^H75 
 
 .5'/ 
 
HE scenes of great events 
 are common property 
 of mankind. There is 
 ^ a subtle ownership of 
 the soul covering all the tracts of 
 glory that dot the rugged earth. 
 This vast estate of the mind can 
 not be vended away from us by 
 the mere owners of lands. With an 
 unbroken chain of title, we possess 
 all the places which Fame has 
 touched, from the Hill of Calvary 
 to the Argonne Forest; to have 
 and to hold forever. 
 
 And so it is that we possess 
 the sacred places upon which rests 
 this wondrous story. 
 
 The battle-scarred city of Cor- 
 inth, the beautiful woods of Shiloh, 
 and the road that lies between 
 them belong to all the world. 
 Never again will the soft shadows 
 of seclusion rest upon them, for 
 the spot-light of history will cast 
 upon them an eternal ray. 
 
THE STORY 
 OF SHILOH 
 
 By DeLong Rice 
 
 Super inlendent, Shiloh National Military Park 
 

 Copyrighted 1919 by DeLong Rice 
 
 ^K 22 /3/9 
 
 iGl.A561773 
 
DEDICATION 
 
 ^|fHIS humble commentary is 
 ^^ dedicated to the valor of a 
 hundred thousand Americans who 
 fought in the great battle of Shiloh 
 — ^to the memory of all the dead — 
 to the spirit of reunion and good 
 will between the living — to the 
 eternal brotherhood of the sections, 
 that our country may ever be, as 
 it now is, the most potent unit in this 
 world for humanity, justice and 
 libetty. 
 
 —The Author. 
 
w 
 
 Xt must ever be that battlefields where God- 
 ^ fearing men fear not to die will be sacred 
 ground. 
 
 As I have walked through these far-famed 
 woods and fields, I have often thought of how 
 long they might have escaped the notice, and of 
 how surely they would have missed the homage 
 of the distant hurrying world had not the battle 
 of Shiloh sounded in the ears of history. Now, 
 these quiet places are the student's problem, the 
 patriot's shrine, the poet's theme. Valor has 
 drawn this wilderness into the libraries of the 
 earth, clothed this isolated spot with immor- 
 tality, and lifted it far above the plane of mere 
 places and objects of nature. 
 
 Shiloh was the first great battle of the Civil 
 War; it was the first great battle of this conti- 
 nent, within the view of history. More Ameri- 
 cans perished here in two days than were killed 
 in all the years of the Revolutionary War. 
 
 The first Red Cross tent field hospital ever 
 set up on a battlefield was set up on the field 
 of Shiloh. 
 
 This was the only great battle of that de- 
 structive war on whose field there was not a 
 breastwork, nor a trench, nor even a rifle pit. 
 It was the closest and fiercest death grapple of 
 the American manhood of that unhappy time. 
 
 Shiloh closed the wonderful life of Albert 
 Sidney Johnston, and opened the great career of 
 Ulysses S. Grant. 
 
 These startling facts are my excuse for this 
 brief volume. 
 
 — The Author. 
 
TABLET MARKING THE SPOT ON SHILOH BATTLE FIELD WHERE 
 THE FIRST TENT FIELD HOSPITAL WAS ESTABLISHED 
 
THE STORY OF SHILOH 
 
 ICTOR HUGO has sung 
 to all the future, a sad 
 and wondrous song of 
 Waterloo. Under the 
 spell of his descriptive genius we 
 see a little cloud, recruiting from 
 the mists of heaven, double-quick 
 across the Belgian sky, outmarch 
 the ''Grand Army" and spread 
 mud and mire across the pathway 
 of its lumbering guns. We see the 
 ''Hollow Road of Ohain," that 
 wide and fateful furrow of death, 
 entomb the fortunes of earth's 
 mightiest warrior, and, rich- 
 watered with the blood of dead 
 and dying Frenchmen, enfold the 
 sad seed of St. Helena. 
 
 O, for the pen of a Hugo, to 
 write the story of that other 
 Waterloo where the armies of 
 Grant and Johnston met! 
 
 (9) 
 
Like the first, it had its Blucher 
 and its Grouchy, for, though Buell 
 came. Van Dorn did not come. It 
 had its timely cloud which flew 
 the flag of the Union cause. It 
 had its "Sunken Road,'' a de- 
 ceptive, seeming track of chance 
 which had waited, unsuspected, in 
 its unmolested shadows, through 
 many a year, for the fulfillment of 
 its destiny. 
 
 As some unknown pioneer of 
 early Tennessee marked out that 
 lonely highway by driving his rude 
 wagon along the edge of the thick 
 woods which the world now knows 
 as the * 'Hornet's Nest" section of 
 the Shiloh battlefield, little did he 
 dream that he was breaking ground 
 for the grave of the Southern Con- 
 federacy. Far down the years 
 from his forgotten and unevent- 
 ful journey, that road, bitten by 
 many a hoof and wheel, and 
 washed by many a rain, held the 
 
 (10) 
 
brave lines of Prentiss and Wallace 
 within its protecting banks, while 
 charge after charge of the victory- 
 flushed lines of gray fainted upon 
 its bloody brink. 
 
 In presenting this brief com- 
 mentary on the most fateful battle 
 of our Civil War, it is not my pur- 
 pose to invade the realm of the 
 historian and usurp his tedious 
 labors. Able pens have long since 
 written the story of Shiloh — of its 
 long marches, the clashes of its 
 human lines, and every order 
 which quickened or abated its 
 tempest of death. Encomium has 
 already given to its soldiers, the 
 choicest flowers of love and grati- 
 tude; and, though narrow-minded 
 criticism has shot its poisoned 
 arrows from side to side, there is 
 unscathed glory enough for both 
 the blue and the gray. When 
 deeds are golden they need but the 
 light of truth upon them to make 
 them dazzle the world. 
 
 (11) 
 
Following the footsteps of fate 
 that led to this sad, ensanguined 
 field, let us view, through the 
 sobering lenses of fifty-seven years, 
 the motives, deliberations, im- 
 pulses and accidents which caused 
 this great battle to be fought when 
 and where it was; and, with the 
 smoke all blown away, and the 
 mists of tears lifted a little by the 
 winds of time, let us endeavor to 
 read its result to the brief, im- 
 passioned fortunes of the Southern 
 Confederacy. 
 
 Into the story of Shiloh, widely 
 differing opinions have woven con- 
 troversies which I shall not herein 
 attempt to settle. 
 
