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WAR PAPER

No. 5.

Commandery Of the State OF CALIFORNIA

MILITARY ORDER OF THE Loyal Legion OF THE UNITED STATES.

"SHILOH" AS SEEN BY A PRIVATE SOLDIER.

A PAPER READ BEFORE CALIFORNIA COMMANDERY OF THE MILITARY ORDER OF THE Loyal Legion of the United States, MAY 31, 1889.

BY COMPANION WARREN OLNEY, LATE CAPTAIN 65TH U. S. C. Inf.

THE BATTLE OF SHILOH.

With Some Personal Reminiscences.

Very interesting descriptions of the great battles of the late war, written by prominent generals, have been lately published and widely read. It seems to me, however, that it is time for the private soldier to be heard from.

Of course, his field of vision is much more limited than that of his general. On the other hand, it is of vital importance to the latter to gloss over his mistakes, and draw attention only to those things which will add to his reputation. The private soldier has no such feeling. It is only to the officers of high rank engaged that a battle can bring glory and renown. To the army of common soldiers, who do the actual fighting, and risk mutilation and death, there is no reward except the consciousness of duty bravely performed. This was peculiarly the case in the late war, when more than a million of young men, the flower of our country, left their workshops and farms, their schools and colleges, to endure the hardships of the march and the camp, to risk health, limb and life, that their country might live, expecting nothing, hoping nothing for themselves, but all for their fatherland.

The first really great battle of the war was that of Pittsburg Landing, or Shiloh, and I shall not only attempt to give a general account of the battle, but also describe it from the point of view of a man in the ranks.

In respect to the general features of this desperate struggle between our own countrymen, my statements are derived from many reports and accounts carefully collated, and from many conversations with soldiers engaged, both from the Union and Confederate armies.

Who of us, having reached middle life, does not recall the exultation and enthusiasm aroused by the news of the capture of Fort Donelson? What a thrill of pride and patriotism was felt through all the loyal North! The soldiers of the great Northwest had attacked a citadel of the rebellion, and captured it, with sixteen thousand of its defenders.

At St. Louis we were put on board the steamer "Iatan." Down the Mississippi, up the Ohio, up the Tennessee. As we proceeded up the Tennessee we were continually overtaking or being joined by other steamboats loaded with troops, until presently the river was alive with transports, carrying the army of the West right into the heart of the Confederacy. It was a beautiful and stirring sight; mild weather had set in , the flotilla of steamboats, black with soldiers, bands playing, flags flying, all combined to arouse and interest. It was the "pomp and circumstance of glorious war."

Frequent stoppages were made, giving us a chance to run ashore. About the thirteenth we reached the landing-place, which soon afterwards became famous. The river was very high, and at first there seemed to be doubts as to where a landing should be effected, but in a few days the question was settled. Our boat was moored as near the shore as possible, and we joined the immense throng painfully making their way through the unfathomable mud to camps in the dense woods. The first things I observed after reaching the high bluff, were trees that had been torn and shattered by shells from our gunboats, which, it seems, had dislodged a company of Confederates, who had dug rifle-pits on the bluff, from whence they had fired on our steamboats.

We first camped on the bluff near the landing, but shortly moved back about a mile from the river, and camped on the edge of a small cotton field with dense forests all around. The Hamburg road ran past the left of our line, between us and the Forty-first Illinois; while on the right was a small ravine, which ran into a little creek, and that into Snake Creek.

The mud--well, it was indescribable. Though we were only a mile from our base of supplies, the greatest difficulty was experienced in getting camp equipage and provisions. We found that other divisions of the army had landed before us, moving farther out to the front towards Corinth, and had so cut up the roads that they were quagmires their whole length. Teams were stalled in the mud in every direction. The principal features of the landscape were trees, mud, wagons buried to the hub, and struggling, plunging mule teams. The shouts of teamsters and resounding whacks filled the air; and as to profanity--well, you could see the air about an enraged teamster turn blue as he exhorted his impenitent mules. And the rain! how it did come down! As I recall it, the spring of 1862 did not measure its rainfall in Western Tennessee by inches, but by feet.

But in time our camp was fairly established. Sibley tents were distributed, one for fourteen men. They protected us from the rain, but they had their drawbacks. Several of us were schoolmates from a Western college, and, of course, in some respects, constituted a little aristocracy. We had had a small tent to ourselves, and the socialistic grayback, as yet, had not crawled therein. Now, we were required to share our tent with others, and that might mean a great many. But when it came to a question of sleeping out in the cold rain, or camping down in a crowded tent in true democratic equality and taking the chances of immigration from our neighbors' clothing, we did not prefer the rain.

Of course, the private soldier has not much opportunity for exploration about his camp, however strong may be his passion in that direction. I did what I could, but my knowledge of the general encampment was much enlarged when, during the days following the battle, all discipline being relaxed, I tramped the field over in every direction and talked with the men of numerous regiments on their camp grounds. Further on, I shall refer to the position occupied by our army more at length, and shall only refer now to the general position of our encampment, as on a wooded plateau, accessible to attack only from the direction of Corinth, the river being in our rear, Snake Creek and Owl Creek on our right flank, and Lick Creek on our left. In places there were small fields with their adjuncts of deserted cabins. Our troops were camped wherever there was an opening in the woods or underbrush sufficiently large for a regiment. There seemed to be no order or system about the method of encampment, but each regiment occupied such suitable ground as presented itself in the neighborhood of the rest of the brigade; and the same was true of the brigades composing the divisions.

