11 The Little Church of Shiloh

A regiment was marching, and marching it held its tongue.

The soldiers had learned through time and trouble—two able teachers—that talk was a waste, and they forbore. They had even ceased to swear, except at the worst of luck, which indicated either discipline or resignation. The sound made by hundreds of feet, sunk deep in the mud, and then pulled out again like a stopper from a bottle, kept up a curious succession of muffled volleys, a kind of monotonous accompaniment to their marching. Mingled with it came the solemn clank of artillery, the rattle of rifles against each other, and now and then the forlorn neigh of a tired horse. But the soldiers maintained their obstinate silence, bending their heads a little to the rain which was pounding in their faces like the leaden hail of hostile armies, and trod silently on. Sodden vapours floated over the plain and weary bushes bent to the moaning wind. The sky was a dirty gray, and huge clouds of smoky brown moved solemnly from horizon to horizon.

A river of yellowish, muddy water flowed beside the toiling soldiers, its pace scarcely greater than theirs, and upon its current floated some squat, ugly gunboats, with cannon looking out of the portholes, and tired men on the decks. Occasionally the gunboats emitted a weary whistle, as if they, too, wondered when the long march would come to an end, but the men whom they carried were as silent as those on the land. Talk was vanity and waste to both. Besides, there was nothing to be said.

The country was sombre and desolate like the skies, the two matching well. Bushes, logs, and weeds, swept away by the high waters, floated on the yellow current of the river. The land was sterile and stony, a bleak red soil that nourished only dwarfed forests and patches of sassafras bushes—land and products obviously ashamed of each other; apparently it was uninhabited, save for two or three distant log cabins that snuggled between the low hills.

I was the third soldier on the left in one of the front companies, and it seemed to me that the most impressive thing in the march of all those hundreds was the silence of the men. “Men” was really the wrong word, for they were nearly all boys, fair and large, with the brown faces of open-air life, farmer boys, sons of the forest and prairie.

It grew colder after awhile and hailed.

“A dreary sight,” I said at last to Shaftoe, who was my comrade on the right. I had rejoined him at Louisville after my escape across the river, and we were still together, although it was now the second year of the war.

“I have seen worse, Henry,” he replied cheerfully.

“When and where?” I asked, unbelievingly.

“When I went out with Albert Sidney Johnston, the same that we’re going to fight, to Salt Lake City, to punish the Mormons for having five wives apiece when one’s too many,” replied Shaftoe. “What’s a bit of chilly weather like this to a storm on the great plains, when the cold freezes off all your toes and fingers, and the hail is as big as baby cannon balls? Then any night the buffalo herds, forty million strong, might stampede our horses and run over our whole army, and if we escaped them the chances were nine out of ten that we’d starve to death long before we could get to Brigham Young’s capital and see if it was really true that he had seven dozen wives. There’s nothing so bad that it can’t be a lot worse. Don’t forget it.”

“Then what would you call this?” I asked.

“A little exercise and change of the weather for the sake of the blood,” said the veteran regular, in his usual cheerful tone.

“But when are we going to reap the glories of war?” I persisted.

“Don’t make trouble for yourself; it’s a bad plan,” he replied, and smiled solemnly at me.

I relapsed perforce into silence, but I clung to my opinion that the glory was far ahead. I had been nearly a year in the service and I had done little save to make long marches or share in futile skirmishes. Moreover, the war was taking a bad course, and the prospect of a reunited nation seemed distant. I had suffered various emotions when we began the invasion of my own State, and those emotions were increased when we passed within twenty miles of Madam Arlington’s house. I had not heard from my grandmother since the night of my flight, and I expected no news although so near, but as we went into camp a gray old man rode up and, after enduring patiently the jests from rude soldiers, was passed on to me for whom he had inquired. It was William Penn, and his joy at the meeting shone in his eyes. His was not less than mine.

“Your grandmother is well,” he said, “and she sends you word to keep your head cool and your feet dry.”

He brought most welcome news, and he replied, too, to my eager questionings, that Mrs. Maynard and Elinor were still at their home and had not been troubled by the soldiers of either side.

“Miss Elinor comes to see your grandmother often,” said William Penn, “and they are as thick as two peas in a pod. Mrs. Maynard does not like it, but that does not make any difference with Madam Arlington. You know her.”

I thought that in truth I knew my grandmother, and I was forced to smile. I asked if he had heard anything more of Varian. He replied that Varian had been at the Maynard house often until some months ago when he went South to join Johnston’s army, with which he was now supposed to be.

When William Penn started home he slipped in my hands a flask.

“It’s the best Kentucky make,” he said, “and I wouldn’t be putting temptation in the hands of the young, but it will be medicine to you on these long winter marches.”

I thought over the good William Penn’s visit, and now as I marched by Shaftoe’s side I wished that he might come again with another message from those for whom I cared.

