St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1885-04-11
The Battle of Shiloh.

8 little log church, known as Shilof
g church. The scene of the engagement
] is thickly wooded, though broken
country, reaching back from the bluffs
ab Plttsburg Landing from two to three
miles. Grant and his staff were break
fasting at Savannah when he first heard
the tire OF the enemy's attack Grants
horse having slipped and fallen on his
masters leg on the 4th, at the time of
, the battle 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
transport and started for the front,
arriving there at 8 o'clock. The histori-
cal battle was already on. Sherman,
Prentiss, McClernand, Hubert and w.
II. Wallace, with $4,000 men, were there.
The Confederate force, according to
Badeau, was little over 10000. There
was hard fighting, small panics, retreat
Ing and other signs of dismay among
the Federal troops, and renewed Vigor
on the part of the enemy. Nelson and
Lewis Wallace were coming with re-
endorsements, but the battle was going
aWry. Grant was everywhere on the
field, constantly under fire. In his own
account of it he says:
Three of the five divisions engaged
the first day at Shiloh were entirely
raw, and many of them had only receiv-
ed their arms on 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 officers
were equally Ignorant of their duties
Under these circumstances, it is not as
tOnishing that many of the regiments
broke at the first fire. In two cases, as
1 4ktn LII
regiments from the field on first hearing
the whistle of the enemy's bullets. LIN |
these cases the cOlonels were constitu-
tiOnal towards, unfit for any military
position. But not SO the officers and |
men led out of danger by them. Better
troops never went upon a battlefield /
than many of these officers and men af-
terward proved themselves to be, who
He'd, panic stricken, at the first whistle /
of bullets and shell at Shiloh.
General Albert Sidney Johnston, Con-
tederate commander, was killed on the
first day of Shiloh's battle. Jefferson
Davis had early said of him that he re-
garded his service to the Confederacy
as worth more than the accession Of an
army of 10000 men. Night fell and
found the fight unfinished. The gun
boats continued to fling shells into the
Confederate lines, the woods caught fire
and only mercifuI rain saved the
wounded from being burned alive.
Buell. and Gen. Lew Wallace arrived
and the old lines were reformed. Grant
visited each division commander after
dark, directing their positions and or
dering an attack at early dawn. At
last, returning to the landing, he made
bis headquarters under tree, and lay
down in the rain to rest. The pain In
his swollen. ankle and the drenching
rain made him restless, and after mid h
night he moved to the log house on the
bank. This was in use as hospital,
filled with the wounded and dying T.
groaning with anguish. "The sight"
says Grant, "was more uncomfortable
than encountering the rebel fire, and I
to my tree in the rain" {
The next day the battle went on until
Beauregard and his forces beat a final X
retreat, Grant having lost over 12,0O0 s
men. Sherman has said that he never q
afterwards saw such terrible fighting. II
Grant writes of it.
Shiloh was the most severe battle
fought at the West during the war, and
put few in the East eqnaled it for hard.
determined fighting. | saw an open
ield In our possession on the second
lay, over which the Confederates had
made repeated charges the day before, -
10 covered with dead that it would have t,
oeen possible to walk across the clear Il
ng, in any direction, stepping on dead o
bodies, without q foot touching the =
ground. On one part, which had evil
Lently not been plowed for several I
,ears, bushes had grown up, some to q
he height of eight or ten feet. There
vas not one of these left standing un- HI
'ierced by bullets. The smaller ones o.
we're all cut down. Contrary to all my B
experience up to that time, and to- the L
experience of the army was then COM
handing, we were on the defensive.
This battle convinced Grant that the =
var would be prolonged, and developed
is views as to the conduct of it. Ar U
nles and not strongholds should be sub F
ued or destroyed, he thought. He be- y
eved, too, that it would be an economy "a
t blood to spend it rapidly in vigo- to
GUS campaign. n
The New York Tribune roars over " "
he appointment of few ex-Confeder- n
tes to foreign missions and cOnsulates. A
{ says: A better way to show the
of the North toward form O. 9
r rebels could hardly be devised than Al Al
y sending them abroad as representa- ST
ives of the Government they tried to
eStr0y. The Pittsburg Post thus 1e-
lies to the aboves True, and how :
this blessed, reunited
ountry can afford to be What
plendid example of magnanimity the
.epublican party set before the world 81
'hen it sent the rebel Gen. Longstreet st
8 Minister to Turkey, the rebel states
ian Orr as Minister to Russia, the rebel :
reacher Hilliard as Minister to Brazil, n
nd the rebel bushwhacker Mosby to ] II
long Kong! 1t is glorious thing to a
Q magnRnimOus. nc