Our regiment was brigaded with the Twenty-eighth, Thirty-second, and Forty-first Illinois. The division was commanded by Brigadier-General Stephen A. Hurlbut . We had served under him in Missouri, and our principal recollection of him was an event which occurred at Macon. We had got aboard a train of cattle cars for the purpose of going to the relief of some point threatened by the enemy. After waiting on the train two or three hours, expecting every moment to start, we noticed a couple of staff officers supporting on each side the commanding general, and leading him to the car I was in. Getting him to the side of the car, they boosted him in at the door, procured a soldier's knapsack for him to sit on, and left him. He was so drunk he couldn't sit upright. The consequence was that the regimental officers refused to move. A court-martial followed, and we heard no more of our general until we found him at Pittsburg Landing in command of a division. He showed so much coolness and bravery in the battle which followed, that we forgave him his first scandalous appearance. But the distrust of him before the battle can readily be imagined.

Our colonel was thoroughly disliked and distrusted. As he was the ranking colonel of the brigade, he was placed in command of it; so you see we did not feel particularly happy over the situation, especially as we knew the Confederate army was only twenty-two miles off.

The steady, cold rains of the first week or two was most depressing. On account, probably, of the bad weather and exposure, the soldiers' worst enemy, diarrhoea, took possession of our camps, and for a week or ten days we literally had no stomachs for fighting. But after a little the rain let up, the sun came out warm, our spirits revived, the roads, and consequently the supplies improved; and on the whole, we thought it rather jolly.

If you had been there of a warm, sunny day you would have noticed every log and stump serving as a seat for a soldier, who had taken off his shirt and was diligently hunting it all over. It was not safe to ask him what he was looking for.

Troops were continually arriving, some of them freshly recruited, and not yet familiar with their arms, or the simplest elements of regimental maneuvers. It was said there were some regiments who had just received their guns, and had never fired them. Badeau says they came on the field without cartridges. I know that improved rifles were scarce, for my own regiment at that time did not have rifles, but old smooth bore muskets with buck-and-ball ammunition--that is, the cartridge had next to the powder a large ball, and then next to it three buck shot. Of course, we should have had no show against rifles at long range, but at short range, in woods and brush, these weapons were fearfully destructive, as we shall presently see.

Strange to say, these freshly recruited regiments were assigned to Sherman's division and to Prentiss' divisio, saw squat legs flick from the opening in the rock, saw the creature scurry back to the few others of its kind that rested at the side of the semi-frozen pool of liquid. He grinned again, then pressed forward to lead the way to the cliff.

They rested in the lee of the escarpment, safe from the howling wind, huddling out of the way of the rocks and snow-clots that went spinning by from the fury of the storm.

"Now what?" Caxton asked.

Tom Headley glanced at the gauges below the level of his chin, watched the needles carefully.

"God!" he said. "This place is a storehouse of minerals and elements. We'll have no trouble getting money for an expedition."

Headley watched a single dial, turned slowly, studying the line of cliff-base at his left. "Close by," he said. "It must be a big deposit, for the needle doesn't waver."

"Then let's get to it!" Caxton came to his feet, towered over his squatting partner.

Headley struggled upright, fighting the super-gravity, led the way down the edge of the escarpment. Time and again, he fell, tripped by the gravity, whirled aside by the smashing wind. Each time, he struggled erect, forced himself to go forward again.

He watched the needle floating in its case, followed its point unerringly toward a shallow recess in the cliff's base. Using his belt pick, he chopped at the layer of ice and snow, let out a shout of relief when a strip of reddish metal appeared.

"This is it," he announced. "Now the repair job will be simple."

Bart Caxton nodded, seeing the metal, and for a brief second his hand hovered over the single gun strapped to his suit. Then he relaxed, caught his pick in his right hand, bent forward to help smash away great chunks of the metal.

"It's almost anticlimactic," he said shortly, "finding this stuff so easily."

Then they worked without further conversation, digging loose a great pile of the metal, making staggering trips to the ship with the precious element that was the only metal with which their rocket tubes could be repaired. Hours later, they cogged the port shut on their ship, exhausted the tainted air, released a breathable atmosphere.

They worked in shifts, eating and sleeping when they could, Caxton doing the crude work, Headley putting the final touches upon the delicate task that was theirs.

And forty hours later they stood in admiration of the job they had done. New metal tubes glowed redly in the light of the radi-lamps, ready to send the ship hurtling back toward inhabited space. They still sparkled from the heat generated when Headley had given them a trial burst of power.

"And that's that," Headley said. His face was grim and lined, and his smile was a trifle forced.

Bart Caxton nodded, but his eyes were on the bank of dials that indicated the quantity of oxygen still aboard the ship. His lips were thin, and his eyes blank, as he made swift calculations in his chaotic mind.

"Let's blast off," he said.

Anger distorted Caxton's features. His hand sought the gun at his waist, then dropped beneath the steadiness of Headley's gaze.

"All right," he agreed sullenly. "But let's hurry."

Five trips they made, carrying the metal back to the ship, knowing that each trip made them more wealthy, so scarce was the metal in great quantities.

And then, on the sixth trip, Caxton snatched the single gun from Headley's waist. He laughed as he did so, and the sound was thin and strained with triumph.

"It's you or me, Headley," he snarled. "And I figure it's going to be me."

Headley felt horror welling into his mind, but he forced his voice to be absolutely calm and unemotional.

"Don't be a fool, man," he said. "Both of us can make it back, by going on short oxy-rations."

A cone of blackness flared from the gun in his hand, caught Tom Headley, dropped him in his tracks. He twitched silently, lay where he had fallen, his right arm splashing liquid from the tiny pool at his feet.

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