The Shiloh Series: Books 1-3

by Phillip Bryant

  “Let’s hope it don’t lead to no foolhardiness. It ain’t for a forlorn hope that I’m waiting—just to hit the enemy and break his line.” Michael knew he was not alone in this. No one wanted to charge into an impossible situation with the only glory to be had afterward in tales told over the graves of those who had charged to their deaths. Such a hope only did the name of a man good after he was interred. Finished with his fussing over the ground, Michael laid out his poncho and stretched out, wriggling slightly to feel out how flat he’d managed to smooth out the earth.

  “Colonel Rogers won’t throw the regiment away on some personal glory,” Wyrich said.

  “No, a colonel wouldn’t, but a general might. If the town is as fortified now as I’ve heard, it will not be an easy day tomorrow even if we do outnumber the enemy,” Michael replied and sat up. Looking ahead of him, the men of the 2nd Texas were but odd shadows and silhouettes lying low to the ground, some moving about but most just lumps on the earth. Taking his tunic and balling it up, Michael lay his head down and stared into the canopy of dark over his head. Wyrich was already snoring. Michael’s own mind still working, he closed his eyes and tried to think of blackness and not of what tomorrow was to bring.

  ****

  It was two in the morning as the regiments of Moore’s brigade rousted themselves from fitful sleep to march forward several hundred yards to form a line once more and wait for light. The infantry had it easy: with skirmishers well forward, the regiments marched through the fields and into the woods without incident and lay down on their arms. The artillery batteries were on a different mission, cursing their luck and commanders for getting them up at all.

  Major William Burnett was anxious. The ridge he was ordered to place the division artillery upon was far forward of their own lines and curved outward and away from where he could discern where any friendlies might even be. Further, the ridge was studded with trees, making getting the pieces upon it difficult—almost impossible to do so silently.

  “Unlimber fifty yards from the top of the ridge and drag the pieces forward,” Burnett said to the commanders gathered around him.

  “Sir,” said Captain Thomas Tobin, commanding a section of Captain Lysander Hoxton’s Memphis light artillery battery, “is the general serious?”

  “General Price wants an early bombardment of the town’s defenses before the infantry attack; we’ll have the advantage of height and hopefully disrupt the enemy before he has time to form,” Burnett responded.

  “And our pickets are out in front?” asked Captain Bledsoe.

  “Yes, I’m told there are skirmishers out in front of the ridge,” Burnett lied. He didn’t really know, but did it really matter if there was anyone out in front? There were the orders to be followed. “The trees are thick along this way, so your teams will have slow going, but just be as quiet as you can be in getting the guns into position. If the enemy hears you he might just start shelling your position or wake his skirmishers, and who knows what will happen, even in the dark.”

  “We keep our caissons that far back, we won’t be able to keep a steady fire,” Lieutenant Moore said.

  “This is just to keep the blue bellies off balance and annoy more than make a destructive bombardment. Frankly, I’d rather not have to do it before light—like to know what we are shooting at—but those are the general’s orders.”

  “Sir,” Captain Tobin said and saluted. “Our best way forward is down the Chewallah road and then fan out, otherwise we’ll spend all night pulling the teams through the trees.”

  “The woods will give us good cover, possibly, once daylight falls,” Captain Bledsoe added.

  “If we form column, I’ll put my battery in lead, and we can spread on either side of the road as we come up and then just pull the guns into position by hand from there,” Lieutenant Moore said.

  “Prepare to fire at 4:30 and keep firing until light, by which time Hébert’s men should be moving forward. Maury’s infantry are supposed to move next, so prepare to move forward to support the infantry advance,” Burnett said.

  With worried looks, each man took his leave of Major Burnett and walked off into the black. As commander of the division artillery, it was his job to see to the placement of the batteries. It was one thing to roll batteries into open fields and wait for an appointed time to open fire, but to do it in pitch blackness and roll up on ground they knew nothing about was another. As long as the skirmishers and pickets were indeed out in front, then the batteries would at least be safe.

  ****

  “Hunter, we’re deploying forward an’ leaving this spot. If you want to join us you are welcome to,” called Lieutenant Dunkle.

  “Give me a carbine, and I’ll join you as a private even,” Will said eagerly.

  There was noise all around despite the early hour. The road was choked with artillery batteries and the cavalry, and behind them, infantry columns were forming up to step off. On either side of the road battle lines were moving forward, and though the bugle and shouted commands were dispensed with, the clink of metal and tromping of feet on the soil made it all too apparent that a vast army was preparing to do something.

  This was what he’d missed at Shiloh: the great marshaling of an army before an attack. He’d missed picketing the flanks and skirmishing with enemy formations in full-on battle of thousands and thousands. It was a risk, but one that he could not bring himself to pass up.

  The ride was short, only a few hundred yards before the troops began peeling off the road and dismounting. Will slid out of his saddle and handed the reins to the man chosen to stay behind. The troop would be leaving every fifth man behind to control the horse line. Will grabbed his carbine and followed Lieutenant Dunkle forward as the troop spread out and walked forward into the woods.

