They Met at Shiloh (28 page)

Tired and gravelly throats shouted encouragement, and many uttered prayers. The regiments advanced as if into a strong wind. The men leaned toward their enemy. It was too late. The brigade disintegrated into a mob of fleeing blue. They had had enough. The second brigade halted but a few moments before slowly back-pedaling to cover the retreat. Exhausted and demoralized men galloped back toward and through the Indianans. The war was just ahead, and it was their turn to fight.

Robert had done this before. One stood in formation with every muscle tingling and the stomach in knots. When they received the order to advance, every man had to decide to go forward despite the danger. One did it because the fellow next to him did it, and so on down the line. These green Indiana men had an even greater reason. Not a man among them wanted to show the white feather of cowardice. They would march to the gates of Hades without the prodding of file closers. But even they, in their eagerness to prove themselves, had to take a moment to view the scene and wonder whether valor required a foolhardy charge into destruction.

Robert searched the faces of his pards to know their state of mind. Hildebrande and Gustavson were gone, the two old fighters and soldiers whom everyone in the company looked to in times of fear. They were the real veterans. They always stood to their posts in a way that caused Robert to admire their stalwart and stern countenance. He and the others from the 25th Missouri were townsmen and patriotic to the core, but they were not professional soldiers. Piper looked worried, and Huebner looked scared and mouthed words that Robert did not follow. The other men were downcast. They knew that nothing would prevent their own march into the fire. How many would fall? How many would make it to the enemy’s line? How many would never leave this field again?

They were a strong brigade, both in numbers and attitude. They would prove themselves or die trying. The big bugs, those with the shoulder straps who rode the horses in the rear of any line, would have their own superiors watching from glasses even farther to the rear. On it would go, down to the privates praying for deliverance from the pain of a minié ball wound.

Battle meant death, and death meant a departure from the pain of an earthly existence. Had each man made his peace with his maker? Would the cannon fire rend flesh from bone, or would a bullet crush the bone of an arm or leg, rendering it useless? Robert preferred to not think at all. Hildebrande always told them to follow orders and do what needed to be done. He realized that his small band of survivors might be broken up even smaller after this attack played out. Who would survive to collect his pards for final burial? Was he ready for the final reward?

The field quieted, save for the playing of the batteries on both sides. The space between the foes was torn and bleeding. Reinforcements were sorted out, and the regiments of the brigade shifted to form one long line of blue. The enemy stood to their weapons a hundred yards away. Another brigade emerged from the woods behind Robert and formed front—the next wave should this effort fail. The advance had to be made and the enemy well met.

War was fought in no other way but to close with the enemy and try his mettle. It mattered little that each man was a part of some other family in cities and communities all across the North and West. It mattered nothing that each man felt within his heart trepidation at taking that first step forward. They were no longer just men. They were soldiers, volunteers to a cause to reunite a sundered country. They were now 36th Indiana or 25th Missouri or some other designation. They would march and deliver their fire, standing the test until ordered to fall back or to charge forward.

Robert drew a deep breath, and the silence became oppressive. The church steeple, a simple cross that had survived the first day of conflict, now showed clearly above the tree tops. Ahead, the enemy looked at him and silently watched and waited. No one jeered; no one taunted or sullied the test of courage wrought upon this field. They would each to his own soon yell, shout, curse, and fire or swing the butt of a rifle in anger and desperation. For the moment, though, they gave each other a grudging respect.

The brigade color guard trooped forward twenty paces and halted. The moments ticked by. With the colors in front and in the most immediate harm, what man of them would deign to hang back now? The 36th Indiana’s own color guard was trooped forward, and all was ready for the general advance in grand style. Robert’s stomach tightened. There could be only one command remaining. Then they would tread this field of valor.

