BEAUREGARD'S CALL FOR BELLS.

339

the appeal had "touched the hearts of battle, except by troops deployed as the people," and that already responses skirmishers, the fire by file will be avoidwere being freely made. The stewards ed. It excites the men, and renders of the St. Francis street Methodist church their subsequent control difficult. Fire had met and agreed "to tender their fire by wing or company should be resorted bell for this patriotic purpose." A gen- to instead. During the battle, the officers tleman of Summerville had brought to and non-commissioned officers must keep the editor "a quantity of brass, some their men in the ranks, enforce obedience, thirty or forty pounds' weight, including and encourage and stimulate them, if neseveral brass tops of andirons, as the cessary. Soldiers must not be permitted donation of his wife to the cause." A to leave the ranks, even to assist in re"Southern Woman," in the same journal, moving our own dead, unless by special suggested that "the ladies assist by send- permission, which shall only be given ing all of their bell-metal preserving ket- when the action has been decided. The tles."* General Butler, on taking pos- surest way to protect the wounded is to session of New Orleans at the end of the drive the enemy from the field. The following month, came into possession of most pressing, highest duty is to win the a considerable collection of property of victory. this description stored at the Custom House, on its way to the Southern foundries. It was confiscated as the military property of the enemy, sent to Boston, and there sold at public auction for the benefit of the government.

Another order of General Beauregard, on the 14th of March, was issued, evidently with the prospect before his army of an immediate battle. The instructions furnish some instructive hints of the handling of newly raised troops.

"Field and company officers are specially enjoined to instruct their men, under all circumstances, to fire with deliberation at the feet of the enemy. They will thus avoid over-shooting, and besides, wounded men give more trouble to our adversary than dead, as they have to be taken from the field. Officers in command must be cool and collected; hold their men in hand in action, and caution them against useless, aimless firing. The men must be instructed and required each one to single out his mark. It was the deliberate sharpshooting of our forefathers in the Revolution of 1776, and New Orleans, in 1815, which made them so formidable against the odds with which they were engaged. In the beginning of a

The Mobile Advertiser and Register, March 18, 1862. New York Herald, April 10, 1862.

To quit their standard on the battle-field under fire, under pretence of removing or aiding the wounded, will not be permitted. Any one persisting in it will be shot on the spot, and whosoever shall be found to have quit the field, his regiment, or his company, without authority, will be regarded and proclaimed as a coward, and dealt with accordingly."

General Beauregard, indeed, had not been idle in his work of preparation for the conflict. As early as the 2d of March, as he tells us in his report of the battle which ensued, he had ascertained from the movements of General Grant's forces, and from "reliable sources of information," of which the enemy would seem seldom to have been deprived, the intentions of the Union army in their occupation of a new base on the Tennessee river. He accordingly "determined to foil the design by concentrating all his available forces at and around Corinth. Meanwhile, having called on the Governors of the States of Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana, to furnish additional troops, some of them, chiefly regiments from Louisiana, soon reached this vicinity, and with two divisions of General Polk's command from Columbus, and a fine corps of troops from Mobile and Pensacola, under Major-General

attempted at once, incomplete and imperfect as were our preparations for such a grave and momentous adventure. Accordingly, that night, at one o'clock, A. M., the preliminary orders to the commanders of corps were issued for the movement."

