The Shiloh Series: Books 1-3

by Phillip Bryant

  Michael ordered a volley by the right oblique, his front angled only slightly toward the cornfield but not so as to fully front it in response. It was a pitifully small sound coming from such a proud regiment, and the 2nd Texas quickly reloaded and waited for the next command. Turning about now would invite this force to sweep down the flank of the brigade and easily turn the whole position. But to stay was to invite destruction before they could even turn to face the new threat.

  “Lie down, lie down; fire at will!” Michael shouted. Kneeling himself, he directed the two right companies to refuse their part of the line and front the cornfield. The enemy was still invisible in the corn, his fire clipping off stalks and unpicked corn by the moment.

  Through the trees, other formations in blue could be seen moving forward toward the bridge; it was a choice of stay and get captured or withdraw as quickly as possible and lose more men in the mad dash to escape.

  “Rise up, by the rear march!” Michael shouted, running down his short line, company by company, to pull his men up and get to his company commanders. Whether the other regiments of the brigade were also moving back or not, it didn’t matter. He needed to pull back his Texans or lose the line anyway when the enemy swept down the flank.

  In quick movement the regiment stood and turned about and jogged forward, toward the copse of wood that separated their line from where the 25th Mississippi was to have been. Michael halted the men and turned them about once more, pulling his right flank inward toward the bridge to refuse that part of the brigade line. An angry General Moore was still storming back and forth on horseback between his regiments, and Michael watched as the guns of the McNally battery clattered over the bridge. The infantry was buying time for the last of the artillery to make it safely across. Enemy batteries were unlimbering on the field, drawn down from the heights above and making the bridge a shrapnel-swept hell, canister and solid shot ripping the beams to splinters.

  “General,” Michael reported to Moore, “two regiments’ worth of the enemy are pushing from a cornfield on our right; they will lap our line.”

  “Casualties?” Moore shouted.

  “Few, wounded.”

  Already the wounded were collecting near the bridge, but the fire from the guns made crossing a death sentence for a slow-moving man, and they were lying down under whatever cover they could find or slipping down the long slope of the Hatchie’s bank to take their chances swimming the river.

  “Send the wounded down the banks! Hold your position and keep tight on the 25th Mississippi this time!” Moore shouted, angrily pointing to the banner of the Mississippians, who at this moment were starting to melt away in twos and threes for the bridge and riverbank. “You hold, and the brigade line will pull back by echelon left.”

  Michael saluted but knew that once the regiments started to move, nothing would keep the men from panicking and running just to save themselves. It was already happening with the 25th Mississippi. Michael knew his Texans would not budge until ordered, but would anyone else stay? As General Moore rode off to deliver his instructions, Michael caught movement to the rear, spying the colors of the 25th retire in confusion, and then a stampede following the colors.

  “Captain Wyrich!” Michael shouted over his shoulder. “Take command!” Canister fire swept several of the 25th Mississippi to the ground within arm’s reach as he took his first step, their bodies falling into a bloody mess at his feet. Michael rushed through the panicked Mississippians and through the gathering pools of blood.

  Chapter 19

  No Rest for the Weary

  Michael ran to catch up with the colors. The color-bearers of the 25th Mississippi had at least a few yards start on him, and the panicked Mississippians were crowding their way toward the river as fast as their legs could take them. Arresting the progress of the colors might at least gather some fragment of the regiment around them, but trying to grab at random privates and sergeants was proving useless.

  The Hawkins legion was also falling back on the right flank of their little toehold on the east side of the bridge, many of them spilling over the bank and into the water to swim across. The 15th Arkansas was trying to backpedal, but the enemy advance was about to swallow them with the retreat of the 1st Texas, and the dominoes would fall in order. The bridge was still raining splinters from the shredded side railing and upper supports, and only the brave or crazed were attempting to run across it.

