Even as Sherman was apparently convinced that this was going to be a real battle, Cleburne ordered his brigade forward against Hildebrand’s drawn-up regiments just behind and along the camp area of the Fifty-third Ohio. With Trigg’s Battery dropping 6-pound shot and 12-pound howitzer shells on the Ohioans, Cleburne’s men moved forward only to become badly bogged down in the soft, marshy, rain-soaked ground in front of Appler’s camp. Cleburne’s horse became stuck and the rider fell off, forcing the usually dapper Irishman to fight the rest of the day in a muddy uniform.
The Sixth Mississippi, Colonel John Thornton, and Twenty-third Tennessee, Lieutenant Colonel James Neill, found some fairly solid ground toward the right of the Federal camp and began advancing again. From right to left the Fifth Tennessee, Colonel Benjamin Hill, the Twenty-fourth Tennessee, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Peebles, Fifteenth Arkansas, Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Patton, and the Second Tennessee, Colonel William Bate, started moving around on less boggy ground on the left or west of the camp.8
Hildebrand’s right most regiment, the Seventy-seventh Ohio, began catching light artillery fire from Trigg’s Battery, but most of the kneeling infantrymen, because of the large number of trees in front of their position, were unable to see the advancing Southerners. Then shots from Cleburne’s men began striking all around them. Next, Captain W. A. Stevens, Company A, and the pickets, ducking from tree to tree, finally fell back on the regiment. Six-pound shot tore loose the limbs over the Ohioans’ heads. More stray slugs hit, and then Private John McInerney stopped a ball just over his right eye. Blood spurted profusely as he walked over to Lieutenant Jack Henricle and remarked, “Leftenant, do you think that went in dape?” It was only a glancing wound, and McInerney, although out of the fight, managed to survive the war. Just then the volume of artillery redoubled, but the men relaxed as Major B. D. Fearing shouted at the top of his voice, “Boys, those are our guns.”9 It was a section of Captain Allen Waterhouse’s James rifles opening up from a clump of woods to the right of the Fifty-third’s position.10 The Illinois gunners got off two rounds and then withdrew to the main battery position on the high ground on the northern side of Shiloh Branch, just behind and to the right of the Fifty-third,11 where soon all six 3.5 and 4.5-inch rifles were in action, badly punishing Trigg’s Arkansas Battery.12
Both the Fifty-seventh and Seventy-seventh Ohio were soon busily engaged in banging away at the Sixth Mississippi and Twenty-third Tennessee, but the Fifty-third was having problems. Colonel Appler was confused by the noise and excitement, and fear was gradually taking control of his mind. The Fifty-third was isolated from the rest of the brigade by the stream and about two hundred yards of fairly open ground, basically an untenable position, and Appler was busy fouling things up worse. He first positioned the regiment facing away from Cleburne’s attack, and then had to spend precious minutes completely shifting his ten shaky companies around. Finally the Fifty-third was pointing the right way and they opened fire at a party of Confederates approaching the officers’ tents. The Southerners pulled back momentarily but then advanced again. Colonel Appler gave the command to fire and the Rebels pulled back a second time. Appler completely blew up, yelling, “Retreat, and save yourselves.”13
The Fifty-third Ohio was not routed. It simply dissolved as many of its men naturally followed the example of their commanding officer. Only the left and center of the regiment actually followed Appler, for the company commanders on the right were of sterner stuff.
