A Blaze of Glory (29 page)

SHILOH CHURCH
APRIL 6, 1862, 10:00 A.M.

The fighting continued, steady rumbles of artillery and musket fire, but Sherman had received word from McDowell that the right flank was battered but holding. But the rebel assault seemed to spread out now in a wider arc, much more sound coming from the left, what he had to assume was Prentiss’s lines, and the piece of ground blocked now by McClernand’s men.

In the woods close to the church, more of his men had fallen back, the rebel pressure too great, what seemed to be waves of muskets with no end. More of his artillery was working close by, anchored on good high ground, and to the right, Sherman knew the deep ravines in front of McDowell’s men were thick with dense underbrush, ridiculous places for anyone to move at all. The fugitives from his center streamed back through his tents, some pursued by their officers, trying to rally the unstoppable flow. Sherman watched the action, like some bizarre play, men on horseback chasing men on foot, swords up, voices giving sharp commands to men who would obey nothing. There was courage in the officers, some of them trying to form their men into a piece of a line, some kind of organized defense. But still the musket fire came, a burst of rebels down to the left, rising up from a ravine, emerging from trees, and just that quickly, the blue lines dissolved.

At the church itself, the tents were still up, what Sherman now began to see as a symbol, his own defiance, but too many of his troops were rolling back through his camp, and he sat on the horse, stared into the smoky trees close by, more thoughts racing, General Grant, orders, mortal anger toward Hildebrand, toward anyone who had lost control of their men, the men themselves, their courage draining away at a horrifying rate. The staff had spread out, some of them trying to halt the flow of terrified men, what Sherman could see was a hopeless task. From the road to the right, he saw the rider before anyone else, the man searching, spotting him, a last rapid gallop, the horse bouncing to a halt in a near collision with him.

“Sir! Colonel McDowell offers his respects, and reports that he cannot hold the right flank. The brigade has broken, sir! We have made a valiant effort to hold them in line, but the enemy is pressing us with extreme vigor!”

Sherman looked at the man, a sergeant, gray hair, hatless, the formality of his words not masking the man’s obvious terror. He thought of McDowell with a burst of rage, old man, lines breaking,
you useless son of a bitch
. He wanted to kill the man, strangle McDowell with his hands, jam a cigar in the man’s bloody eye. He fought the image, brought himself to the moment, saw another cluster of bluecoats emerging from the woods, blood and fear, one man calling out, “They’re right behind us! We’re done for!”

Sherman ignored the man, nothing he could say, looked toward the courier.

“Has Colonel McDowell withdrawn with his men?”

“Yes … yes, sir!”

Sherman looked up that way, knew McDowell’s right was the northern flank of the entire army. Behind him, Sanger said, “Do you require a map, sir?”

He ignored Sanger, didn’t need the maps, knew the ground in his head, thought, the far right … bordered along that flank by Owl Creek. Heavy swamps, impassable. Damn him! McDowell was in no danger of being flanked. He just broke.

He looked to the courier again, had nothing to say, no orders, nothing that would prevent any of this, anything that had already happened.

“Stay with me, Sergeant. I may need you.”

He turned to his staff, saw an officer on horseback galloping past, close to the church, the man staring ahead, avoiding Sherman purposely. Sherman put a hand on his pistol, thought of shooting the man, but the officer was quickly away, followed by another, and then, another riderless horse. Sherman felt the shaking again, a wave of the awful feeling he knew so well, but he forced his mind to focus. You are in command.
Be in command
. He stared out toward the woods west of the church, the battle rolling closer still, the musket balls splitting the air overhead. The artillery was still firing, but much of it was
out there
, the sky and trees down to the left torn with the familiar shrieks, thunderous impacts on the ground. He glanced at the tents, the
symbol
now utterly ridiculous. Turning the horse, he looked to his staff, saw cold, grim eyes, good men, men who would follow him anywhere. Well, he thought, this might be as bad as anywhere can be.

“It is time to go, gentlemen. We must withdraw what we can salvage of this division, and make every effort to form a new line. We must retreat.”

