had yet to make an appearance. Whether Buell would commit more than Nelson’s division had not been settled.X
“General, things are going decidedly against us,” said an Illinois surgeon standing by. “Not at all, sir,” said Grant. “We’re whipping them now.” The doctor said afterward that no other man in the army would have responded as Grant did.157 A newsman who heard the conversation asked Grant what he meant. “The enemy has done all he can do today. They can’t break our lines tonight—it is too late. Tomorrow we shall attack them with fresh troops and drive them, of course.”158
It was in that frame of mind that Grant visited each of his division commanders. “So confident was I that the next day would bring victory if we could only take the initiative that I directed them to throw out heavy lines of skirmishers in the morning as soon as they could see, and push them forward until they found the enemy, following with their entire division, and to engage the enemy as soon as found.”159 Grant told Sherman the situation was similar to that at Fort Donelson: “both sides seemed defeated, and whoever assumed the offensive was sure to win.”160 The instructions Grant gave his division commanders illustrate his control of the battlefield. He made the decision to attack at dawn and left it to them to put their troops in motion.
About 10 P.M. a slow drizzle began to fall. Grant was sitting with his staff around a smoldering fire when Colonel McPherson rode up, having inspected the preparations for tomorrow. “Well, Mac, how is it?” asked Grant. McPherson said he was pessimistic—a third of the army was out of action and the rest downcast and disheartened. When Grant made no reply, McPherson asked, “General Grant, under this condition of affairs, what do you propose to do, sir? Shall I make preparations for retreat?”
“Retreat?” Grant asked incredulously. “No. I propose to attack at daylight and whip them.”161
Later, sometime after midnight, raining harder now, Sherman went looking for Grant. He had worked five hours to prepare his division to attack, but it seemed hopeless. His men had been thoroughly beaten and Sherman—who would have been the last to say so—thought it important “to put the river between us and the enemy.” This is why he sought Grant, to see when and how the retreat could be arranged. The rain was coming down in buckets, punctuated by heavy thunder and lightning in the background. In this surreal setting Sherman found Grant standing alone under a large oak tree, dripping wet, hat slouched down over his face, coat collar up around his ears, a dimly glowing lantern in his hand, cigar clenched between his teeth. Sherman looked at him for a moment from a distance. Then, “moved” as he put it later, “by some wise and sudden instinct not to mention retreat,” Sherman approached and said, “Well, Grant, we’ve had the devil’s own day, haven’t we?”
“Yes,” answered Grant, puffing hard on his cigar. “Yes. Lick ’em tomorrow though.”162
The second day at Shiloh was a reflection of Grant’s determination. As Sherman’s comment suggests, a general imparts attitude to an army. It is not simply a matter of issuing orders, but infusing spirit and initiative. An inchoate bond develops between a successful commander and the army. His will becomes theirs. Grant’s relationship with the Army of the Tennessee at Shiloh exemplified that bond. Lee established it with the Army of Northern Virginia. Washington did it with the Continental Army. The men fought because they knew Grant expected them to, and they trusted his judgment that they could do so.
Beauregard was equally confident. “I thought I had Grant just where I wanted him.”163 That evening he wired Richmond: “We this morning attacked the enemy in strong position in front of Pittsburg, and after a severe battle of ten hours, thanks be to the Almighty, gained a complete victory, driving the enemy from every position.”164
The Southern army, officers and men alike, shared Beauregard’s assessment. All believed a great victory had been won. If the defeated Union army remained in the field, which most doubted, they would make short work of it in the morning. As for Buell, Beauregard received a dispatch that evening from the Confederate command in Alabama stating the Army of the Ohio had been diverted to Decatur and would not link up with Grant after all.165 At the very time Beauregard was reading the dispatch, Thomas L. Crittenden’s division of Buell’s army was debarking at Pittsburg Landing, to be followed by Alexander McCook’s in the early morning hours. The indefatigable Nathan Bedford Forrest, who alone among Confederate commanders had not withdrawn his cavalry patrols, noted the increased river traffic, investigated, and reported to Hardee that Grant was receiving reinforcements by the thousands. “If this army does not move and attack them between now and daylight, it will be whipped like hell before ten o’clock tomorrow.”166 Hardee evidently assumed the movement Forrest observed was the Union army evacuating. He told the Memphis cavalryman to maintain a strong picket line and then went back to sleep, not bothering to pass Forrest’s report up the chain of command.167
Hardee’s error was critical but understandable. What few recognized was that thanks in part to Beauregard’s initial attack plan, the Confederate army was far more disorganized at this point than Grant’s. The Army of the Tennessee had lost two divisions. But the cohesion of the remaining four and the army’s command structure remained intact. Man for man, Union and Confederate losses were similar. But rebel troop units were hopelessly intermingled and discipline had all but collapsed, compromised by the delirious looting of Federal camps that continued through the night. Five to ten thousand Union soldiers might be cowering on the riverbank, but at least as many Southerners were out of action in search of plunder.168 On paper the Confederate army numbered perhaps 33,000 present for duty Sunday evening. The reality was closer to 23,000. The corps commanders—Hardee, Polk, Bragg, and Breckinridge—agreed with Beauregard that the best thing to do was to wait until daylight to sort things out. No front was established, few officers undertook to resupply their men with ammunition—though millions of cartridges were lying about in Union camps—and no attempt was made to entrench. While Grant readied his attack, Beauregard and Bragg spent the night in Sherman’s tent, relishing Southern victory.