Even while the first Southerners were advancing on the camp, Captain W. S. Jones, Company A, told some of the other officers that he thought Colonel Appler would break as soon as the firing began, and he said, “I am not going.” Captain James Percy, Company F, said he would stay with Jones. The two officers and their men did fall back a few yards when the break came, but they gallantly continued the fight, linking up with the Seventeenth Illinois when it joined in the action a little later.14
Lieutenant Dawes, Appler’s adjutant, met a pre-battle acquaintance, Private A. C. Voris, Seventeenth Illinois, a veteran of Frederickstown and Fort Donelson. Dawes asked Voris if he would go over and talk to the remaining shaky members of his outfit. The Illinoisan said he would if his captain would allow it. The captain was agreeable, and Private Voris joined the nervous men from Ohio. First collecting some extra Enfield cartridges for the Ohioans to use, he told them that he had learned that the best way to meet the enemy was to “keep cool, shoot slow, and aim low.” His parting words to the now more confident Fifty-third Ohioans were, “Why, it’s just like shooting squirrels—only these squirrels have guns, that’s all.”15
The collapse of the Fifty-third endangered Sherman’s left flank, but only temporarily, for General McClernand was already moving troops forward to protect the Fifth Division from being outflanked. General Sherman’s right was much more secure, for Colonel Buckland’s brigade, having formed up in its camp near Shiloh Church, advanced about two hundred yards just in time to meet Cleburne’s overlapping left. From left to right Buckland’s order of battle was the Seventieth, Forty-eighth, and Seventy-second Ohio. The Forty-eighth, carrying their not so trusty Austrian rifles, moved up first to support the picket post, already under fire from Cleburne’s skirmishers. Colonel Ralph Buckland immediately advanced with the other two regiments, and just in time, for the Tennesseans opened up with a tremendous blast of musketry. The Forty-eighth began to waver as men dropped on all sides, but the regimental commander, Peter J. Sullivan, and other officers managed to steady the men. They could not, however, calm the color sergeant, Theodore D. Jones, who dropped the regimental flag and ran away at the very start of the action. Taking advantage of the cover of the trees and numerous logs, however, the Ohioans gave as good as they received.16
The Second Tennessee charged across the small field south of Shiloh Church, butting head on into the Forty-eighth Ohio, Colonel William Bate leading his men forward on his celebrated race horse, Blackhawk, a magnificent coal black stallion.17 The men from Ohio promptly shot the regiment to pieces. Major W. R. Doak and Captains Joseph Tyree and Humphrey Bate were killed, while half a dozen other officers were badly wounded. Nearly a hundred privates and non-commissioned officers also littered the muddy brown earth of the field, just a short walk from the House of the Prince of Peace. Colonel Bate escaped the charge without a scratch, only to be wounded in the leg while reconnoitering the Union position a few minutes later, the wound in capacitating him for the rest of the battle.18 Besides Captain Humphrey Bate, the colonel lost four other kinsmen either killed or wounded in this action.19
The other attacking regiments fared no better, taking heavy losses from Buckland’s fire. So devastating was the effect of the Yankees’ shooting that numbers of Southerners completely broke down. Captain L. L. Dearing, Fifth Tennessee, tried to run off and hide in the rear of his regiment, but Colonel Ben Hill dragged him back under threat of shooting him. Private Perry Murrell, Company K, was the first casualty and the first man killed in the Fifth Regiment, dropping from artillery fire. As the Fifth pushed toward Buckland’s position, a projectile cut the colors in the hands of the color bearer, William Sims, who managed to catch them as they fell, tying the flag back to the staff with his canteen strap. Soldier after soldier went down, killed or wounded, mostly from artillery fire, and one private, B. F. Taylor, was knocked unconscious from the concussion of a bursting shell.20 The Fifth included at least one fifteen year old, Private John Roberts, who had his musket shattered and was twice knocked down by spent musket balls, but “displayed the courage of a veteran.”21
The former state senator from Ohio’s brigade held firm. The hard-driving Cleburne was stopped on his left, but on the right one of the defending regiments was out of the battle, and the other two were beginning to feel the pressure. Could the Mississippians recoup the attack there? With artillery support perhaps they could have made it, but General Hardee’s chief of artillery, Major F. A. Shoup, ordered Trigg’s Battery to pull back, thus leaving Cleburne gunles
s.
The Sixth Mississippi and Twenty-third Tennessee charged across the Fifty-third Ohio’s camp between the rows of tents, tent pegs, tent lines, mud, Waterhouse’s shells, and a heavy blast of musketry coming from the Fifty-seventh, and possibly the Seventy-seventh. Finally they fell back, the Twenty-third incomplete disorder.22
Most of the surviving Tennesseans took shelter in a ravine near where they had started their attack. General Cleburne went over and spoke to the men, saying, “Boys, don’t be discouraged; this is not the 1st charge that was repulsed; fix bayonets and give them steel.”23
Even with Cleburne’s encouraging words, it took much time to get even part of the regiment formed up again, thus leaving it up to the Sixth Mississippi to do the job, but they were rapidly being outweighed by the arrival of reinforcements from McClernand’s division.