 As to whether or not the Union 
 army was surprised by the Con- 
 federate attack — as to whether 
 General Sherman was a pillar of 
 strength against the Confederate 
 onrush of the first day, as General 
 
 (12) 
 
Grant has told us he was, or prac- 
 tically adrift in the wreckage of 
 the storm, as General Buell has 
 described him — as to the cause of 
 the belated arrival of General Lew 
 Wallace — as to whether General 
 Beauregard, in withdrawing his 
 army from action on the evening 
 of the first day, committed a 
 blunder and forfeited victory, or 
 obeyed the necessities of an ex- 
 hausted army, I deem it proper to 
 reserve my opinions. 
 
 Rather let me swiftly unveil the 
 great tragedy in its undisputed 
 outlines, and bid you look upon 
 its astounding array of immortal 
 actors. 
 
 In imagination, I invite you, the 
 reader of this sketch, to leave the 
 present hour, and the place in 
 which you sit, and go back with 
 me to the time and place of Shiloh. 
 
 The day to which we have trans- 
 ferred our minds is Sunday, April 
 
 (13) 
 
sixth, eighteen hundred sixty-two, 
 and, in spirit, we are above the 
 earth, gifted with the mystic vision 
 that holds not only the present, 
 but both past and future within 
 its dreamy scope. 
 
 We are looking down on a re- 
 mote and wooded landscape on 
 the west bank of the Tennessee 
 River, in Hardin County, Ten- 
 nessee. In all its winding length of 
 twelve hundred miles, this beauti- 
 ful stream passes no more peaceful 
 spot than was this place before 
 these armies came to destroy its 
 solitude forever, and place it on 
 the map of the world. In aston- 
 ishment, you speak to me, and ask : 
 "Why should this tragedy of his- 
 tory take place here, removed 
 from all centers of population, and 
 twenty miles from a railroad? 
 What manner of vantage is this 
 timbered plain? I see no citadel 
 
 (14) 
 
 ~<^^ 
 
 <ICH> 
 
of power to invite the jealous 
 clash of mighty armies. Why- 
 should these bannered legions come 
 here to shoot the heart out of 
 Nature and ravish with the can- 
 non's roar, the thrush's sylvan 
 song?" 
 
 I can but answer that Shiloh is 
 a chance stage of action. Grant's 
 objective was Corinth, Miss., 
 twenty miles away on the Memphis 
 and Charleston Railroad, where he 
 had expected to find and attack 
 Johnston's army; and his troops 
 had assembled here for the march 
 against Corinth. 
 
 The Tennessee River, gathering 
 its waters from that wondrous 
 country that raised up the heroes 
 of Kings Mountain, and flowing 
 by the unknown and unsung table 
 land of Shiloh, volunteered a 
 gleaming roadway to the trans- 
 ports of Grant, and brought his 
 
 (15) 
 
 O' 
 
troops to this high bluff which is, 
 for him, the gateway to history 
 and to glory. 
 
 The road which you see stretch- 
 ing away from this landing to the 
 Southwest, marks the highest and 
 driest route to Corinth, from any 
 point along the river. 
 
 By his superior, General H. W. 
 Halleck, who is stationed at St. 
 Louis, General Grant has been 
 ordered to delay the attack on 
 Corinth until the arrival of Buell's 
 army now marching from middle 
 Tennessee to reenforce him. 
 
 Divining the purpose of his ad- 
 versary. General Johnston decided 
 not to await the attack, but to 
 become the aggressor — to move 
 swiftly against the army of Grant, 
 in the hope of crushing it before 
 Buell could join him. 
 
 From his headquarters in the 
 Inge home, the veteran com- 
 mander issued the order for the 
 
 (16) 
 
SHELL-SCARRED WHITE OAK, SHILOH BATTLE FIELD, OVEJ 
 SHADOWING THE SPOT WHERE GEN. ALBERT 
 SIDNEY JOHNSTON FELL 
 
forward movement on the morning 
 of April 3rd; and Corinth was 
 delirious with hope and joy, as the 
 music of drum and fife and piccolo 
 floated on her languorous air, timing 
 the eager tramp of the battle- 
 bannered host. 
 
 But beyond the spell of the 
 music and the thrill of the march- 
 ing, was the sad preparation for 
 the grim results of the coming 
 combat. While these buoyant 
 troops were swinging out from the 
 gates of Corinth, busy hammers 
 were already falling in the making 
 of five hundred coffins which the 
 commander had ordered before he 
 rode away; homes had been dis- 
 posed for hospitals ; and physicians 
 and nurses were silently waiting 
 for the guns to begin. 
 
 The weary march is over, and 
 in the light of paling stars, we see 
 the long gray lines, yet silent and 
 
 (17) 
 
 # 
 
still, over there to the Southwest, 
 just three and one-half miles from 
 this Landing, and only a little 
 more than one mile beyond the 
 sleeping lines of blue. 
 
 ^\ ND now, before those lines 
 ^^ close in their blighting em- 
 brace, let us glance along their 
 separate ranks and see what im- 
 mortals are there. We can not 
 enumerate the heroes, for every 
 man of all the thousands is a hero. 
 There is not a conscript in either 
 army. Every soldier is a volunteer, 
 and yet, in all the threatening 
 scene, there is nothing of the 
 aspect of the gathering mob, for 
 the spirit and decorum of West 
 Point are presiding there. 
 
 Of the more than thirty Generals 
 guiding the two hosts to the hour 
 of fate, many are counted among 
 the ablest products of the United 
 
 (18) 
 
States Military Academy; many 
 are veterans of the Mexican War, 
 former classmates, friends and 
 comrades, marching against each 
 other with the best blood of the 
 divided Nation behind them. 
 
 First we look along the lines of 
 blue. Beyond the battle field our 
 vision encompasses the distant 
 camp of Wallace's Third Division, 
 the absent but hurrying columns 
 of Buell, and the headquarters of 
 the commander, eight miles away. 
 It is difficult to believe that that 
 plain, firm-jawed man, quartered 
 in the quiet little village of Sa- 
 vannah, Tennessee, is beginning 
 an endless march into the fadeless 
 light of history. He is not forty 
 years old, and yet adversity has 
 left its inevitable lines of sadness 
 in his face, and he appears much 
 older. Long before he shall reach 
 fifty, he will be proclaimed the 
 
 (19) 
 
savior of a Nation; and the 
 crowned rulers of the old world will 
 receive him in their palaces with 
 all the pomp of earthly glory, for 
 he is Ulysses S. Grant. 
 