*****

Polk’s Battery

Wick’s Field AM April 7, 1862

“Drag it away! We’ve not enough mounts!” Lieutenant Parker shouted as the caissons were limbered up to the remaining horses in the battery. The enemy regiments were advancing cautiously, checked by the fire of canister into their ranks. But the guns were lost if a moment longer elapsed in the work of firing them. With trained precision, the battery moved from action stations to limbering for a hurried movement to the rear. The horses were brought from the picket line. With the injuries sustained along the picket line, four horses, rather than the typical six, were hooked to each cannon. None were available to pull the final cannon.

“We can’t save it, and we’ve got no infantry left to help haul it off,” Michael shouted in reply. “Spike it!”

As the last gun they could save was discharged and the caisson rolled up to retrieve it, Lieutenant Parker shouted, “They’re going to make a go for us!” They fired the gun they could not save, and the enemy line surged forward with a shout.

Sergeant Hughes, the gun commander, grabbed the iron spike and jammed it into the touch hole. Sergeant Phipps prepared to hammer it down. The rest of the gun crew ran for the rear, leaving Parker, Michael, and Hughes looking aghast as Sergeant Phipps suddenly tumbled to the ground.

To leave a gun on the field was like leaving one’s colors in the hands of the enemy. Although cannon sometimes had to be left behind when the fighting was hard and horses were not available, leaving a gun whole and un-spiked was something that could not happen. The enemy ran to capture the gun that seemed in easy reach. Sergeant Hughes hopped over the gun tail and retrieved the sledge hammer. Lieutenant Parker ran forward with revolver and sword drawn. The race was on. Michael wanted to tell them to hurry, to forget about the gun and save themselves, but knew he would be doing the same thing. The gun could still be successfully spiked if Sergeant Hughes could just have a few more seconds to wield the hammer.

A Federal captain raced ahead of his men and demanded that Lieutenant Parker surrender his sword. To shoot the captain would buy some time but would be tantamount to murder when surrender was offered. Michael was helpless to reach the gun in time to prevent or alter the outcome. He knew that Parker was a chivalrous officer who would do what was right. As Hughes swung the hammer to let it fall upon the spike, Parker dropped his revolver and handed his sword to the captain, raising his hands in ascension to the demand. The Union men, distracted by their new prisoner, gave Hughes time to drive the spike into the touch hole.

Michael knew there was nothing more he could do. He raced to his mount several yards beyond the lost gun and swung into the saddle. With a last look behind him, he saw the enemy swarming the gun and capturing Sergeant Hughes. But they had spiked it, making it useless to the enemy, and that was enough to salvage the battery’s honor.

Michael raced Charger through the tree line. His hope to make it back to his old battery evaporated when Lieutenant Parker was captured. The field where Michael had encountered Cheatham’s divisional HQ was now bustling with regiments. Screaming officers tried to rally their charges into another defensive line. The battery was shaking itself loose between two brigades of infantry, and Michael cleared the trees, hurrying to take station.

A new defensive line was forming three hundred yards past the trees atop a slope. Michael reined up behind the new gun line and leapt off Charger. His race across the field was the only reconnaissance they would get. The ground undulated like a series of frozen waves. The ground was not ideal; the undulations would provide cover for the enemy’s approach and offer only quick glimpses of him as he crested each small hill. The guns would need short fuses to explode above the approaching lines.

“Lieutenant Gibbs,” Michael shouted to the second lieutenant overseeing the placement of the caissons, “you are in command. Parker has been captured.”

The nervous lieutenant swallowed. “Sir?”

Each officer and non-com knew he might be faced with the sudden ascension to command, but attrition among the officers had not treated this section well.

The men moved listlessly, as if mired in mud. They were exhausted and looked as if they had been on the receiving end of hours of pounding by enemy guns. They were fit only for the rear, but Bankhead’s battery on their left did not appear to be in any better shape.

“That ground is going to give us trouble. Use explosive with short fuses. Try four-second fuses as they are forming, thirty degree elevation, and start from there!”

His orders completed, Michael remounted. He wanted to find General Cheatham and another battery to either relieve or augment what they had. Cheatham was not hard to find. Riders coming and going belied the location of the new divisional HQ. To Michael’s surprise, Major Bankhead was also there.