At the request of General Sherman, McClernand directed his Third Brigade, whose nominal commander was Colonel L. F. Ross, to go to the support of the Fifth Division. Unfortunately, Ross was absent on this morning, so the command devolved on Colonel J. S. Rearden.24 Colonel Rearden was ill, thus Lieutenant Abram H. Ryan, acting assistant adjutant of the Third Brigade, set out to find Colonel Julius Raith, letting him know that he was the senior officer present, hence, he would be in command.
Notified of his unexpected promotion, Raith soon had the brigade moving forward to support General Sherman’s battered left, the Seventeenth Illinois advancing directly up to the Seventy-seventh Ohio’s camp. From left to right, he deployed the Forty-ninth Illinois, Lieutenant Colonel Phineas Pease, Forty-third Illinois, Lieutenant Colonel Adolph Engelmann, Twenty-ninth Illinois, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Ferrell, and the Seventeenth Illinois, Lieutenant Colonel Enos P. Wood.25
It was about this time the Sixth Mississippi made another charge on the Fifty-third’s camp, so presumably the Illinoisans helped break the gallant but futile effort. The Mississippians made it into the camp area, and they raked the Federals with wicked blasts of Enfield balls. Colonel A. J. Thornton and Major Robert Lowery were both hit. (Thornton was disabled for the rest of his life.) Many others were hit, and the rest were finally forced to retreat in order to keep from being completely destroyed. Of the 425 Mississippians who jauntily moved forward to fight the Northerners only a little more than an hour earlier, 300 now lay in and around Shiloh Branch and the Ohioan’s camp, dead or wounded.26
Raith soon found himself under heavy attack from Hardee and Bragg. Cleburne’s Brigade was temporarily knocked out of action by the bloody repulse it had endured, but Anderson’s Second Brigade quickly formed up on virtually the same ground Cleburne’s men had launched their attack from. From left to right the black-bearded Anderson deployed his Twentieth Louisiana, Colonel August Reichard, Ninth Texas, Colonel W. A. Stanley, First Florida Battalion, Major T. A. McDowell, Confederate Guard Response Battalion, Major Franklin Clark, and the Seventeenth Louisiana, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Jones. The Fifth Company of the Washington Artillery set up their battery on high ground to the rear of Anderson, and they began dropping 6-pound shells and shot, along with 12-pound howitzer rounds, on Colonels Buckland’s and Hildebrand’s soldiers. Lieutenant George Nispel’s Battery E, Second Illinois Light Artillery quickly slashed back at the men from New Orleans. Cannon balls and shells were traded with much enthusiasm but little damage to either side. Major Shoup brought two field pieces up to a position thirty or thirty-five yards from the Louisianans, and under the combined fire of the eight guns the Federal battery was forced to withdraw. Nispel left behind a disabled gun, five dead horses, one dead gunner, and he carried off three wounded cannoneers.27
Bankhead’s Tennessee Battery also wound up supporting Anderson’s advance, firing from a position about one hundred yards from the Louisianans. With the guns pounding Sherman’s position, and upon orders from General Bragg, Anderson led his brigade forward. The Twentieth Louisiana ran into the Second Tennessee, falling back after its earlier bloody encounter with the Forty-eighth Ohio, and there was some confusion as the men broke ranks and became intermingled.28
The two regiments were quickly unscrambled, and Prussian-born Colonel August Reichard’s Twentieth was soon steadily moving toward Buckland’s position again. The whole brigade somewhat clumsily straggled across Shiloh Branch or stumbled through the boggy area with a minimum of coordination. Piece by piece Anderson’s units hit Sherman, some being repulsed with heavy losses, while others were able to partially penetrate Hilde brand’s positions.29
The Seventeenth Louisiana picked up some unexpected support as one of Colonel R. M. Russell’s regiments, the Eleventh Louisiana, suddenly showed up. General Bragg had directed Brigadier General Charles Clark to silence Waterhouse’s Battery,30 and the Eleventh was the closest unit at hand, so it naturally got the job. Colonel Samuel F. Marks, with General Clark standing by, launched his attack on Waterhouse’s guns when the Seventeenth came wandering by. Waterhouse’s James rifles had already taken a grim toll of the Eleventh. Just moments before, a bursting shell tore off Third Lieutenant John Crowley’s left hand, that unfortunate officer having already lost his right arm at Belmont the previous November.31