The celebration was short-lived. First off the mark Monday morning was Bull Nelson. At 3 A.M. he roused his staff and at five o’clock his picket line moved forward. Nelson’s division occupied the far left of the Union position, its flank anchored on the Tennessee. Next to Nelson was Crittenden, then McCook. Grant’s four divisions constituted the right wing of the army: Hurlbut, McClernand, and Sherman, with Lew Wallace’s 3rd Division on the flank. Altogether the Union attack force numbered close to 40,000 men, more than half of whom were fresh troops eager to take on the enemy. Grant was with Lew Wallace when the report of artillery sounded from Nelson’s front. “Move out that way,” said Grant, pointing southwest in the direction of the Confederate left flank. Wallace acknowledged the order and asked if he was to adopt any particular formation. “I leave that to your discretion,” said Grant. With those few words the attack on the Union right began. Grant never burdened his division commanders with excessive detail. No elaborate staff conferences, no written orders prescribing deployment or combat objectives. Grant said nothing to Wallace about yesterday’s fight, Buell’s arrival, or who would be supporting him. He wanted Wallace to move in a particular direction and left it at that. The genius of Grant’s command style lay in its simplicity. Better than any Civil War general, Grant recognized the battlefield was in flux. By not specifying movements in detail, he left his subordinate commanders free to exploit whatever opportunities developed.169
Monday’s fight was a repeat of Sunday, in reverse. The massive Union assault caught the Southerners off guard, and the most advanced Confederate units succumbed quickly. “At daybreak our pickets came rushing in under a murderous fire,” said Joseph Thompson of the 38th Tennessee. “The first thing we knew we were almost surrounded by six or seven regiments of Yankees.”170 Hardee and Bragg held their ground, counterattacked, yet were eventually overwhelmed. The Confederate line yielded grudgingly, but like Grant’s the day before, it did not crack. Once again, fighting was heavy all along the front. “The rebels fall back slowly, stubbornly, but they are losing ground,” Colonel Ammen recorded.171 By early afternoon the outcome was no longer in doubt. Southern morale deteriorated as exhausted troops battled against ever lengthening odds.
Shortly after two o’clock, Beauregard’s adjutant, Colonel Thomas Jordan, asked if it would not be prudent to break off the fight and withdraw. “General, do you not think our troops in the condition of a lump of sugar thoroughly soaked with water, but yet preserving its original shape, though ready to dissolve.”172 Beauregard agreed. Corps commanders were instructed to pull back, saving as much ordnance as possible. At 3 P.M. the retreat began, effectively covered by Breckinridge’s corps, which steadfastly held the Corinth road below Shiloh church as the army withdrew. The retrograde movement, one of the most difficult maneuvers to undertake in the heat of battle, was executed smoothly. Bragg, Hardee, and Polk led their corps a mile or so south and camped where they had slept two nights earlier on the eve of battle. Breckinridge remained in position to discourage pursuit. But there was no pursuit. After two days of the fiercest fighting ever seen in North America, the Union army was content to regain possession of the battlefield.
Grant watched the enemy retire. “I wanted to pursue, but had not the heart to order the men who had fought desperately for two days, lying in the mud and rain whenever not fighting, and I did not feel disposed to positively order Buell, or any part of his command to pursue.”173 In his Memoirs Grant wrote, “Shiloh was the severest battle fought at the West during the war, and but few in the East equalled it for hard determined fighting.” Until then, Grant said he thought the Confederate government would collapse quickly if the Union could win a decisive victory. But the audacity the rebels displayed in assuming the offensive, and the gallantry with which they fought at Shiloh, convinced him that the Union could not be saved except by total victory.