  The pickets were barely firing, and but for the glow of lights in the buildings in Corinth, there was little to discern in front. Lieutenant Dunkle tried to keep his troop from spreading too far out from one another, but keeping formation when the only men you could see were the ones five paces to either side of you was difficult. The ridge offered a good view of the town. Will tried to focus on the ground just in front of the nearest lights but could see nothing. They were still hundreds of yards away. Presumably the enemy was out there as well.

  Dunkle motioned for his men to move forward and down the gentle slope of the ridge. The ground was cut with bushes and shrubs and was more hilly and uneven than it looked from the top of the crest, as the line moved the bushes and gullies obscured for a time the men further down the skirmish line. Skirmishers were spaced five paces apart and spread out to cover a larger front. The other half of his skirmish line was still moving along the crest of the hill and some of the men had taken a knee to wait Dunkle’s orders.

  “Damnit,” Dunkle muttered and ran along the rear of his line to get the stalled squads moving again. Already a gap was forming between those on the hill and those who’d already descended. “Forward, keep moving forward!”

  ****

  “Colonel Fuller wants to send two companies up the Chewallah road to hold it and the woods in front for our pickets. I’m sending Companies B and G forward,” whispered Colonel Sprague of the 63rd Ohio.

  “Aren’t the skirmishers of the 27th Ohio already out there?” asked Lieutenant John Browning of Company G.

  “They have orders to push forward and hold the woods, but Fuller wants the Chewallah road held as far forward as possible to keep the enemy from moving into those woods in the dark. They take those woods, we’ll be in for a hot time tomorrow when they advance right into our faces,” replied Colonel Sprague.

  “Company B will anchor its right on the Chewallah, and my Company G will advance on the left of C into the woods,” Captain Charles Brown said, asserting his rank over Browning.

  Colonel Sprague finished briefing the company commanders. “You saw the ground we retreated over. It’s cut with ravines and hills and would be a beautiful spot to advance on us under cover of the
wood that leads right up to our guns at Battery Robinett. The brigade will stay deployed as it is in front of the battery; you will return at daylight to fall back once the enemy advance begins.”

  Lieutenant Browning returned to his worn-out men, the left flank company, with Company G on his right. The road was an oblique march to their right as well as the wood. Getting back to the flank position would mean countermarching by the oblique left or marching down the Chewallah road and moving behind the regiment to regain their positions. These were trivial matters, but Browning did not imagine that the companies would be able to march by the oblique to regain their position with ease if the enemy intended to assault at first light as expected. Captain Browning would be in charge, so it was his problem to deal with.

  “First Sergeant, get the men up and to arms, light marching order. We are to push up the Chewallah road and hold it as far as the wood in our front,” Browning said. Company G was falling in on their musket stacks and getting ready to move. All Browning had to do was follow.

  “Sir?” his chief noncommissioned officer asked.

  “We’re going out on a little reconnaissance.”

  “Sir,” the first sergeant said wearily. Fuller’s Ohio brigade had been on their feet all day, since before sunup to be exact, as they retreated before Price’s advance columns as the Confederates entered the town of Chewallah the night before and moved from place to place all day without seeing any action. They had just arrived to replace General Davies’s men in and around Battery Robinett, and the last thing the men of the company wanted to do was march a little more.

  “Battalion,” Captain Brown said quietly, “forward march.”

  Companies B and G stepped off, executed a right oblique, and marched across the front of the rest of their regiment, blundering into the skirmishers of the 27th Ohio, whom they passed over until Company G came abreast of the Chewallah road and both companies marched forward.

  Lieutenant Browning was more than a little alarmed as the 27th’s skirmishers didn’t follow, leaving their left flank in the air. They were bound to run into anything in the darkness or move blindly right by the enemy skirmishers and not know it, but Captain Brown kept both companies marching forward.

  ****

  Hoxton’s guns were laboriously being wheeled into position by hand, three twenty-pounder Parrott rifles shoved and pushed along foot by foot, the crews straining at the wheels to get the heavy pieces over every little bump and fold in the ground. The caissons were further away than Captain Tobin would have liked, but they hadn’t made any extra noise as they prepared to go into battery. It was annoyingly dark, like a veil of impenetrable cloth obscuring everything not within a few feet. The crews were creeping up to the edge of the ridge where they needed only to halt and wait for morning light to begin finding targets to fire upon.

  Tobin went from gun to gun once they were settled and spoke in hushed tones to each gun commander, walking a few paces from his rightmost gun with his bugler. If it had been daylight, the man would also have had the battery guidon following him like a shadow, marking the position of the battery commander anywhere on the field. Tonight Chisim would be his runner, but Tobin wanted to see what he could see of the enemy positions before light revealed his own position. The wood was crawling with skirmishers, or had been as the batteries peeled off the road to find advantageous position on the high ground of the ridge, and he felt confident that they were going to be protected, but he hadn’t seen any go by his own position—just heard the tromping of feet in the wood off to his left.

  “Corporal Chisim, I’m going to look out in our front, bring your pencil,” Tobin whispered to his bugler.

  There was light enough to see your hand and ostensibly enough to write a note, but if Tobin couldn’t judge distances, he could at least get some notes about what lay in front.