 Had his stage of action been set 
 two thousand years ago, he would 
 have been one of Plutarch's men. 
 
 Yonder, close by the little log 
 church called Shiloh, is W. T. 
 Sherman, slender, grim and shrewd 
 of countenance. His is the discern- 
 ing vision that, e'er long, will look 
 beyond the dictionaries of all lan- 
 guages and find the truest defini- 
 tion of War. 
 
 Able, fearless, and superb, Don 
 Carlos Buell looks like some knight 
 of another century riding into the 
 picture which our spirits behold. 
 
 Five miles away is Lew Wallace; 
 and we observe him with peculiar 
 sadness, for his conduct of this day 
 will involve him in a bitter and 
 
 (20) 
 
 
lifelong controversy with his chief. 
 But, regardless of the merits of 
 that controversy — regardless of 
 Shiloh, he is one of the country's 
 immortals, and, looking down the 
 years, we see the State of Indiana 
 fix his image in marble, to stand 
 as one of her two contributions to 
 the Hall of Fame in the National 
 Capitol. 
 
 There are Prentiss and Mc- 
 Clemand, and W. H. L. Wallace, 
 and Crittenden and Lauman, and 
 McCook and Nelson and Rousseau 
 and Wood, conspicuous figures of 
 the gathered and gathering host of 
 blue. 
 
 That mellow- voiced young Brig- 
 adier of Ohio with the head of a 
 statesman and the manner of a 
 college professor, in nineteen years 
 from this day will be President of 
 the United States, for he is none 
 other than James A. Garfield. 
 
 (21) 
 
Behold the thick-lipped young 
 officer not yet twenty-nine years 
 of age, riding at the head of the 
 Eleventh Illinois Cavalry — he of 
 the strangely heavy features, but 
 deep and soulful eyes that gather 
 into his brain all the poetry of 
 rivers, woods and fields. Though 
 his insignificant part in this great 
 battle will but claim a passing 
 glance from the historian, in a 
 little while he will be known as the 
 Demosthenes of the nineteenth 
 century, and his thoughts, clothed 
 with incomparable beauty, will be 
 printed in every language of the 
 civilized world. He is Robert G. 
 Ingersoll. 
 
 Over there in the Thirtieth 
 Indiana Infantry is a young Lieu- 
 tenant of nineteen years, who will 
 take no conspicuous laurels from 
 this field, but long after this 
 breach of the States shall have 
 
 (22) 
 
 • -1 
 
 ^D^ 
 
been healed, he will serve the 
 Nation in places of distinction. 
 Looking far down the coming 
 years, we see him following old 
 Geronimo through the wilds of 
 Mexico. We see him at El Caney, 
 and in the far away Philippines, 
 where he is to die on the firing line 
 beneath the stars and stripes. He 
 is Henry W. Lawton. 
 
 With the Twenty-fifth Ken- 
 tucky is Benjamin H. Bristow, 
 destined to be a conspicuous figure 
 in the cabinet of a President, a 
 pioneer in the yet distant fight 
 against the power of the Trust. 
 
 That brilliant young officer in 
 the Twenty-fifth Indiana is John 
 W. Foster, who, in the future 
 diplomacy of the reunited Nation, 
 will serve as Minister to three 
 different countries. He, too, shall 
 sit at the cabinet table of a Presi- 
 dent, a diplomat and a statesman 
 of influence and power. 
 
 (23) '*"') 
 
 cy 
 
Behind this wonderful array of 
 leaders, but humble units mixed in 
 the mingling mass of blue, are 
 others yet unsung, who will leave 
 their impress on the thought and 
 action of the age. 
 
 JVTOW turning our eyes to the 
 ^^ lines of gray, whom do we 
 see marshaling the attacking host? 
 They also belong to history. 
 
 We look long and wonderingly 
 at the tall, comely figure of Albert 
 Sidney Johnston, for we know that 
 he is in the sixtieth year of his life. 
 He seems the spirit of youth 
 crowned with gray. The story of 
 his career to this climactic hour, 
 reads like some romantic legend of 
 the long ago. Indeed, his eventful 
 life is a link between the old and 
 the new civilizations. He is the 
 senior among the great and active 
 spirits now moving in the limelight 
 
 (24) 
 
in our troubled and severed 
 country. He is older than Abra- 
 ham Lincoln, older than Jefferson 
 Davis, older than Robert E. Lee. 
 U. S. Grant was but a child of four 
 years when Albert Sidney John- 
 ston graduated at West Point. 
 This gray commander of the gray 
 host was a youth of twelve when 
 the battle of Waterloo was fought, 
 and was a student of the campaigns 
 of the great Napoleon while that 
 immortal was yet in the flesh. 
 He has lived within the lifetime 
 of every President from Washing- 
 ton to Lincoln save Washington 
 alone. Looking back to the days 
 of his young manhood, we see 
 him a brilliant and popular figure 
 in the exclusive society of the 
 National Capitol at that eventful 
 time when the social and political 
 life of the country revolved around 
 the wills and wishes of such giants 
 as Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Jack- 
 
 (25) 
 
son, Benton and Everett. Re- 
 fusing a proffered appointment to 
 the staff of Winfield Scott at the 
 age of twenty -three, we see him 
 forego the luxury of Washington 
 official life, and turn his face 
 toward the wild frontier where 
 hardships and dangers are the 
 soldier's certain lot. We see him 
 in that far away Indian expedition 
 of 1827, when Black Hawk and 
 Red Bird were captured, and again 
 in the Black Hawk War of 1832, 
 moving with the most rugged and 
 dauntless characters of that rugged 
 and glorious time. 
 
 Looking along the years, we see 
 him on a memorable occasion in 
 the City of Louisville, listening 
 with fired heart, to the great speech 
 of Stephen F. Austin pleading the 
 cause of Texas independence ; and 
 then we see him riding away to 
 that distant frontier of the South- 
 
 (26) 
 
 
west fresh-stained with the blood 
 that immortalized the Alamo and 
 the field of San Jacinto. We see 
 him enter the Texas army as a 
 private soldier, and become its 
 Commander-in-Chief, then Secre- 
 tary of War in that wonderful 
 Republic which was pressed from 
 hearts of courage by the heel of 
 Mexican tyranny. 
 