Bragg, constituted the army of the Mississippi. At the same time, General Johnston, being at Murfreesboro', on the march to form a junction of his forces with mine, was called on to send at least a brigade by railroad, so that we might fall on and crush the enemy should he attempt an advance from under his gun- On the following day, from his headboats. The call on General Johnston quarters at Corinth, General Johnston was promptly complied with. His entire issued this brief and animated address force was also hastened in this direction, to his forces :-" Soldiers of the Army and by the first of April our united forces of the Mississippi: I have put you in were concentrated along the Mobile and motion to offer battle to the invaders of Ohio railroad from Bethel to Corinth, your country, with the resolution and and on the Memphis and Charleston rail- discipline and valor becoming men, fightroad from Corinth to Iuka. It was then ing, as you are, for all worth living or determined to assume the offensive and dying for. You can but march to a destrike a sudden blow at the enemy in po- cisive victory over agrarian mercenaries, sition under General Grant, on the west sent to subjugate and despoil you of your bank of the Tennessee, at Pittsburg, and liberties, property and honor. Rememin the direction of Savannah, before he ber the precious stake involved, rememwas reinforced by the army under Gen- ber the dependence of your mothers, eral Buell, then known to be advancing your wives, your sisters, and your chilfor that purpose by rapid marches from dren, on the result. Remember the fair, Nashville, via Columbla. About the broad, abounding lands, the happy homes same time General Johnston was advised that will be desolated by your defeat. that such an operation conformed to the The eyes and hopes of 8,000,000 people expectations of the President. By a rest upon you. You are expected to rapid and vigorous attack on General show yourselves worthy of your valor Grant it was expected he would be beaten and courage, worthy of the women of back into his transports and the river, or the South, whose noble devotion in this captured in time to enable us to profit by war has never been exceeded in any the victory, and remove to the rear all time. With such incentives to brave the stores and munitions that would fall deeds, and with the trust that God is into our hands in such an event, before with us, your General will lead you conthe arrival of General Buell's army on fidently to the combat, assured of sucthe scene. It was never contemplated, cess." Accompanying this address were however, to retain the position thus gain-general orders, dividing "the Army of ed, and abandon Corinth, the strategic the Mississippi" into three corps d'armée. point of the campaign. Want of proper officers needful for the proper organization of divisions and brigades of an army brought thus suddenly together, and other difficulties in the way of an effective organization, delayed the movement until the night of the 2d April, when it was heard from a reliable quarter that the junction of the enemy's armies was near at hand; it was then, at a late hour, determined that the attack should be

General Beauregard was proclaimed second in command of the whole force. The first corps d'armée was assigned to General Polk, and embraced all the troops of his former command, less detached cavalry and artillery, and reserves detached for the defence of Fort Pillow and Madrid bend. The second corps d'armée was assigned to General Bragg, and was to consist of the second division of the army of the Mississippi. The

PITTSBURG LANDING.

cording to the exigencies of the battle.*

Sherman's, lay Major-General McCler- the Pittsburgh road, or otherwise act acnand's division, and between it and Stuart's brigade, already mentioned as forming our extreme left, lay Brigadier-General Prentiss' division, completing the line. Back of this line, within a mile of the landing, lay Hurlbut's division, stretching across the Corinth road, and W. H. L. Wallace's to his right. Such was the position of our troops at Pittsburg Landing at daybreak on Sunday morning. Major-General Lewis Wallace's division lay at Crump's Landing, some miles below, and was not ordered up till about half-past seven o'clock that day."

at Shiloh, the latter on a bridge to the left, with a front fire over open ground, between Munger's and Appler's Ohio regiments. The cavalry and companies of the Fourth Illinois, under Colonel Dickey, were posted in a large open field to the left and rear of the church.

At half-past five on the morning of Sunday these formidable lines and columns were set in motion. General Sherman, with his widely extended brigade in the front, bore the brunt of the attack. Advised of the enemy's approach by their assault upon his advanced guard, he ordered under arms all his division, and sent word to General McClernand, asking him to support the left; to General Prentiss, giving him notice that the enemy was in force on the front, and to General Hurlbut asking him to support General Prentiss. The four brigades of Sherman's The attack of the enemy, to be made division were stationed to the right and at the earliest practicable hour in the left of Shiloh meeting-house, which ho remorning, of Sunday, April 6th, was ar-garded as the centre of his position. Two ranged in accordance with the orders of batteries of artillery Taylor's and movement, in three lines of battle; the Waterhouse's-were posted, the former first and second extending from Owl creek on the left to Lick creek on the right—a distance of about three miles supported by the third and the reserve. The first line, under Major-General Hardee, was constituted of his corps, augmented on his right by Gladden's brigade, of Major-General Bragg's corps, deployed in line of battle, with their re-tails of the engagement, it may facilitate spective artillery, following immediately by the main road to Pittsburg, and the cavalry in rear of the wings. The second line, composed of the other troops of Bragg's corps, followed the first at a distance of five hundred yards, in the same order as the first. The army corps under General Polk followed the second line, at the distance of about eight hundred yards, in lines of brigades, deployed with their batteries in rear of each brigade, moving by the Pittsburg road, the left wing supported by cavalry; the reserve, under Brigadier-General Breckinridge, followed closely the third line, in the same order, its right wing supported by cavalry. These two corps constituted the reserve, and were to support the front lines of battle, by being deployed when required on the right and left of Cooper, Adjutant-General C. S. A. Corinth, April 11,

