Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1885-04-09
THE BATTLE oE SHILOH

This celebrated battle was fought on Sun
day and Monday, the 9Th and 7th of April.
1862. 1t took its name from a little loe
church. known as Shiloh church. The scene
of the engagement is a thickly wooded,
though broken, country, reaching back from
the bluffs at Pittsburg Landing from two to
three miles. Grant and his staff were break
fasting at Savannah when he first heard the
fire of the enemy's attack. Grants horse
having slipped and fallen on his masters leg
on the 4th, at the time of the b,lttle and for
some days after Grant was unable to walk
without the aid of crutches His boot had
been cut from his foot. Hearing the firing
he boarded a transport and started for the
front, arriving there at s o'clock. The his
toric battle was already on. Sherman, Prem
tiss, McClernand, Hurlburt and W. h Wal.
lace, with 80, 600 men, were there The Con-
federate force, according to Badeau, was
little over 40, 600 There was hard fighting.
small panics, retreating and other signs of
dismay among the Federal troops, and re-
newed vigor on the part of the enemy. Nelson
and Lewis Wallace were coming with re-en-
forcements, but the battle was going awry.
Grant was everywhere on the field, constantly
under fire. In his own account of it he saws:
Three of five divisions engaged the first day at
only received their arms the way from their
states to the field. Many of them had arrived but
day or two before. and were hardly able to load
their muskets according to the manual. Their of.
fcers equally ignoran; of their duties Under
these circumstances it is not astonishing that many
OF the regiments broke at the first fire. In two
cases, l now remember, the coloncls led their
regiments from the field first hearing the whistle
of the enemys bullets In these cases the coloneIs
constitutional cowards unfit for any military
position. But the officers and men led out Of
nv them. Raftpr
battlefield than many Of these officers and men
afterward proved themselves to be, who fed
panic stricken. at the first whistle Of bullets and
shell a shiloh.
General Albert Sidney Johnston, Con-
federate commander, was killed on the first
day of Shiloh's battle. Jefferson Davis had
early said of him that he regarded his SER
vice to the Confederacy as worth more than
the accession of an army of 10000 men.
Night fell and found the fight unfinished.
The gunboats continued to fling shells into
the Confederate lines, the woods caught fire.
and only merciful rain saved the wounded
from being burned alive. Buell. and Gen
Lew Wallace arrived and the old lines were
reformed. Grant visited each division COM
mander after dark, directing their positions
and ordering an attack at early dawn At
last, returning to the landing, ne made his
headquarters under tree, and lay down in
the rain to rest. The pain in his swolleJ.
ankle and the drenching rain made him rest
less, and after midnight he moved to the log
house on the bank This was in use rs a hos
pital, filed with the wounded and dying
groaning with anguish ''The sight," say
Grant, twas more uncomfortable than en-
countering the rebel fire, and 1 returned tx
my tree in the rain"
The next day the battle went on until
BeauI egard and his forces beat a final re
treat, Grant having lost over Il, 900 men
Sherman has sad that he never afterwards
saw such terrible fighting. Grant writes
of it:
Shiloh was the most battle fought at the
West during the and but few in the East equaed
1t for hard, determined fighting. saw open field
In our possession on the second day, which the
Confederates Lad made repeated charges the day
before cJvered with dead that it would have beer
possible to walk acfOss the clearing. In any direc
tion. stepping on dead bodies without foot touch
ing the ground. On part, which had evidently
not been plOwed for several years. bushes had grown
up. some to the height Of eight ten feet There
not of these left standing unpierced by bull
lets The smaller ones were all cut down. Contrary
perience of the army 1 was then commanding, We
were on the defensive.
This battle convinced Grant that the war
would be prolonged, and developed his views
as to the conduct of it. Armies and not
strOngholds should be subdued or destroyed,
he thought. He believed, too, that it would
be an economy of blood to spend it rapidly
in a vigorous campaign.