 Another short lapse of time, and 
 we find him in the storming line 
 at Monterey. 
 
 Still closer down the years, we 
 see him in command of the Second 
 U. S. Cavalry, that famous organi- 
 zation which swept the Indian 
 terror from hundreds of miles of 
 the great Western border. 
 
 But a little later, and he is 
 leading the expedition to threaten- 
 ing Utah, the Zion of the Mor- 
 mons — triumphantly carrying the 
 stars and stripes through the 
 streets of Salt Lake City. 
 
 (27) 
 
 si 
 
To view him in his next post of 
 duty, our visions leap away to 
 California, where he is in command 
 of the Department of the Pacific. 
 The war cloud above the quarreling 
 States is dark and low. He is 
 opposed to secession, but Texas 
 has spoken, and he resigns and 
 makes the long journey to Rich- 
 mond, where he is given the rank- 
 ing active command in the South- 
 ern Confederacy. 
 
 Now we behold him in the 
 searching spotlight of the first 
 great war tragedy of America. 
 Ke is the star of the gray actors, 
 and in his supporting cast are men 
 of illustrious records. 
 
 There, by his side is Beauregard, 
 who resigned the Superintendency 
 of West Point to follow the for- 
 tunes of Louisiana out of the 
 Union; who directed the bom- 
 bardment of Fort Sumpter and 
 
 (28) 
 
commanded at Bull Run . His body 
 bears scars of Mexican fury brought 
 from the field of Chapultepec. 
 
 With the foremost corps is 
 William J. Hardee, for more than 
 twenty years a brilliant figure in 
 the military affairs of the country, 
 former representative of the Gov- 
 ernment in Europe in the study of 
 cavalry methods, Commandant at 
 West Point and author of the 
 United States official text book on 
 Infantry Drill and Tactics now 
 being used by both Union and 
 Confederate armies. 
 
 The commander of the corps 
 second in line is Braxton Bragg, a 
 hero of the Seminole wars, a 
 veteran of Monterey and Buena 
 Vista. 
 
 Commanding the corps next in 
 line — that man of majestic person, 
 bearing himself as if he were a 
 Roman Senator stepped out of the 
 
 (29) 
 
long ago — is Leonidas Polk, the 
 great and beloved Bishop of the 
 Southwest. 
 
 Back yonder where the most 
 distant line of gray rests across 
 the Corinth road, a little more 
 than four miles from the river, is 
 the commander of Johnston's Re- 
 serve Corps, for years the most 
 dazzling and conspicuous figure of 
 the political life of the South. He 
 was a Congressman at thirty years 
 of age, and Vice-President of the 
 United States at thirty-five. He 
 was the nominee of the pro- slavery 
 party for President against Lin- 
 coln; and he stepped from a seat 
 in the United States Senate into 
 the passion-swept road that led 
 him to this battle field. He is 
 John C. Breckinridge. 
 
 Guiding the divisions and bri- 
 gades of these four grand corps 
 now crouching to spring, are 
 
 (30) 
 
Cheatham and Clark and Ruggles 
 and Withers and Hindman and 
 Russell and Stewart and Bushrod 
 Johnson and Stephens and Gibson 
 and Anderson and Pond and Glad- 
 den and Chalmers and John K. 
 Jackson and Shaver and Cleburne 
 and Wood and Trabue and Bowen 
 and Statham ; there are Forrest 
 and John Morgan, and Bate; 
 and, mixed in the militant multi- 
 tude are many yet unknown 
 to fame who will sit in the high 
 places of their States through 
 trying years to come, to direct the 
 thought of a sorely stricken people. 
 From this vortex of destruction 
 will emerge fire-tried souls, to 
 become the counsellors, judges and 
 statesmen of the Southland. 
 
 T^O you see that little band of 
 ^^ blue-c 1 a d warriors stealing 
 cautiously out from Prentiss' line 
 to reconnoitre the suspicious front? 
 
 (31) 
 
They are the Fingers of Destiny, 
 feeling through the paling dark- 
 ness of this death-charged dawn 
 for the alarm that shall awaken 
 the Union army to its impending 
 danger. Whether led by judgment 
 or chance, or guided by the will of 
 the God of battles, they have gone 
 straight to Hardee's picket line; 
 they are now receiving that fateful 
 volley which will sound through 
 centuries announcing the opening 
 of the Battle of Shiloh; and the 
 hour is four fifty-five. 
 
 The morning is coming bright 
 and clear; the ground is soft from 
 many rains; the forest is fresh- 
 washed and timidly green. 
 
 The gray host is rising from its 
 anxious, fitful rest. Between the 
 river and the rising lines of gray 
 is the blue legion of Grant; and 
 as the two armies quicken with the 
 
 (32) 
 
BEAUTIFUL MONUMENT OF GRANITE AND BRONZE, SHILOH 
 BATTLE FIELD, TO THE MEMORY OF IOWA SOLDIERS 
 
savage] instinct of battle, we s e e 
 that Shiloh is to be the first grand 
 combat of the continent of 
 Liberty. 
 
 How innocently these beardless, 
 untaught soldiers are approaching 
 each other; and what a tragedy! 
 The average age of all these 
 thousands is less than twenty 
 years; and these smoothe-faced 
 boys, gathered from the widely 
 scattered homes of the North and 
 of the South, where hearts are 
 aching and breaking for them, 
 know but little of the arts of 
 defense and attack. Not a trench 
 has been dug in all the battle 
 plain; not an earth work has been 
 thrown up; not a rifle pit has 
 been sunk into the ground. With- 
 out trick or shield, eighty thous- 
 and men are seeking to destroy 
 each other; and every man is a 
 patriot. 
 
 (33) 
 
The battle breaks with the break 
 of day. The gray line is sweeping 
 forward, though resisted and torn 
 at every step. On, and on, and 
 on it sweeps in a whirlwind of fire 
 and death. The hour of twelve 
 has struck, and the Union forces 
 have been swept from half the 
 field. The trend of the moving 
 conflict is Northeastward, down 
 and diagonally toward the river. 
 
 From where Clanton's Cavalry 
 hugs the river marshes on the 
 Confederate right to where Whar- 
 ton with his Texas Rangers, guards 
 its left at the edge of the Owl 
 Creek bottom, the unbroken length 
 of this sweeping, bleeding, trium- 
 phant line, is more than two miles. 
 