W
ith McClernand’s help, Sherman’s officers pulled and gathered and rallied every man who would still fight, and formed a new defensive line nearly a mile back from their original position, a mile closer to Pittsburg Landing. Against the right and center of the Union position, the rebels continued their push, sweeping through the rugged underbrush, driving across open ground and deep gullies, in pursuit of a stunned and demoralized Union army. But not all the men in blue were panicked, and in many of the fields and low ravines the fighting was more brutal and bloody than any of the troops on either side had yet experienced. In those places where the Federal troops stood tall, where their guns and muskets stopped their attackers, or drove them low into thick cover, even the bravest men found that their victories were short-lived. Through the worst ground imaginable, the rebels continued to come, fresh battle lines joining the fight, pulling their own battered troops up out of their cover, pushing forward. No matter the resolve that inspired many of the Union officers to hold their ground, the surprise had been too complete, the wave of rebels too overpowering. By late morning, rebel troops had driven into and past the vast fields of white tents, those neat rows of canvas left intact alongside the Federal food and supply wagons, fire pits and pots of burnt coffee. The camps were vivid testament to the shock and terror that had gripped the men who had once occupied these peaceful fields, men who had endured the drudgery of their routine, their sergeants, weeks of drill and training and bad food. Like Sherman, their primary duty had been to bide their time until the orders came for a grand and glorious campaign, what was now a fantasy, swept away with the tide of fugitives who ran far back from their own camps, their own officers, their own comrades, many not stopping until they reached the only barrier that could halt them: the Tennessee River.

GRANT

SAVANNAH, TENNESSEE APRIL 6, 1862, 10:00 A.M.

T
he first sounds of artillery had reached him at seven that morning, a distant rumble that had alarmed the men stationed outside the headquarters mansion, word brought to Grant that there might be some hint of trouble upstream. Grant had heard the thunder already, had left his breakfast behind, and his first order had gone to the captain of the
Tigress
, to fire the boilers of the compact riverboat that served Grant as a floating headquarters. Within minutes most of his staff was on board, along with their horses, Grant following, hobbled by the crutches, still nursing the painful injury from the tumble of his own horse.

The sounds of the cannon were too distant for him to judge just where the assaults were happening, whether at Crump’s Landing, his first assumption, or farther upstream, at Pittsburg. Crump’s had seemed the most logical, and his greatest fear. The Federal forces there, a single division under Lew Wallace, were assigned to protect an enormous stockpile of supplies and transport boats that would certainly whet the enemy’s appetite. Grant had long given up any notion of secrecy, and he knew that assembling his army so close to Corinth would be interpreted exactly for what it was. If the enemy were to make any effort to prevent that assault, surely they would strike in some kind of small-scale raid that would disrupt the supply lines, or cause havoc in the weakest part of the chain Grant’s army now held along the river. Wallace had believed that as well, had made several efforts to probe westward, hoping to break up any assault before it could begin. But the enemy had shown little inclination to challenge Wallace’s troops, and just as the Federal commanders had experienced farther south, the enemy seemed content to harass Wallace with cavalry raids and brief and hesitant skirmishes. This morning, Grant had heard nothing from Wallace to hint that something larger was afoot. And yet …

The boat finally cast off its lines, easing out into the river, the traffic there making way. The flow of supply boats had been ongoing and impressive, and Grant knew that the rebels must surely be observing the buildup of men and equipment. But none of that explained what he was hearing now, the echoing thunder still too distant to provide details of just how large-scale the engagement had become.