The wind and the hail had entered into a conspiracy against the bedraggled army. It was that curious weather of southern Kentucky and northern Tennessee, when winter and spring, trying to meet, fail, and the hiatus is filled in with any sort of a day you dislike, a succession of hot and cold extremes, in beautiful alternation.

The wind died soon and the skies were obscured by rolling brown clouds, forming a depressing canopy under which we trod in silence, while fog rose up from the damp earth.

“See! the sun will shine again,” said Shaftoe presently, pointing to a dim redness showing through the vapours. “Watch it scatter these mists and clouds.”

The light grew, throwing out both red and yellow beams, the fog began to shred away, the bayonets rose out of it again like a hedge of steel, the faces of the men appeared, damp as if from a bath, patches of fog floated away like steam from the manes of the horses. I was filled with admiration at this sudden reappearance of the lost regiment, glittering now in the sun, whose radiant light gilded the brown faces of the men and their sombre garments. The clouds fled in defeated battalions from the skies, which arched overhead, a dome of satinlike blue, save where the sun, gorgeous in red and gold, filled a circle in the western curve, and long bars of crimson light shot away toward the horizon. Winter had suddenly fled, and spring, after the frequent custom of the middle South, came crowding on its footsteps, granting not a minute’s delay. A warm wind blew from the west, and the desolate trees raised their boughs and showed green.

“To enjoy being dry it’s well to have been wet,” said Shaftoe.

A man of most singular appearance walked just ahead of us. He was tall, thin, with sharp face and wonderfully bright eyes, and he was not in uniform, his clothing being black, and his coat very long. He was the chaplain of our regiment. Before we left Louisville I was on sentinel duty when he undertook to walk into the lines. I stopped him and asked who he was.

“Friend,” he replied sternly, “I am a humble follower of the meek and lowly Jesus; and pray who are you?”

I said that I was the sentinel on watch, and then he gave me a card on which was written, “The Reverend Elkanah Armstrong, Revivalist.” He became our chaplain shortly afterward, and a braver man I never saw. He was of the denomination known in the West as Hard-shell Baptist, and he shirked no toil or danger. Now he strode on before in silence, an example of self-reliance and devotion to duty.

We passed into deep forests of oak, and hickory, and beech, and pine. It was a large regiment, with horses and wagons, and artillery, but the forest was so great that it swallowed us up, and took no note of our passage, just as it had swallowed up the Army of the Tennessee, to which this regiment belonged, and which it was endeavouring to overtake. The main force had come on the Tennessee by steamer, but our regiment was compelled to make the last stretch of the journey by land.

Even in the forest, as if to atone for its long eclipse, the brilliant sun penetrated the leafy shadows, throwing its yellow beams across the trees and the young grass, where the drops of water still twinkled like many-coloured beads. The wind from the far southwest brought with it the odour of summer flowers. The spirits of the boys, marching in ragged ranks, rose. One began to sing—

And all the other boys took it up in a huge volume of sound which may not have been musical, although not without grandeur, as it rolled in waves through the illimitable forest.

“Some of the officers are trying to stop this; it’s a mistake,” said Shaftoe to me. “The spirit to sing means the spirit to fight.”

“But we may never overtake the Southern army,” I said.

“Then there’s consolation in that,” he replied, “for we won’t die a sudden and violent death, which, I take it, will be agreeable to our feelings.”

The splendour of the sun increased, its brilliant rays cutting a way through the budding foliage of the forest and finding every cranny. The arms of the soldiers glittered, and the west was a flood of red and yellow, great clouds of gold and scarlet piling upon each other like terraces in the sky. The waves of warmth flowed northward, and the moist earth dried under their healing touch.

We overtook at nightfall the Army of the Tennessee, just camping in the forest which rolled away on every side, seemingly without end, and began to gather brushwood from the littered ground for the fires. I went with Shaftoe on one of these trips, and wandering far from the camp we came presently to a little wooden house standing in a clearing—a lone, bare building, square and plain, never costing more than a few dollars to build. The place was silent, nowhere did we see a sign of life; there were no outbuildings, just that lone little box, and yet it was not without a sort of silent majesty; the huge red disk of the sun was sinking behind the distant hills, and its rays fell full upon the window of the little house; the glass gave them back with interest, and seemed to blaze in red fire; every plank, and log, and shingle was luminous in this last light, and as the sun became dimmer the little house seemed to grow in size.

“Now, if I believed in ghosts I’d say that place was haunted,” said Shaftoe. “I vote we don’t go in.”

“I don’t want to go in any more than you do,” I said, and shivered, feeling the chill of the coming night; “but across yonder is another clearing, and I see now a farmer getting ready to go home; let’s talk with him.”

The light of the setting sun made a focus of the farmer, showing all his angles and seams as he stood on a distant hillside, unhitching his horse from the plough. We hastened over the rough ground and overtook him just as he mounted to ride home. He was old, gnarled, knotty, and brown, a man who had passed through many cold winters and hot summers, enduring both as they came.