 But along all the jagged front 
 of the receding line of blue, no 
 flag of truce is fluttering; and, as 
 it gives ground, it is exacting from 
 the advancing foe a terrible toll of 
 blood. 
 
 (34) 
 
Now all the fronts are clashing — 
 center, right and left; and in the 
 frenzy of the scene, we glimpse 
 again the two Commanders: 
 
 There is Grant, unshaken in the 
 midst of his brave though melting 
 lines. His face, like Bonaparte's, 
 is a mask of granite ; and if there 
 is aught in his soul save unyielding 
 courage and confidence, no man 
 may read it through that exterior 
 of stone. With his columns crash- 
 ing around him, and with his best 
 and bravest commanders yielding 
 inch by inch, no spirit of panic 
 sets its yellow sign upon the 
 serenity of his countenance. With 
 the savage discord of a hundred 
 hurricanes rolling by him, does he, 
 as did that other man of granite, 
 see '*the star of destiny?'' Is that 
 mystic voice which comes only to 
 the fated few, whispering to him 
 through the fiery tumult, that 
 
 (35) 
 
this day is but an incident — that 
 through him, Appomattox MUST 
 be? 
 
 With BuelFs rushing columns 
 yet far out of touch, and with 
 Lew Wallace's sorely needed divi- 
 sion still strangely absent, he 
 placidly remarks to a member of 
 his staff: "If I do not win to-day, 
 I will win to-morrow.'' 
 
 Yonder with the right wing of 
 the gray line is Johnston, watching, 
 directing and giving marvelous 
 impulse to the flaming tide of 
 victory wherever he touches it. 
 Through the morning hours, we 
 have seen him with Gladden and 
 Shaver; then away to the left 
 with Cleburne; then with Stew- 
 art's Brigade shifting to the right. 
 We saw him pause in the camp of 
 the Eighteenth Wisconsin to direct 
 the movements of Chalmers' and 
 Jackson's Brigades to the extreme 
 
 (36) 
 
 LP 
 
right. He is calm, unaffected and 
 serious. In issuing his clear and 
 decisive orders for the hurling of 
 his human machines of death, he 
 seems almost gentle; and, though 
 he is now within the bright focus 
 of a thousand years to come, he 
 does not mar the dignity of the 
 picture with dramatic pose or 
 spectacular gesture. Simplicity is 
 the becoming mantle of his ma- 
 jestic person. 
 
 In the early hours of the conflict 
 we saw him come upon a deserted 
 camp of the enemy ; with a smile, 
 he selected as his share of the 
 **booty," a little new tin cup, re- 
 marking that he might need it; 
 and now, as he rides along the 
 charging lines, we see him waving to 
 the cheering soldiers, with his shin- 
 ing trophy still in his uplifted hand. 
 
 Now he is placing his Reserve 
 Corps in position for what he 
 hopes may be a decisive stroke; 
 
 (37) 
 
and, with his staff around him, 
 these all-important dispositions en- 
 gage him for more than an hour. 
 
 Just beyond the surging fronts, 
 those hovering troops, with meas- 
 ured and steady tramp, are wheel- 
 ing and swinging into positions of 
 vantage, whence he soon will call 
 them to the thundering vortex. 
 
 As we look with fascinated 
 minds, upon this calm evolution of 
 strategy in the very furnace of 
 battle, a vagrant breeze rifts the 
 smoke above an open field that 
 almost touches the spot where the 
 gray commander is placidly issuing 
 his orders, and a sight of strange, 
 uncanny beauty meets our eyes — 
 a wide peach orchard in fullness of 
 bloom, deserted by birds and bees 
 that flew before the battle's breath, 
 and kissed by cannon-smutted 
 winds. 
 
 (38) 
 
 
But pity not this blighted 
 beauty, for, by their glorious death, 
 these shivered trees shall wave 
 immortal in the records of men, 
 and these shattered blossoms will 
 blow forever on the pages of 
 history. 
 
 Now the Confederate Reserve 
 Corps is beginning to move. To 
 the East of that wounded field of 
 bloom the Brigade of Bowen is 
 entering the zone of death, and as 
 the gray Chief rides close behind, 
 all the members of his staff are 
 hurrying away to different parts 
 of the field, each with some mes- 
 sage vital to the purpose of the 
 hour. That uncommon, fierce- 
 eyed man, the last to leave him, is 
 Isham G. Harris, the Governor of 
 Tennessee; and as he gallops 
 away to send the Brigade of 
 Statham straight through the 
 stricken orchard, General Johnston 
 
 (39) 
 
 0(9 
 
is alone. The place is one of 
 beauty — a gentle knoll crested by 
 a great oak reaching out its pecu- 
 liarly horizontal arms in all di- 
 rections, as if it would say to the 
 world: *'Mark me well, for I am 
 about to be the only witness to a 
 tragedy." This calm watcher of 
 his battle is alone in the cold eye 
 of history — alone with the God of 
 his destiny, and his life's work is 
 done. 
 
 It was his mission to bring to 
 its highest pinnacle of hope, this 
 new-born Nation of the South. 
 That hope now moving on this 
 gray and exultant tide, will never 
 again, in all the bloody years to 
 follow, reach the altitude of this 
 hour; but the lone watcher will 
 never know. At twenty-five 
 minutes past two he proudly 
 watches the swiftly moving troops 
 of Statham, the blossoms of that 
 
 (40) 
 
 \ 
 
 ,>— -■ 
 
trembling orchard sifting down 
 upon them like the painted snows 
 of Fairy Land. 
 
 At two-thirty a deadly bullet 
 finds the fountain of his life. His 
 last vision of earth rests upon his 
 forward-marching columns ; the 
 latest sounds that come to him 
 are sounds of victory. He is dying ; 
 he is dead. 
 
 ^HROUGH all its length the 
 ^^ gray line flinches, reels and 
 shudders from the shock; then 
 plunges forward again under the 
 new leadership of Beauregard. Its 
 right and left wings, swinging 
 slowly around, are sweeping the 
 Union forces into a concentrated 
 zone of battle, but the Union 
 center has become as marble, and 
 the frenzied Confederates, hurling 
 themselves against it, are rebound- 
 ing as if they had been shot against 
 
 (41) 
 
a cliff. That center is the ''Hornet's 
 Nest," through which chance or 
 God has carved that fateful 
 ''Sunken Road/' within whose 
 banks the brave line of blue seems 
 to have its back against some in- 
 visible wall of fate. Again and 
 again, and then again, these col- 
 umns of the South carry their 
 banner to the very brink of that 
 road, only to reel and recoil, and 
 go back in shattered fragments. 
 It is plain to the Confederate 
 Commanders that no human units 
 can go through that line — that iron 
 alone can meet and pierce that 
 front. 
 