The cool breeze offered no help, only masked the sounds of the guns. He stood on the second deck of the
Tigress
in his usual place, observing the river itself and the boats that were always moving past. Grant was impatient with the injury to his leg, tested it now, setting aside the crutches for a brief moment, tried to stand without help. The pain shot hard through his ankle, and he fell forward slightly, tried to hide it, knew that Rawlins was close behind him, watching, as he always watched. But Rawlins had the good sense to stay back, allowing Grant to slide the crutches back under his arms. Walking is out of the question, he thought. But I can still ride a damn horse. Rawlins will have the entire staff ready to assist me. I should be grateful. He glanced down at the leg, wrapped in thick cloth, an attempt by his doctors to offer a means of support. He knew that the horse had been more fortunate than its rider, and there could be no blame. The weather that night had been gruesomely awful, the blackest night he had ever seen, steady rain and roads that were rivers of mud. The horse had simply lost its footing, tumbling to one side, coming down precisely on Grant’s leg. The only good fortune was the mud, softening the weight of the horse’s impact, which Grant knew had possibly saved his leg altogether. He thought of Smith now, the old general still bedridden, the festering sore above his ankle growing worse, infuriating Smith as well as the doctors, who seemed helpless to offer a cure. If there is a fight, he thought … a general engagement … we shall miss him. William Wallace is a good man, a veteran certainly, but if there is some difficulty, I would feel comfortable knowing Smith is out there. He glanced back toward the wharf at Savannah, already sliding out of view. Heal, dammit. This is a weaker army without you.

He stared to the front again, the
Tigress
passing a larger vessel, hands waving, sailors mostly, greeting their own. He ignored that, didn’t care for the moment what cargo had been aboard the larger boat, still thought of Smith. You warned me to move closer, he thought. I did travel to Pittsburg nearly every day, did my job by making myself visible and available to every one of my officers, ready to solve any problem. That was a lesson straight from Smith’s West Point classroom, but until this morning, Grant had felt no reason for urgency. Once ashore, there was really nothing else he could order his generals to do, beyond those directives he had passed on from Henry Halleck. Anything else would be little more than meddling in the daily routines of men who should know better, who would likely see Grant’s intrusion as more aggravation than help. Every one of the division commanders knew why he was in those camps, every one of them preparing the only way they could for the eventual attack on Corinth. At the landing itself, most of the problems involved tedious arguments between officers who inflated their own importance, disputes over which boat had priority, whose men should be allowed to go ashore before the others, who should get the shipment of new muskets.

The breeze slackened slightly, and he caught a fresh wave of thumps, from upriver. Yes, Smith warned me. You’re too far away. Move out of that damn mansion and make your headquarters at Pittsburg. I always intended to make the move. But now … someone is letting me know that I should be there already.

He looked down into the muddy water, the boat making slow progress against the river’s current. It had been one more bit of punishment from the weather, the river swollen from so much rain, the flow of water lengthening any trip southward. He pushed against the rail with his hands. Dammit, I have to know. If there is some failure here because I was a few miles from where I needed to be … He thought of Halleck. Yes, you will know that very soon. He was certain that Halleck had the means to plant his own eyes everywhere, that some of the staff officers who served any one of the division commanders might be seeking favor with the Western Theater’s commanding general by making their own discreet reports, possibly embellishing anything Grant might order them to do with tales of inefficiency or some insinuation that Grant was being insubordinate to the clear instructions Halleck had issued weeks before. Grant knew that any whiff of displeasure that emerged from Halleck’s headquarters might inspire the same kind of astounding lunacy that had nearly cost Grant his entire career.

He tried to light the cigar, but the crutches kept him immobile, preventing him from shielding the small flame of the match. Rawlins would be there, offering to help, but Grant had already stared the man down, keeping him back, the unspoken message:
Stop being so damn helpful
. He lowered the unlit cigar, Rawlins wisely keeping his distance. Grant stared forward, couldn’t escape the image of Halleck, an image that appeared far more often than Grant would have liked. But the man’s very being had infiltrated every move Grant made, and he thought of the ailing Smith again, the basic lesson of command, staying close to your army. Well, then, Henry old boy, why in hell don’t you come down here and run this show for yourself? There’s not anything going on in St. Louis that requires the
Big Man
to stay neatly tucked away in his office. He knew the scene well, Halleck at his desk, puffy eyes under a raggedly receding hairline, a chinless martinet whose vanity oozed out like the mud that stirred beneath the riverboat. One of these days, he thought, there will come a time when Henry Halleck stretches too far his belief in his own magnificence. There will be some mistake, something only he can be faulted for, and by God, his
genius
will be seen for what it is, the imagination of a small, frightened scoundrel, who runs his army the way a child plays with toys. Right now, I am just that … one of his toys. Grant shook his head, stared at the passing riverbank, sought any kind of distraction. It is unholy to feel such hate for anyone, he thought. Julia would not approve of that, not at all, would lecture me from scripture, as though I should need to be reminded that God will judge me by how I judge others. Even Halleck. Grant stuffed the cigar back into his coat pocket, tried to summon her face, the soft scolding. But the artillery was still there, louder now, the boat rounding another bend, no other boats crowding out the sounds. He thought of the boat’s captain, I should ask him … but no, we shall reach Crump’s soon enough. I will find out something there. Wallace must know something. He can certainly hear what is happening more clearly than we could.