Previously to noticing some of the de

the reader's understanding of the complex movements on the field to have before him the outline of the entire two days' engagement, presented in the first official report of General Grant. "It becomes my duty," he writes from Pittsburg, April 9th, to Captain McLean, assistant adjutant-general of the department of the Mississippi, "again to report another battle, fought between two great armies, one contending for the maintenance of the best government ever devised, and the other for its destruction. It is pleasant to record the success of the army contending for the former principle. On Sunday morning our pickets were attacked and driven in by the enemy. Imme

* Official Report of General Beauregard to General

1862.

GENERAL GRANT'S REPORT.

343

of the line, from nine until probably five o'clock in the afternoon, when it became evident the enemy was retreating."

With this general map in view, we proceed to cite from the reports of the Division commanders a few particulars of the battle calculated to afford an idea of the nature of the gigantic struggle. To do justice to all who participated in it would require a volume. "Shortly after seven A. M.," says General Sherman, in his official report of the day, "with my entire staff, I rode along a portion of our front, and when in the open field before Appler's regiment, the enemy's pickets opened a brisk fire on my party, killing my orderly, Thomas D. Holliday, of Company H, 2d Illinois cavalry. The fire came from the bushes which line a small stream that rises in the field in front of Appler's camp, and flows to the north along my whole front. This valley afforded the enemy a partial cover, but our men were so posted as to have a good fire at him as he crossed the valley and ascended the rising ground on our side. About eight A. M., I saw the glistening bayonets of heavy masses of infantry to our left front, in the woods beyond the small stream alluded to, and became satisfied for the first time, that the enemy designed a determined attack on our whole camp. All the regiments of my division were then in line of battle at their proper posts. I rode to Colonel Appler and ordered him to hold his ground at all hazards, as he held the left flank of our first line of battle, and I informed him that he had a good battery on his right and strong supports to his rear. General McClernand had promptly and energetically responded to my request, and had sent me three regiments, which were posted to protect Waterhouse's battery and the left flank of my line.

diately the five divisions stationed at this place were drawn up in line of battle to meet them. The battle soon waxed warm on the left and centre, varying at times to all parts of the line. There was the most continuous firing of musketry and artillery ever heard on this continent, kept up until nightfall. The enemy having forced the entire line to fall back nearly halfway from their camps to the landing, at a late hour in the afternoon a desperate effort was made by the enemy to turn our left and get possession of the landing, transports, etc. This point was guarded by the gunboats Tyler and Lexington, Captains Gwynne and Shirk commanding, with four 24-pounder Parrott guns and a battery of rifled guns. As there is a deep and impassable ravine for artillery or cavalry and very difficult for infantry at this point, no troops were stationed here except the necessary artillerists and a small infantry force for their support. Just at this moment the advance of Major-General Buell's column and a part of the division of General Nelson arrived, the two generals named both being present. An advance was immediately made upon the point of attack, and the enemy was soon driven back. In this repulse much is due to the presence of the gunboats Tyler and Lexington, and their able commanders Captains Gwynne and Shirk. During the night the divisions under Generals Crittenden and McCook arrived. General Lewis Wallace, at Camp Landing, six miles below, was ordered at an early hour in the morning to hold his division in readiness to move in any direction it might be ordered. At eleven o'clock the order was given to move it up to Pittsburg, but owing to its being led by a circuitous route, did not arrive in time to take part in Sunday's action. During the night all was quiet; and, feeling that great moral advantage would be gained by becoming the attack- "The battle began by the enemy opening party, an advance was ordered as soon ing a battery in the woods to our front as day dawned. The result was the and throwing shell into our camp. Taygradual repulse of the enemy at all points | lor's and Waterhouse's batteries promptly