  The ground dropped off more steeply than he’d judged, and he and Chisim angled further to the right and toward the Purdy road than he’d intended. The road cut near the ridge line but only skirted its edges on the right and curved around it to run down into Corinth. Stumbling down the last four or five feet, he found himself standing in the middle of the road and suddenly feeling exposed.

  “We’d better . . .” Tobin stopped short.

  “Sir . . . shit!” Chisim blurted.

  One moment the road was peaceful and vanishing into a mist of inky black, and the next looming out of it came the company front of enemy infantry, marching at shoulder arms and intent upon rolling forward regardless of dark or enemy.

  “Run!” Tobin shouted, grabbing Chisim’s tunic and clambering up the slope of the ridge.

  ****

  Lieutenant Browning thought he was seeing things. First one, then two figures standing in the middle of the road—and not likely to be friendly. They vanished. Then he spied movement headed up the hill.

  “At the double quick, march!” Browning said and jogged off the road and up the slope followed by his company. The hill was steep but short. Somewhere on his left he heard Captain Brown calling for a halt, and Browning realized he was in for it. But he and the company were already in motion and might as well get to the top of the ridge to see what was what. With two long strides Browning crested the ridge, and he then knew he was really in for it. One, perhaps two or more cannon with their crews, were suddenly visible in the moonlight, and the two figures he’d been chasing were running for them.

  Browning looked down the hill as Captain Brown’s company came to a halt. He was fifty yards separated from the other company—not good for a formation but nothing that couldn’t be rectified easily enough—but there was a cannon or more to be had. With another few steps his company also crested the hill. There was nothing left to do but charge down on the first gun to capture it.

  ****

  “Fall back, fall back!” Captain Tobin shouted to his artillery crews. By now the whole battery could see the enemy company pop up as if out of the earth and charge for them. The crews didn’t wait to watch the show but turned the guns about to drag them back down the hill.

  “Hurry, move!” Tobin shouted as he helped swing the right flank gun to the rear. He pushed hard on the wheel spoke as its crew strained every muscle they had to get the gun moving.

  Turning a gun and moving it by hand was a question of force and weight: enough force to propel a heavy object forward, and then enough to keep it moving. Turning and moving the gun was something they drilled and practiced often, but in this instance it was as if the earth was reluctant to let go of the piece.

  Tobin glanced over his shoulder in time to see the enemy company bearing down on the gun. “Save yourselves; run!” he shouted to the crew.

  ****

  “Surrender!” shouted Lieutenant Browning, and he drew a bead on the man in front of him. The company halted behind the lieutenant as the Confederate corporal and captain raised their hands.

  With Browning’s soldiers distracted by their prize, the other two guns of Tobin’s battery were being hurriedly rolled down the hill and out of reach.

  “First Sergeant, go down the hill to Captain Brown and inform him we’ve captured a gun and need only charge down the hill to take the whole battery. Hurry,” Lieutenant Browning ordered. His company was becoming discombobulated in their rejoicing over the gun. “Re-form, re-form!” Browning ordered.

  “Sir, you have me,” Lieutenant Tobin said, grudgingly handing over his sword.

  Chapter 10

  Watch What You Wish For

  It was the shouting that drew Will Hunter’s attention. Otherwise this had been the most boring picket and skirmish line he’d ever been on. The commotion was happening where the artillery batteries were being wheeled into position after their skirmish line had pushed forward, something that struck him as odd; they were further to the left than the skirmishers had been posted. In fact, all of the batteries were exposed, and 7th Tennessee’s skirmish line was behind them, not in front of them as he thought they should be. But he’d not been p
rivy to the orders. The noise was now drawing all their attention. Then the guns began shifting position.

  “Somethin’s going on over there,” Will muttered to Lieutenant Dunkle.

  “Someone posted them guns too far forward or didn’t post us in the right place.”

  Will was just able to make out movement in the distance but not discern what was happening.

  “Skirmishers, by the left oblique, march!” Dunkle ordered and stepped out of the trees as the skirmish line picked their way toward the noise.

  Will walked a few paces away from Lieutenant Dunkle behind the line of skirmishers. The artillery crews were readying the guns to fire, relieved that the skirmish line was passing over them.

  Soon half of the skirmish line was cresting the ridge line and heading down it while the other half was approaching where the artillery crews were hurriedly rolling two other pieces down the hill.

  Popping fire from carbines and muskets woke the scene. Will jogged down the line until he reached the men who were now struggling down the slope. At the base of the hill, a company of Yankee infantry was attempting to march up the hill as the skirmishers were sliding down it. Further to the right of him, the whole cavalry skirmish line was in motion.

  “Halt, halt,” Will cried as the men took a knee and began firing. The Yankee infantry, surprised to find themselves in the midst of a sea of cavalry, turned and tumbled back down the hill. He didn’t have authority to command any of these men, and they didn’t need to heed him. He was just doing what came natural: taking charge. If Dunkle didn’t like it Dunkle could stop it, Will said to himself as he sized up the situation. Taking quick action was what he was good at. It was time to do something bold.