Up to that time it had been the policy of our army, certainly of that portion commanded by me, to protect the property of citizens whose territory was invaded, without regard to sentiments, whether Union or Secession. After this, I regarded it as humane to both sides to protect the persons of those found at their homes, but to consume everything that could be used to support or supply armies. . . . I continued this policy to the close of the war.174
Shiloh was a watershed, not only for Grant, but for North and South alike. The losses were stupefying, and about equal. The difference was the Union could replenish its men and equipment, the Confederacy could not. Of the 100,000 men who fought at Shiloh, 23,746 were killed, wounded, or captured. Combined Union and Confederate casualties were nearly double the losses at Bull Run, Wilson’s Creek, Fort Donelson, and Pea Ridge added together. In two days of bitter fighting more casualties were inflicted than in all of America’s previous wars (Revolution, 1812, Mexico) combined. Grant lost 1,754 killed, 8,408 wounded, and 2,885 missing, for a total of 13,047. Beauregard reported 1,728 killed, 8,012 wounded, and 959 missing, a total of 10,699.
Grant’s victory at Shiloh, bloody and bitter though it was, doomed the Confederate cause in the Mississippi valley. In the East, fighting had just begun. But in the West a great turning point had been reached and passed. The chances of Confederate victory, long to begin with, had become immeasurably longer.
The battle, as Wellington said of Waterloo, was “a near run thing.”175, XI If Johnston could have hit Prentiss with his main battle line at dawn, the extra ninety minutes of daylight might have furnished the margin of victory. If Johnston had concentrated on driving Grant back from the Tennessee and had not been diverted to reinforce the attack on Sherman, victory might have come early. If rebel soldiers had not stopped to loot Union camps, Grant’s center might not have had time to re-form. If Beauregard had bypassed the hornets’ nest and hit Grant at the landing before Nelson arrived, the outcome might have been different. If anyone other than Grant had been in command Sunday night, the Union army certainly would have retreated. Battles often hinge on ifs, and at Shiloh the ifs were on the Union side.
In Washington, news of the victory in “the bloodiest battle of modern times,” triggered massive rejoicing.176 Congress suspended business and President Lincoln declared a national day of worship. The New York Times and the New York Herald celebrated Grant as a national hero.177 But when fearful casualty lists appeared and rumors of Union unpreparedness made their rounds, a harsh reaction set in. Old stories of Grant’s intoxication resurfaced and the clamor for his removal engulfed the White House. Lincoln listened attentively one evening to old friends and advisers who urged that Grant be sacked. At length the president rose from his chair and spoke in an earnest tone that ended the conversation: “I can’t spare this man; he fights.”178
I. After McClellan rejected his request, Halleck circumvented the chain of command and approached Secretary of War Stanton directly. “One whole week has been lost already by hesitation and delay. There was, and I think there still is, a golden opportunity to strike a fatal blow, but I can’t do it unless I can control Buell’s army. . . . There is not a moment to be lost. Give me the authority, and I will be responsible for the results.” To Assistant Secretary of War Thomas A. Scott, who was then in Louisville, Halleck sent a similar message, asking him to come to the Cumberland “and divide the responsibility with me. I am tired of waiting for action in Washington. They will not understand the case. It is as plain as daylight to me.” Halleck to Stanton, February 21, 1862, 7 War of the Rebellion 655; Halleck to Scott, February 21, 1862, ibid. 648.
The most generous interpretation of Halleck’s action is that he overestimated the fighting capacity of Johnston’s force and believed Grant’s army alone was insufficient to defeat it. Since Grant had almost three times as many men as Johnston, and since his army, unlike the Confederate, was riding the momentum of victory, it is a difficult argument to sustain. In any event, Stanton, like McClellan, turned Halleck down flatly. “The President does not think any change in the organization of the army or the military departments at present advisable.” Stanton to Halleck, February 22, 1862, ibid. 652.
II. Nelson’s fighting career ended abruptly September 29, 1862, when he was shot and killed by Indiana brigadier Jefferson C. Davis in the corridor of Galt House in Louisville, Kentucky. Nelson had insulted Davis the week before. When Davis demanded satisfaction, Nelson slapped him in the face with the back of his hand. Davis procured a pistol from a bystander and shot Nelson. General Philip H. Sheridan said “the ball entered Nelson’s breast just above the heart, but his great strength enabled him to ascend the stairway notwithstanding the mortal character of the wound, and he did not fall till he reached the corridor on the second floor. He died about half an hour later.” 1 Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan 188 (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1888); Kirk C. Jenkins, “A Shooting at the Galt House: The Death of General William Nelson,” 43 Civil War History 101–118 (1997). Also see Howard H. Peckham, “I Have Been Basely Murdered,” 14 American Heritage 88–92 (1963).