 O, Muse of History, mark well 
 this struggle on the soil of Tennes- 
 see, for, if you write in truth, you 
 must tell the world that, since 
 men have slain each other on 
 fields of strife, no braver, firmer 
 line was ever held against a charg- 
 ing foe; and that no sublimer 
 
 (42) 
 
courage ever drove the breasts of 
 men against an unyielding front! 
 Mark, too, O writer of immortal 
 records, that these, all, are 
 Americans ! 
 
 Back yonder,west of the Duncan 
 field, just a little more than a 
 quarter of a mile beyond that mill 
 of death, under the direct orders of 
 General Ruggles, all available Con- 
 federate batteries are swiftly 
 massing. Now sixty-two guns are 
 playing on the '^Hornet's Nest" 
 line. Great trees that have fought 
 and whipped the storms of cen- 
 turies are blasted with the quick- 
 ness of a breath; the air is thick 
 with falling limbs and flying twigs, 
 and the troubled landscape booms 
 with ceaseless thunders, as 
 if all the lightnings of Heaven 
 were convening within that tremb- 
 ling forest. 
 
 (43) 
 
That line has stood the hammer 
 of concentrated fury until five 
 o'clock has come and passed, but 
 now, at last, it breaks and yields 
 the ground which it has made im- 
 mortal. The two wings of the 
 attacking Confederates swing in 
 like the closing jaws of an iron 
 pincers, and two thousand Union 
 prisoners, including the indomi- 
 table Prentiss, lay down their arms. 
 
 But, bristling beyond are other 
 lines of blue, and both sides fight 
 on until they stick their bayonets 
 into the evening twilight. 
 
 As the torn and bleeding units 
 of the Union forces fall back with 
 their ever receding and battered 
 front which they have defended 
 from the rising to the setting of 
 the sun, a new line is being formed 
 for a final resistance. As the 
 shadows deepen, this last new line 
 of this bloody day rests its left 
 
 (44) 
 
against the bank of the river at 
 Pittsburg Landing, and stretches 
 westward to the Savannah road. 
 
 Before this last grim line lies 
 its battle field, littered with the 
 wrecks of its guns, and made 
 gruesome by the bodies of its 
 dead and dying, mixed and crossed 
 with the dead and dying of its foes; 
 back of it are the river and the im- 
 passable swamps, but with it and 
 of it is the spirit of Grant, and 
 so it stands at bay to meet what- 
 ever may come. 
 
 Less than half a mile away, the 
 oncoming Confederate line 
 stretches a threatening arc of 
 danger westward from the river to 
 the Corinth road, and on beyond 
 the Savannah road, overlapping 
 the western extremity of the Union 
 line. 
 
 Could the eyes of all the people 
 of the great North, at this critical 
 
 (45) 
 
moment, look upon this scene, 
 their hearts would beat with 
 anxiety for the impending issue. 
 
 Such moments are condensed 
 ages from which Fate, the master 
 player, draws the unexpected cards 
 that trump the dreams of Nations, 
 and win away the fairest hopes of 
 men. 
 
 While the broken but rallying 
 columns of Grant are steadying 
 their fire-wrought nerves to meet 
 the final onset of their flushed and 
 eager foe, there is an unexpected 
 pause in the line of gray as, from 
 unit to unit, an order from the 
 commander is flying — an order 
 that will set an eternal question 
 upon the lips of the future — an 
 order to retire for the night. 
 
 As the gray line is suddenly 
 drawn away, and the two sore 
 and sullen armies begin the long 
 vigil of the restless night, we look 
 
 (46) 
 
 ^D^ 
 
upon a carnival of agony such as 
 can come only to a battle field — 
 the silent faces of thousands of 
 men dead, yet destined to live 
 forever in the grateful affections 
 of their people; the sufferings 
 of the wounded, and all the at- 
 tendant horrors of the surgeon's 
 ghastly work. 
 
 Down there by that little cabin 
 at the river's brink, the severed 
 arms and legs of soldiers are 
 stacked like cord-wood; and this 
 half-green land which, but yester- 
 day was bright with wild flowers 
 and sweet with song, is mantled 
 with gloom and crowned with 
 sorrow. 
 
 And now, as if to confuse con- 
 fusion, a storm is descending upon 
 the stricken field. The lightnings 
 hold aloft their flickering candles, 
 revealing in fitful flashes, the 
 groaning terror which the pitying 
 
 (47) 
 
Night had sought to hide beneath 
 its cloak of darkness. The voice 
 of thunder rolls madly through 
 the upper deeps, as if the war 
 passions of the North and the South 
 had leaped from the face of the 
 earth, and were scolding each 
 other through the lips of the storm. 
 While the weary commanders 
 await the fortunes of the uncertain 
 tomorrow, the army of Buell and 
 the troops of Wallace swell the 
 blue line with more than twenty 
 thousand fresh soldiers. 
 
 A NOTHER morning dawns, 
 ^^ and all the fronts are changed. 
 The gray and threatening column 
 which pressed against the river's 
 edge in the falling darkness of 
 yesterday, now lies far back in the 
 center of the field, while the eager 
 line of blue, fronted with Buell 
 and winged with Wallace, is mov- 
 
 (48) 
 
ing to the attack. Again the 
 conflict rages; again the **Hornet's 
 Nest,'' the ^Teach Orchard," and 
 all those trampled fields and 
 splintered woods are wrapped in 
 flame and tuned with battle 
 thunder, as the living fight above 
 the dead ; again this ravaged land- 
 scape is being graved with the 
 sword and etched with flashing 
 guns, upon the pages of history. 
 
 We see the sorely wounded line 
 of gray pushed back step by step 
 until it loses the field and begins 
 its melancholy march back to 
 Corinth whence it came — Corinth, 
 beautiful type of the town of the 
 old South, the South that soon 
 must pass away. How calm in its 
 grief is this place of beauty and 
 of sorrow! Already holding in its 
 stricken heart, the body of its 
 dead chief, it now must open its gates 
 to receive this defeated host which 
 so recently marched through its 
 streets with flying banners. 
 