He glanced back, nothing to see, Savannah a mile or more behind, and he thought now of Don Carlos Buell. Buell had arrived at Savannah the night before, ahead of the bulk of his oncoming army. One division of Buell’s army had arrived as well, men who belonged to General William Nelson, one of Buell’s more capable commanders. Grant had ordered that division southward, keeping their march to the east side of the river, and so staying clear of the congestion around Crump’s and the flow of boat traffic on the river itself. Nelson had obeyed him with hesitation and a touch of insolence, something Nelson had wisely tried to hide, but Grant knew exactly why Nelson reacted that way. It was perfectly logical that Buell’s generals had been well indoctrinated by their commander to believe what Buell certainly believed himself, that he should supersede Grant’s authority over this entire campaign. Buell had arrived in Savannah with barely a hint to Grant, and there had been no effort by Buell to find Grant, though Grant knew with absolute certainty that Buell had received Grant’s request for such a meeting. It was infuriating, but he had swallowed that, knew that Buell had once been a virtual equal in authority to Halleck, and that Grant was on thin ice as it was. The meeting had been scheduled for today, and Grant had wondered if Buell would dress him down for having the audacity to order Nelson’s Division upriver without first seeking approval from Buell. Once Grant felt the urgency of moving south, he had sent word to Buell that the meeting would wait.

He let out a long breath, filled his lungs with the cool, damp air. The artillery continued, just a bit louder now, steady and consistent, and Grant thought, surely Buell will hear that. Surely he will hasten the rest of his men this way. Or must I order him, demand he obey? That will inspire a protest, certainly, some hot letter to Halleck, or a tirade to an eager newspaperman, who will make certain that Buell’s admirers know how slighted he has been. It is so tiresome, these men who fight more for themselves than for what we are trying to accomplish. He will obey, for now, no matter how inconvenient that is, because he believes I am only a temporary annoyance. He stared hard to the front, measuring, the distance of the ongoing shelling still masked by the wind. Grant glanced to the side, the boat’s first mate approaching him, the man pointing ahead.

“Sir, Crump’s is just around that bend. It does not seem as though the artillery is that close.”

Grant absorbed the obvious, said, “No, Lieutenant, it does not. We must continue on to Pittsburg without delay. We can put one of my aides ashore quickly to communicate with General Wallace. But we must not hesitate.”

The man backed away with a mild “Sir …” and Grant could see the first of the great horde of boats anchored at the landing. Within a short minute, the wharf was in full view, a jam of steamboats lashed together along the shoreline, no gap, no place to slide the
Tigress
anywhere close to shore. But he could see a scramble of uniforms on one of the boats, the traffic on the river carrying rumor as well as supplies, his arrival already expected. Well, of course, he thought. They can hear those damn guns better than I can. The sounds of the fight were steady, louder now. He had an uneasy feeling, cursed himself. Smith was right. You should have been closer. I’ve got too many men camped out here in enemy territory to be so complacent, to spend my mornings drinking coffee in a mansion, while God-knows-what is going on in these woods. He looked up toward the banks, high above the river, could see tents and crude buildings, surrounded by scores of wagons. He felt a hint of relief, thought, at least they didn’t hit the supplies. We were vulnerable here. But Pittsburg … he shook his head again, the thumps and thunder ongoing. What the hell is happening out there?