III. The independence of the military telegraph service was a problem for Union commanders throughout the war. Its shortcomings are detailed with great exactitude by Dean Roscoe Pound of the Harvard Law School (a Civil War buff), in “The Military Telegraph in the Civil War,” 66 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 185–203 (1938).
IV. Smith was as eager as Grant to close with Johnston. Writing to a friend shortly after moving upriver, Smith said: “My orders are to accomplish a certain purpose without bringing on a general engagement; to retire rather than doing so. Now if my men were soldiers in the proper acceptation of the term, this piece of strategy might do very well, but as they are not soldiers I mean to fight my way through if necessary. And when I get them into a fight it shall be no child’s play.” Addressee unknown, March 9, 1862. C. F. Smith Papers, Glenbrook, Connecticut.
V. On March 11, 1862, President Lincoln, fretting over McClellan’s inaction, reorganized the Union high command. Little Mac was relieved as general in chief although allowed to remain as commander of the Army of the Potomac. John C. Frémont was recalled and entrusted with command of Union forces in western Virginia, and Halleck was made commander of a newly created Department of the Mississippi, merging the old departments of the Missouri and the Ohio. For the interim there would be no general in chief and Lincoln would direct the armies through Stanton. President’s General War Order Number 3, March 11, 1862, 8 War of the Rebellion 596.
VI. Nelson personally wrote the division’s order of the day, which was read to the troops at dress parade on the 28th.
“Reveille will be sounded tomorrow at 4 A.M. At 6 A.M., the Tenth Brigade will move with one day’s rations in haversacks. . . . The wagons will be carefully loaded with reference to fording Duck River—tents and other articles not liable to injury from water at the bottom, and ammunition on top.
“On reaching the ford, the men will strip off their pantaloons, secure their cartridge boxes about their necks, and load knapsacks on the wagons; bayonets will be fixed, and the pantaloons, in a neat roll, will be carried on the point of the bayonet. A halt will be ordered on the other side of the ford, to allow the men to take off their drawers, wring them dry, and resume their clothing and knapsacks.
“Strong parties will be detailed to accompany the wagons, to assist them cross the ford. The rear-guard of each regiment will consist of one company under charge of field [grade] officer, whose particular province it will be to assist the passage of the [supply] train over the ford.”
E. Hannaford, The Story of a Regiment: A History of the Campaigns and Associations in the Field of the Sixth Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry 232–33 (Cincinnati: Hannaford, 1868).
VII. The five Union divisions at Pittsburg Landing totaled 37,500 men present for duty, plus another 7,500 noncombatants—cooks, medics, teamsters, and the like. Lew Wallace’s 3rd Division, six miles away at Crump’s Landing, numbered 7,300. That brought Grant’s combat strength to roughly the same as Johnston’s, although Wallace’s division was not present when the Confederate attack began.
VIII. Joshua 18:1. Shiloh, in the province of Ephraim, was the custodial site for the ark of the covenant under the priesthood of the house of Eli. It was leveled by the victorious Philistines after the battle of Ebenezer in 1050 B.C. 1 Samuel 4:1–22. The excavated site is nineteen miles north of Jerusalem. 24 Encyclopaedia Britannica (11th ed.) 860.
IX. In a duel fought in Texas in 1837, Johnston was struck in the right hip by a pistol ball that cut the sciatic nerve. From that time onward, his leg had been numb to pain, heat, and cold, and it is likely he was unaware he was shot until he fell in the saddle.
X. “Buell seemed to mistrust us,” wrote Sherman, “and repeatedly said he did not like the looks of things, especially about the boat landing, and I really feared he would not cross over his army that night, lest he become involved in a general disaster.” William Tecumseh Sherman, 1 Memoirs of General William T. Sherman 266 (New York: Library of America, 1990). (Reprint.)
XI. The parallel between Shiloh and Waterloo is striking. Not only were the French and Confederate battle plans similar, but so were the British and Union responses. All day Wellington withstood whatever Napoleon threw against him. The British line bent but never broke. So too with Grant. Late in the afternoon, the final charge of the French Old Guard collapsed before the compact squares of the Union and Household brigades. The final Confederate assault was broken at dusk by the massed artillery of Grant’s last line. At the tail end of the battle, Blücher came to Wellington’s support just as Buell came to Grant’s. Of the 100,000 men who fought at Shiloh, one out of every four was killed, wounded, or captured. Casualties were 24 percent, the same as at Waterloo.