 (49) 
 
Looking down on those streets 
 from our seat in the clouds, we 
 fathom the depths of the un- 
 speakable misery of war. On every 
 available house the hospital flags 
 are flying ; mutilated and suffering 
 men, drenched by the storm, are 
 being hurried in to the waiting 
 couches ; couriers are arriving, and 
 news of the growing disaster is 
 spreading from group to group 
 like a sickening contagion. 
 
 Almost in front of the Inge 
 home, now badged with mourning, 
 the two thousand Union prisoners 
 are waiting, under guard; and 
 down the steps of that home, 
 comes a little group of men with 
 bowed heads, bearing the body of 
 the dead chief resting in a plain 
 pine coffin completely covered with 
 battle flags. It is placed on a 
 caisson and drawn through the 
 mass of prisoners, to a waiting 
 train, to be carried to New Orleans. 
 
 (50) 
 
As the vanquished army trudges 
 away from its lost field, our eyes 
 return to the mournful desolation 
 of Shiloh. Down yonder in the 
 cannon-plowed fields, and in the 
 scorched and tattered woods, 
 thirty-six hundred Americans have 
 died — twenty thousand Americans 
 have given of their blood. 
 
 With unfettered visions, our 
 eyes sweep the whole country as 
 millions of people hang, breathless, 
 on the result of this battle which 
 may mean union or disunion. We 
 glimpse the gloom of Richmond 
 and the anxiety of Washington. 
 We have not the heart to look in 
 at the homes of the twenty-one 
 States that sent troops into this 
 struggle. 
 
 Looking away to the country of 
 the great lakes, we see one of the 
 world's immortals pursuing the 
 humble trade of a newsboy and 
 
 (51) 
 
performing his first act of genius 
 in spreading the tidings of Shiloh. 
 He is but a boy of fifteen running 
 on the Grand Trunk Railway be- 
 tween Detroit and Port Huron, 
 Michigan; but because we know 
 that his name will shine further 
 down the ages than any man now 
 living, we observe him with deepest 
 fascination. Standing in front of 
 the bulletin board of the Detroit 
 Free Press and reading the start- 
 ling news of the battle, exaggerated 
 to sixty thousand killed and 
 wounded it comes to his keen and 
 luminous brain, that if the same 
 excitement prevails along his route, 
 there will be opportunity for an 
 unprecedented sale of papers, if 
 he can but get some inkling of the 
 news telegraphed ahead. Going 
 to the operator in the depot, he 
 gives him Harper's Weekly and 
 some other papers for three months 
 upon his agreement to telegraph 
 
 (52) 
 
the stations the substance of the 
 matter on the bulletin board. 
 Conceiving the idea that he can 
 sell a thousand papers, he counts 
 his money, and finds that he has 
 only enough to buy three hundred. 
 Venturing into the forbidding sanc- 
 tum of the editor, he states his 
 plan, and asks the two men present 
 for credit. One refuses ; the other 
 intercedes; the deal is closed, and, 
 with the assistance of another boy, 
 he lugs the thousand papers to 
 the train. Already the operators 
 at all the stations are marking up 
 the headlines of the tragic news; 
 already the town of Corinth, the 
 woods of Shiloh and the road that 
 lies between them, belong to the 
 world. Never again will the soft 
 shadows of seclusion rest upon 
 them, for the spot-light of history 
 will cast upon them an eternal ray. 
 
 At Utica, the first stop, the 
 newsboy sells thirty-five papers; 
 
 (53) 
 
at Mount Clemens the crowd 
 surges in a living mass to reach 
 him, and the price of papers goes 
 to ten cents; all along the way 
 this is repeated; at Port Huron, 
 the waiting crowd comes like an 
 avalanche; the price of papers 
 soars to twenty-five cents; every 
 copy is sold, and the first serious 
 experiment of this incomparable 
 genius is crowned with success. 
 
 But who is he, that we should 
 so long dwell upon his connection 
 with the sad story of Shiloh? 
 Even as this battle is of the life 
 and transcendent purpose of this 
 Republic, so is this yet unknown 
 boy. In the infinite realm of in- 
 vention, he will be king, and the 
 ages will bring none to claim his 
 throne. Nature will whisper to 
 him so softly that others will not 
 hear, and his wondrous mind will 
 sense her finest secrets. He will 
 
 (54) 
 
 
intercept the soul of light and 
 make it the servant of mankind; 
 he will imprison the spirit of song 
 in a cell of wax, that one century 
 may sing to another; he will 
 transfix and hold upon a needle's 
 point, the notes of birds, the 
 laughter of children, the melody 
 and the wisdom of orators. To 
 the stage of the theatre he will 
 bring the action of the world, and 
 within the narrow limits of a little 
 room, the streets of cities will teem 
 with life, great rivers will cast their 
 foaming falls, and all the oceans 
 will roll their shifting tides. By 
 his will and work, the generations 
 of the future may bring into their 
 drawing-rooms the beauty and the 
 music and the wildness of the 
 earth. Within the warmth of 
 glowing firesides, adventurous ex- 
 plorers will scale the peaks of the 
 frozen Alps; wild creatures will 
 pace their native jungles, and 
 
 (55) 
 
 ^ 
 
 cy 
 
deserts will stretch their endless 
 wastes, alive with moving cara- 
 vans. 
 
 Light and Sound and Motion, 
 the angels of his fame, will fly 
 with his name through all the 
 world. 
 
 He is Thomas A. Edison. 
 
 AS the curtain falls on this vast 
 stage of human grief and 
 glory, we may truly say that no 
 tragedy of earth was ever played 
 by a greater cast of characters, nor 
 with scenes more grandly set — 
 foot-lights of flashing guns ; wings 
 of living trees; background of 
 flowing waters and gray- green hills; 
 restless, shifting dome of stars 
 and sun and storm; spot-lights of 
 lightning; music of thunder ; audi- 
 ence, millions of people ! 
 
 And now, my reader — ^you who 
 have sat with me upon a cloud of 
 
 (56) 
 
fancy while we have played that 
 we were spirits — you have per- 
 mitted me to ignore the march of 
 time and to transcend the limits 
 of the senses. Under the spell of 
 what our souls have witnessed, I 
 have spoken to you, in the present 
 tense, of events long gone. I have 
 done so in order that I might 
 unveil to you a living vision of this 
 great tragedy, instead of telling 
 to you a story that is old. 
 