The two regiments moved across the blood-spattered ground, the camp of Appler’s Fifty-third Ohio, stepping over the dead and wounded Mississippians and Tennesseans. Marks and his men became entangled in the same boggy ground in which Pat Cleburne had muddied his shining uniform. The shells from Waterhouse’s guns added to the confusion, and only four of Marks’ companies actually got into the camp area. Having reached this point, Marks’ troubles were only starting, as Federal soldiers, concealed in and behind the tents and other equipment in Appler’s camp, began picking off his remaining men. Federal infantry, supporting Waterhouse, also fired into the Eleventh. One James shell burst between the legs of Lieutenant Levi S. Brown, killing him and Privates Thomas Bladon and Thomas Cameron. The Louisianans began to falter and Sergeant John Leonard, Company I, ran out in front to encourage the wavering Eleventh.32 He received a Minie ball through his head for his trouble. The wavering turned into a rout, and the regiment wound up badly scattered, a large portion of it winding up in Stewart’s Brigade.33
Lieutenant Colonel Charles Jones, Seventeenth Louisiana, fared a little better. Becoming entangled with a group of Tennesseans, presumably the Twenty-third, Jones spent precious minutes getting the regiment straightened out before giving the order to charge. Heading right for the Northerners, the regiment gradually slowed down and finally halted under the steady and accurate volleys of musketry coming across the stream. There was no rout; the Seventeenth simply stopped advancing, and the men began returning the enemy’s fire. On both sides men began dropping, but finally the Louisianans beat a reluctant retreat.
Reforming what was left of his regiment, Jones tried again, this time moving more to the left. Hit by another Federal battery, probably Barrett’s, and by small arms fire, Jones was forced to fall back a second time. Two of his company commanders, R. H. Curry and W. A. Maddox, the latter just back from an extended sick leave in Claiborne Parish, Louisiana, were badly wounded in this effort.34
The Confederate Guards Response (Twelfth Louisiana Infantry Battalion) and the Florida Battalion fared no better in their charge on Sherman,35 the Floridians losing their commander, T. A. McDonell.36 In the army less than four weeks, the ninety-day volunteers from Louisiana pressed their attack home with courage, but when the troops on their right began falling back, the untrained Louisianans quickly followed them.37 The laggard Twentieth Louisiana got into the attack also, as well as Colonel W. A. Stanley’s Ninth Texas, but they were repulsed like everyone else.38
It was now a few minutes after 9:00 a.m. and Prentiss’ division was in full retreat from its camps; the Union right, however, still held. At 9:10 a.m., General Beauregard directed General Polk to send a brigade to help break General Sherman’s position.39 The Creole then directed Polk to send Russell’s brigade to help break Raith’s position, not knowing that Russell was already partly
engaged.40
Cleburne’s left wing was pretty well knocked out of the fight, but the Irishman managed to collect sixty of his Mississippians and about one-half of the Twenty-third Tennessee in preparation for another charge. At the same time Anderson’s individual regiments and battalions were also busy getting ready for another attempt.
About 9:30 a.m., General Sherman and Colonel Raith found themselves assaulted by six separate brigades, for Sterling Wood, Bushrod Johnson, Robert M. Russell, and A. P. Stewart were also going in. (The latter was going in on orders from Bragg, although the brigade technically belonged to Polk’s Corps.)41 Partly on orders from Bragg and partly on the initiative of the individual officers, the six brigades and pieces of brigades began stumbling for ward to ward Sherman and Raith.
Sherman found himself being heavily pounded by Cleburne and Anderson, as well as the brand new fresh brigade of Bushrod Johnson. With his remaining tiny force, Cleburne boldly assaulted the Seventieth Ohio and the remnants of Hildebrand’s Third Brigade.42 Anderson also boldly smashed into the ridge to which Buck land still grimly clung. The Seventeenth Louisiana, making its third charge through the Fifty-third Ohio’s camp, changed its direction slightly, passing to the left of the ridge. The Louisianans took a bad pounding from small arms’ fire, including the loss of Lieutenant Colonel Charles Jones’ sergeant major, Thuron Stone, who took a bullet through the thigh.
Reaching the top of the ridge, the Seventeenth was hit by artillery fire (probably from Nispel’s new battery position near the Church).43 The first lieutenant of Company K, Thomas O. Hynes, had his left arm blown off. Then Jones went down as an exploding shell panicked his horse, throwing the lieutenant colonel to the ground with enough force to knock him out for several minutes. Even while their commander was temporarily out of the fight, the Southerners swarmed to ward Sherman’s position.44
Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862 Page 17