“Grierson, how is Polk’s battery faring?” Bankhead asked.

Michael offered a tentative salute. “Sir, Section One here needs relief and now. They are moving like they’re knee deep in water. We lost one gun to the enemy and two men. The gun was successfully spiked. Sir, I respectfully request permission to pull them from the line.”

“Denied, Captain. No fresh batteries anywhere on this end of the field. They will have to make do.”

“Sir, this is horrible ground. The guns won’t be able to play upon the enemy due to all that low ground. They will be upon us before we can respond effectively and that only if the men are alert.”

“I understand your protest, Captain,” Bankhead said levelly, “but there isn’t anything to replace them with. They are holding on the right of our line by the church. We have to hold here, or the whole field will be lost.”

“Sir,” Michael said with another salute. He remounted Charger and wheeled about.

Just when he made it back to the section, the enemy emerged from the trees and formed up across their front. An unending line of blue started forward in line of battle. Michael saw a second line of Union blue emerge from the trees and knew that this was going to be a temporary holding place before they would be forced to retreat once more. Though the gun crews stood to their pieces, they did so as if asleep on their feet. The fighting died down off to their right where Bankhead stated the line was holding firm.

A quiet descended upon this place of conflict and death, but it brought no comfort. Birds began to sing again, perhaps convinced that the fuss below them was over. Except for the enemy line’s approach, Michael could nearly convince himself it truly was a peaceful Monday morning.

The flags dotting the dark blue told of the enemy’s numbers. Michael counted ten stands of colors, and that was just the first line. The enemy’s colors were separated by a frightful distance, the intervening space, Michael knew, filled with enemy and fresh regiments to oppose the fatigued and whittled-down regiments of Cheatham’s command.

The ground had been won the day before when the enemy had retired from it. To be forced to vacate it now when victory was in grasp was more than any man would concede easily, even one haggard by lack of sleep and constant marching into danger. To Michael’s thinking, though, they had little to gain from pretending they might be able to hold the enemy at bay this time.

Michael dismounted slowly and handed the reins to one of the enlisted men detailed to care for the battery’s horses in the rear. The loaders were lounging on their caissons and did not stir as he strode past them. Their job would have them run from gun to caisson and back again shortly. If the enemy was to be stopped, each opportunity to shoot into the crowded formations had to have effect.

Michael surveyed the broken men around him and sighed. “Gibbs, make sure the gun commanders pick their targets well. That field isn’t going to allow for massing our fire. Make sure they understand it is up to them.”

“Sir, they know their business,” the young subaltern replied. “I’ll tell them they are on their own for targets and fire.”

Michael’s work done, he had nothing to do but stand and watch. He learned the art well from Mahoney. Mahoney didn’t seem to mind taking a back seat to his less-educated upstart. But Mahoney’s direction and training in the regulars made the battery an efficient instrument of war and Michael an expert commander with an eye for terrain and logistics. Now, his eye for terrain told him this was not the place to make a stand.

Artillery was a curious weapon. Impersonal, it delivered fire safely out of reach of the mass of enemy musketry, but at the same time was only able to lob shells at the general direction of the enemy. Solid shot was good for disabling enemy cannon or bowling down a section of his line. Explosives showered him with shrapnel, and the bursts from above played upon his psyche. A cannon’s greatest effect was in close quarters fighting. Though the gunners were in range of muskets, they could deliver deadly blasts of canister and grape shot into the masses, taking down entire formations with one blast. The other effect was to demoralize the enemy with long-range fire. It produced few casualties, but the mental strain created by the explosions and watching the twirling and sputtering cannon balls come at them was as potent as laying scores low. To demoralize an enemy before he could even respond with his own fire was the hallmark of artillery. Michael could not see how this was going to be achieved here.

“They are goin’ to roll over us, ain’t they?” Gibbs asked as he watched the enemy advance.

Michael nodded in reply. “I don’t think we can stop ‘em.”