 Together, we have seen a hun- 
 dred thousand men hold each 
 other in the embrace of death 
 from the rising to the setting of 
 two suns, while there passed be- 
 fore us, through that field of fire, 
 the immortals of Shiloh. Over by 
 that blossoming orchard we saw 
 the eventful career of Albert Sidney 
 Johnston come to its end. In the 
 "double shadow of night and 
 death,'' we saw the chameleon 
 
 (57) 
 
tide of victory change from gray 
 to blue; and, in the thunder of 
 the guns that closed the dreadful 
 scene, we saw Grant begin his 
 long march to Appomattox, and 
 Sherman set out for **the sea." 
 
 Now, I invite you to descend 
 with me from our cloud of fancy — 
 to come back to now, and remem- 
 ber that fifty-seven merciful years 
 lie between us and that harrowing 
 drama which we have witnessed 
 through the wonderful glasses of 
 imagination. 
 
 Looking backward through those 
 years we may now read the tre- 
 m e n d o u s consequences of this 
 battle; for it was here that the 
 real frontier of the South was 
 broken. It was here that Destiny 
 which is but the will of God, be- 
 gan the execution of plans then so 
 veiled, yet now so plain. 
 
 While the brilliant star of Albert 
 Sidney Johnston was sinking in 
 death, leaving his people in a mist 
 
 (58) 
 
of tears, there arose another star 
 out of the smoke of Shiloh — a star 
 destined to shed its rays far down 
 the reaches of time — the slow- 
 moving, yet imperturbable and 
 ever ascendent genius of Ulysses 
 S. Grant. 
 
 It matters not that these two 
 extraordinary men opposed each 
 other here. Each was a great 
 American, wielding the battle arm 
 of his people, and fearlessly baring 
 his own life to the storm of wrath 
 which fate had cast upon our 
 severed country. 
 
 I believe that the best and 
 truest American of to-day is the 
 man who can, with most sincerity, 
 and with greatest freedom of mind 
 and heart, pity the sufferings, laud 
 the courage, and honor the memory 
 of every soldier who fought on both 
 sides of that war. 
 
 (59) 
 
 ft 
 
As we review the sorrow of it 
 all, let us believe that the God of 
 Battles never permits so great a 
 tragedy to pass without its com- 
 pensations and rewards to civiliza- 
 tion, however terrible may be the 
 price which the people of the hour 
 are required to pay. In the glare of 
 the leaping fires of passion which 
 lighted this continent for four 
 long years, the Nations of the earth 
 saw the muscles of American 
 power; and I believe that the 
 conviction sank deep into the 
 composite mind of mankind that 
 this free Republic, God-fearing, 
 peace-loving, slow to anger, is never- 
 theless, unconquerable and eternal. 
 
 The fifty-seven years that have 
 passed over the field of Shiloh 
 have but brightened its place on 
 the map of the world. 
 
 Embraced in a great National 
 Military Park, this sacred ground 
 without change of contour, and 
 
 (60) 
 
 
bearing everlasting marks of the 
 tragedy which it staged, is holding 
 up its glorious page of history to 
 the thousands who come to trace 
 the charges and counter charges of 
 its long vanished armies. 
 
 Woven into the beauty which 
 Nature has given to this land, is 
 the story of the great conflict. 
 That story which bears no word of 
 dishonor for either side, is written 
 on tablets of iron, shadowed by 
 scarred and veteran trees, sung to 
 by the sighing voice of a great 
 river, and by the softer, sweeter 
 voices of little springs that have 
 paused not nor hushed their whis- 
 perings in all the years that have 
 followed since patriots fought and 
 died along their mossy banks. 
 
 JIN memory of all the blue, and 
 •*'• of all the gray, our great Gov- 
 ernment has caressed this spot of 
 
 <6I) 
 
land with loving touch, and beauty 
 has sprung from the footprints of 
 horror. 
 
 These roads, once rutted by the 
 wheels of wrath, now bend and 
 curve through peaceful shadows, 
 leading the way to the sacred 
 places of vanished battle lines. On 
 hill and knoll the guns of Shiloh 
 still are standing. Their harmless 
 muzzles, now prisoned in the 
 spider's gentle chains, are leveled 
 on phantom ranks of men; and 
 gracing all the quiet scene, are the 
 monuments of the North and of the 
 South, the crystallized sentiments 
 of loving peoples — the bronze and 
 granite guards of impartial history. 
 
 What a tribute it is to our 
 country, and to our civilization, 
 that the living remnants of the 
 armies that fought here so des- 
 perately, can return together in 
 peace, and look upon this field as 
 the joint heritage of their glory! 
 
 (62) 
 
This could not be with any other 
 people. It could not have been 
 in any other time. The veteran 
 soldiers of Wellington and the 
 equally brave remnant of Napo- 
 leon's shattered army, could not 
 have gone back together to the 
 field of Waterloo, to fraternize 
 above the dust of their fallen 
 comrades. 
 
 But there is a perfectly human 
 reason why this is so. The spirits 
 of greed and murder did not march 
 with the Shiloh armies. They 
 fought, not for the glory of kings, 
 nor for the conquest of lands, but 
 for convictions as sacred as their 
 blood. They fought only on the 
 battle field, and committed no 
 crimes against humanity, to stand 
 against the day of peace and re- 
 union. 
 
 As we greet the tottering few 
 who still survive that storm, let 
 us unite with them in honoring all 
 
 (63) 
 
 -^ 
 
 ry 
 
the soldiers who perished here. 
 Who knows but that their spirits 
 reunited in love and peace eternal, 
 are sensible of our every word and 
 thought? Who knows but that their 
 shadowy touch, sweeping the cords 
 of our hearts, is setting into vibra- 
 tion those mystic, soundless har- 
 monies that subdue and dominate 
 the passions of men? 
 
 But even if this be not so ; if all 
 that is left to us is measured by 
 these heaps of dust that long have 
 slumbered here — if all the souls 
 that flew from out the lips of death 
 on this sad field, have gone too far 
 beyond the zones of wars, too far 
 beyond the realm of hate and 
 strife to hear our petty plaudits 
 of their deeds, still let us conse- 
 crate the places where they fell, 
 and bid our sorrowing memories 
 hold their sacrifices in everlasting 
 gratitude. 
 
 (64) 
 

 
 '■if^^k 
 
 
 
iS™r°^^°^GREs 
 
 °°^3 70^370 8 ^