  Michael caught up to one of the color-bearers and grabbed him from behind. “Halt! Make a stand!” The color sergeant looked at him in confusion, doubtless not recognizing who this officer was or why was he stopping his progress. The sergeant obeyed nevertheless, and Michael tried to grab whoever else was rushing past to form them around the colors. The best way to control a regiment, even in a panic, was around their colors. Men would die for the colors, to grab them or to protect them. Much of the 25th had already made it to the riverbank and slipped over the edge and into the water below. Michael wanted to join them, to run and not turn back. The sword and sash around his waist and star on his collar kept him in place. It was expected of enlisted men to obey orders, of officers to give them, and of all to ignore the will to survive.

  “Rally, rally round your colors!” Michael shouted and waved his arms. The color-bearer waved his banner and shouted as well. Color sergeants and corporals were chosen for their attention to duty and for their loyalty, discipline, and courage. To be on the color guard was an honor, and these men did not want that honor besmirched.

  The barest fraction of the 25th Mississippi was halted and re-forming, and Michael manhandled the colors forward a few paces, slightly to the rear of the 2nd Texas. A lieutenant from the 25th Mississippi was found to take command of the remnant, and Michael bade him make his stand until the 2nd Texas could fall back on them.

  “Control your men!” Michael shouted at the frightened officer. “You find anyone cowering, you beat them with the flat of your sword into line if you have to!” It was Michael’s turn to storm about. He had his own regiment to see to.

  “Backwards march, backwards march!” Michael shouted and grabbed Wyrich by the shoulder. “Pull the regiment back, even with the 25th Mississippi there!” He pointed to the company-sized formation to their rear. Firing as they went, the 2nd Texas backpedaled, company officers helping to guide their men with each step so they could load and fire. The 15th Arkansas was almost to the riverbank now and the Hawkins legion already in the water, leaving only the remaining regiments of Moore’s brigade to make their way as they saw fit. General Moore and his staff were braving the bridge on horseback. On the far side of the bridge, Phifer’s brigade was forming a defensive line, and artillery was already lobbing shells into the enemy infantry, trying to maneuver to cut off the retreat. Men were starting to go down again as the ring around the bridge closed in.

  As if the earth had swallowed them whole, the 15th Arkansas delivered one final volley into the faces of the enemy infantry marching toward them, and then, to a man, plunged over the bank and out of sight. The 23rd Arkansas, in line next to the 15th, was closest to the bridge and gave a shout. The 23rd’s colonel had given the order to fall back, every man for himself. The regimental formation dissolved in a moment into a mob and stormed across the bridge as fast as feet could carry them. Blasts of cannon fire riddled the beams and tore into the floor, sending a few hapless souls plunging into the water below.

  Michael, sword in hand and racing to and fro in the rear of his line, came up even with the 25th Mississippi. They were the last forces on this side of the bridge, and the enemy regiments furthest to the left were already gaining the bank of the river to fire down on those still trying to swim across.

  “Give them a volley and then over the bank!” Michael shouted to the lieutenant in command of the 25th Mississippi and then ran down to each of his company commanders and repeated the command.

  “Fire by company!” Michael shouted, and then braced himself for the retreat. He had each company fire in turn a
nd then peel off for the rear at a run. It was not a dignified way of quitting a field, but it was going to hopefully save their skins. Michael waited in the rear of the right flank company and exchanged worried glances with Captain Wyrich as they waited their turn to fire and run. Michael led them across first; he was leading them back in the same order and would be last to quit the field.

  “Fire!” shouted Wyrich, and then gave the order to run, an order that needed no entry in Hardee’s Tactics or Casey’s Drill Manual. Michael was in a moment surrounded by fleeing soldiers encumbered by both packs and weapons, pushing their legs as hard as they could and then sliding down the steep embankment of the Hatchie River. Other soldiers had found the crossing shallow enough to wade through.

  On the opposite bank, the regiments of Phifer’s brigade were standing ready to provide cover fire, but there were too many of their compatriots in the way to ward off the approach of the enemy battalions behind them. Parting volleys from the enemy regiments were already whistling over their heads and felling men as they dashed for safety.

