The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-05-28


cation are gone and yle controlling minds
| cannot formulate or influence the mass
upon which everything depends, the unit
feels wild impulse to save itself from tn
accidents of disorganization.
From the headquarters point of view
one is necessarily saved from this catas
trophe. But to be involved in one Of the
vortexes means to the novice a sudden
breakdown of all the moral elements OF
courage and heroism in hopeless bewilder
ment.
By the nerest accident Blaisdell encoun
tered me. He was mounted, and with his
sword in his hand and bareheaded was
trying to make his way through the tim
Der, believing at the top of his voice in an
extraordinary state of excitement at the
flying men.
From him / learned in gasps that Roth
was doubled up on the left, Hildebrande
was wiped out, Hurlbert had been driven
into the Tennessee and McDowelfs bri.
gade had melted like wax. Our line had
caved in on the left like sand. Get a
horse and help me head off some of these
ID poltroOnsw
1t is not my intention or desire to discuss
the battle of Shiloh. 1t has been fruit,
full and vexed theme of angry military ar
gument ever since it was fought. Mr.. JEFF
ferson Davis and other southern historians
have made it the turning point in the
secession war and rested the point of dis
aster on the death of General Albert sgd
ney Johnston. at was that DEATH" says
Mr.. Davis, which robbed the south of the
great results that would have followed
the complete victory impending at Shiloh.
He was killed just as the Confederate
army was so fully victorious that, had the
attack been pressed, General Grant and
his army would have been prisoners or
fugitives before the setting of the sun.
"Then what?
''The successful Johnston would have led
his troops to the north. The enemy would
have sought safety on the other side of the
Ohio. Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri
would have been recovered, the north
west disafected and the southern armies
filed with the men of the southwest, and
perhaps of the northwest alson'
Roseate postmortem possibilities, but
neither Grant nor Sherman admits for a
moment the postulate upon which they
are built. Our men were not surprised,
we were not discounted, and the next day
we took the initiative with Buell's fresh
troops and Beauregard fell back.
But that battle of the 6th raging ali
day, left its immediate impact of disaster
on the whole north. If General Sherman
could have got from the front to the river
bank for few moments he would have
recognized the point of view from which
the astonished north got its news of disas-
ter. Later in the day got there and saw
the frantic fragments of battalions hud-
died i'll impatient terror upon the river
bottom and making their way across the
swollen river. To look at this unreason-
ing stampede, in which men, suddenly
moved by the ungovernable instinct of self
protection, not only forget that they are
soldiers, but that they are men, was in its
unexpected experiences disheartening and
infectious.
l can now see how much we had to learn;
how we grew with the awful lessons to
know that this outlying chaos was not the
heart of the battle; its mere periphery Of
incidental disorder. But then it was ter
rible. The avalanche OF terror brought
with it TO the river its burden of conster-
nation and excitement. "All was lost.
Save yourselves-save yourselves! The
muddy reaches strewn With arms, &C
couterments and clothing. and heaped with
wounded and dying soldiers: the river
dotted with struggling men and animals
IN InexJrlcabIe paroxysms; the sharp, wild
jargon OF human sounds, and the approach
ing wave of battle rolling up through the
woods with its unmistakable yells of rebel
triumph.
The whole heart of the north seemed
here to melt into abject futility and craven
apprehension. and the army that stood he
tween the south and the Ohio was stream
ing through this crevasse in pitiable self de
struction. Nothing in all this scene upon
which the sense could rest with any feel
ing Of reliance and assurance of organized
power but those two gunboats little far
ther up the river. steadily pouring their
shells aimlessly into the woods and strik-
ing their bells uninterruptedly, as If not
even the day Of judgment could make dis
ciPline intermit.
So this Herrible day went by until Buell's
men appeared in that fed of stumps and
grain. and Buell. himself looked on at the
rout with more of the apprehension Of a
man than the determination Of a soldier.
No one slept that night who did not drop
down from sheer exhaustion. and the next
morning l got g boat slonx with other