  Several privates in front took a sudden tumble, and as Michael passed, he grabbed for the nearest to haul him to his feet. The man’s pack was like a nail that pinned him to the ground. Glancing behind him, Michael noted the disconcerting sight of the enemy breaking into a run to grab whoever they could before they made the riverbank.

  Giving the man a heave, Michael lifted him to his feet and then ran the few paces left before the bank and jumped over the side, sliding down a painful slope with roots and small bushes growing out of the embankment’s sides. Men were struggling to make headway through the coursing of the river. Men who’d already made it to the far bank were taking potshots at any Yankee who dared to appear and fire down on them.

  There was no time to preserve powder and cartridges; men plunged into the water fully encumbered, the water waist-high several yards from where the bridge spanned the two banks. Making the far bank would render most hors de combat until ammunition could be drawn. Michael made it down in a few moments’ time, more sliding and slipping than controlling his descent. Men were still struggling to get up once they made it down, and a few had shed their packs to lighten their load.

  The last to quit the field, the 2nd Texas cleared the bank and took to the water. Thankfully, the volleys coming from Phifer’s regiments kept the bank clear of enemy who might have had an easy time of picking the rest of them off in the water. Exhausted men gathered on the bank and slowly climbed their way upward, out of breath and unconcerned for the moment at anything behind them, only wishing to be on solid and level ground once more. A tree-lined sanctuary waited them as they climbed upward; a legion of helping hands lifted the soldiers as they climbed up and over.

  As Michael came up, one of the last to make it to the far bank and out of the water, he was proud to see that his men had made it out and were gathering under cover of the trees to rally on their colors without even his presence to guide them. The 2nd Texas had executed a retreat under a galling fire and across a river. From the noses he counted on the far bank, they had done so with no straggling or disorganization.

  “Welcome aboard,” Wyrich said as he extended a hand for Michael to grasp as he took the final steps up and out of the river. The sounds of fighting had quieted for the most part, just the guns playing upon one another. The enemy infantry was keeping its distance from the bank now, and the bridge, a no-man’s land, was scattered with dead horses and men. Looking at the far bank in the direction they had come, Michael noted with sadness the few forms lying along their path of retreat, dead and wounded. They too lay in the no-man’s land and would do so until the guns were totally silenced. These men were out of his reach, and without a further glance, Michael found the colors. The color guard had gathered about in a semicircle, and faithful to their duty had stuck together through the retreat.

  “Sergeant, move the colors out of this thicket and form up,” Michael ordered before turning to shout, “On the colors, form on the colors! Rally on the colors!” Exhausted men pulled themselves from the earth and dutifully trudged out of the trees, not in a hurry but not reluctant to move either, and began forming in companies once more in a clearing, one hundred yards from the road.

  Scattered about were the other regiments of Moore’s brigade, sorting themselves out and looking like soaked rats, most having chosen to cross at some point along the river rather than attempt the bridge. The colors and color guard of the 25th Mississippi stood alone along the roadside with a few privates sitting around them, all that seemed to be left of an entire regiment. The 15th Arkansas was marshaling nearby and getting into regimental line. Michael planted the colors and waited patiently as his men made their way out of the trees and found their company’s place.

  The Bledsoe battery was drawn up a few yards away, its guns and caissons taking up a swath of open space by the road extending fifty yards, its gunners cutting fallen horses from the traces—horses wounded in the dash across the bridge and now dying. General Moore and his staff stood in the middle of the roadway looking sour. Phifer’s and Cabell’s brigades, the latter just now forming a line next to Phifer, looked like one large brigade instead of two, their numbers so reduced by three days’ fighting that but for the narrow strip of bridge between them and the enemy, one now swept by their own fire, the remnants of Maury’s division stood little chance of halting any enemy effort to cross or gain this side of the road.

  Michael leaned on his sword, pressed lightly into the grassy earth. He was beyond tired, and but for the will to avoid capture would have gladly just sat down anywhere and watched the world go by. The emotions of the days were finally hitting him. His men—the thought had to take hold for a moment: these were his men until a promotion or until someone else was moved into command of the regiment—his men were bleary-eyed and vacant in stares. They were to a man disarmed but for their bayonet points. Not a single man had any dry powder, and cartridge boxes were still dripping water, now soaked black, that streaked down already dirty trouser legs. He hoped to God that Colonel Moore did not ask any more of them today.

  Men are but soldiers in the eyes of the campaign and general staff; if something needs to be done to preserve the army, then no sacrifice is too great to be asked. An attack on a fortified position bristling with guns and steel is for the good of the army and the campaign, and every soldier knows this. Yet they had balked at the command: taking the Metamora Heights on the other side of the Hatchie River was an impossibility, even if it meant their annihilation.

  Michael felt something else even as the noise of battle continued unabated. They were not in the clear yet. Death was nothing new, nor the missing man in the formations. What he felt now was the sadness at seeing his friend cut down at Shiloh, only it wasn’t for Mahoney that the feeling overcame him. It was for the absence of his commander. It was for all those who had stormed the parapets of that damned battery, never to rise again. He would never have believed that he might shed a literal tear for the gruff old Mexican War veteran and colonel of the regiment. But at this moment he wished it were Rogers who was in command and not he. At least it would be Rogers who had to look into their eyes and know the men had been failed.

  Michael looked from man to man as they formed in front of him, standing at shoulder arms and waiting for the next command. They would dutifully obey it, albeit sluggishly as they were all spent, even marching across the bridge once again if ordered to. He prayed that the next order would be to march back down the road and do nothing more but march.

  The racket from the opposite bank was loud, and something would have to be done soon or the enemy would also be fording the river to gain the other side of the bridge. Then the game would certainly be up.

  General Moore was still in conference in the roadway when Michael decided he needed to see to it that his men were allowed to march away without a further shedding of blood.

  “Sir,” Michael said wearily, “sir, the 2nd is without useable ammunition and of no further
use in action. We’ve left some five on the other side of the Hatchie but muster about what we mustered this morning.”

  “I’m aware of that, Major Grierson,” Moore replied testily.

  “Sir,” Michael replied and folded his hands behind his back. He knew he deserved more than just a grumpy reply.

  “The enemy’s not made a push up the Chewallah road, and we are countermarching back to Crum’s Mill to cross the Tuscumbia there. Get the 2nd Texas on the road and march. You have the van,” Moore said.

  “Sir, very good,” Michael replied and saluted.

  “The 2nd did what it needed to yesterday and today; the men stood it as well as could be expected. Our men always do,” Moore added and returned the salute.

  “Yes sir, they did and always do. I’ll inform the men you said so. They might appreciate a word from their former colonel before too long, sir,” Michael said.

  “Certainly,” Moore replied. He took Michael by the arm and headed across the roadway to the oversized company gathered along it. “Don’t fret over the mistake; you found an enemy push on our flank and stubbed it. Just mind the line,” Moore said quietly as the two made their way across the road.

  They reached the men. The general was sweat-soaked and haggard-looking. His normally deep-set eyes were ringed with wrinkles and sags. He’d just watched for the second time in as many days as his old regiment did what it was ordered to do in the face of overwhelming odds and was cut to pieces. Moore absently patted the guard of his sword, dangling loosely at his left side, and dug a toe through the dirt, taking a moment to collect his thoughts or decide how to begin. Looking up after a moment, he cleared his throat.

  “The 2nd Texas did what was asked of it yesterday in front of the guns. Colonel Rogers was conspicuous in leading you up into the works. It was by no failure of yours that the field was quitted, and with regret, having left the dead and wounded behind.” Moore paused and looked down the ranks. The men stood stoically, whether by training when addressed by a superior officer or out of profound weariness or sorrow, Michael did not know. They took compliments lightly and insults greatly and rarely gave any high officer more than he deserved. But the 2nd Texas had a high respect for their former commander, and despite the exertions of battle, the soldiers stood to attention like proud legionaries receiving from Caesar their share of the spoils.