I knew that the farmer must be like others whom we met in those regions, devoted adherents of the South, but I hailed him in friendly fashion. He merely nodded, paying no attention to our blue uniforms.

“What country is this?” I asked.

“Tennessee.”

“I know that,” I said, “but your answer is vague.”

“The answer fitted the question.”

“What is that?” asked Shaftoe, pointing to the lone building which was now half in shadow.

“That,” replied the old man, his eyes following Shaftoe’s pointing finger, “is the little church of Shiloh.”

“A lonesome place,” I said.

The farmer did not reply.

“You’ve been ploughing,” I added, irritated a little at his taciturn manner.

“Yes.”

“But your soil is sterile,” I continued, pointing to the red hillside. “It ought to be fertilized.”

“Perhaps it will be.”

“With what?”

“With your bones.”

Then the old man clucking to his horse, rode off through the woods.

“What did he mean by that?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” said Shaftoe; “but you can wager your chance of heaven against a glass of lemonade that he’s a thick-and-thin rebel, and you’ll never smell fire.”

I watched the old man for a few moments as he rode away between the trees, which grew in long rows like columns, his figure forming a sombre blur against the background of the twilight. I had listened to many prophets and most were false, but this might be a true one. The little church of Shiloh was invisible now, save a single beam of light from the lost sun which struck upon the glass of the window and twinkled in the twilight like a bead of fire, and, then going out, left no ray of brightness in the darkening woods, silent save for the moaning wind, though the Northern army of forty thousand men lay not far away.

We hastened back toward that army, oppressed somewhat by the lengthening shadows and the wailing of the wind in the lonely woods.

Presently a luminous haze showed through the darkness, and its pink light grew into red as we approached the camp, where hundreds of fires already were burning. The forest was illuminated; while dark on the outside it was warm at heart, and my spirits sprang up at the sight. Thousands of voices blending made a cheerful chatter, and figures passed and repassed, black lines before and behind the flames. Millions of sparks flew off among trees still too damp to catch fire, and the forty thousand men and boys, farmers nearly all, accustomed to self-help and a life in the open air, took comfort basking in the firelight and cooking their suppers, which they ate without criticism.

“What soldiers they will make with a little discipline and trial in the fire!” said Shaftoe, eyeing the muscular forms; and then under his breath, although I heard him, “if they are not killed first.”

A faint shadow appeared on the veteran’s face as he looked at this multitude of boys who endured so much and were happy over so little. “Good food for the cannon—too good!” I heard him add.

I took my place with Shaftoe beside one of the fires, but the old regular would not let me rest; first it was shoes and socks to be dried, and then the clothing that I wore next to my skin.

“Look to your feet; it’s the first duty of a soldier,” he said, thus confirming my grandmother’s advice. “They are the beginning of a man, starting right at the ground, and the rest is built upon ’em. They are the foundation of him, and he must take care of ’em. What use has the Government for a soldier who can’t march? It’s bought all your fighting qualities, paying you so much per month for ’em, and if you are an honest man you’ll stick to the whole text of the bargain. So don’t forget your feet.”

He made all those about him follow his suggestions and did a hundred other things which seemed little, but which I know now were vital to the soldier on the march. Yet in all this work, received sometimes ungratefully, he was lively and gay, pretending that he was doing nothing, repressing the disorderly, encouraging the weak, and becoming the father, protector, and confessor of the company. I, looking on, admired, and at last asked how he did it.

“If a man can’t learn anything in thirty years he’s a born fool, with nature improved by art,” replied Shaftoe.

He would say no more, and the captain of the company, who had seen just enough of the military life to feel sure that Shaftoe knew a hundred times as much as himself, smoked a pipe and was wisely silent. We had plenty of stores, and supper was abundant. The men ate and were happy. The fires ran in lines through the forest and formed a great core of light which shone over the brown faces, the rifles, and the cannon. Shaftoe loosened his belt and said life was good; I did not deny it, feeling a great content. Some one produced an old accordion and began to play the martial strains of Dixie.

“That’s not our tune,” I said. “It belongs to the South; besides, the Southerners played it at Bull Run when they beat us.”

“It’s all right,” said Shaftoe. “We’re in Dixie now and we can borrow their music—spoils of conquest. And it’s lively.”

Some of the men began to dance, and the officers did not stop them. Their figures swung back and forth before the background of the blazing fires like silhouettes on a screen, and the effect became ghostly and unreal to me. Forty thousand shadows dancing by night in the wilderness! I laughed at my fantasy and concluded that it was too huge. Those were real figures of real men, my comrades, and good fellows.

The rattle of distant rifle shots came from two or three points, but we did not stir.

“That’s a bad practice the men have got into,” said the regular, “firing off their guns when they change guard. It’s a waste of ammunition, a warning to the enemy if he ever comes within hearing, and it’s contrary to every rule of discipline in every book of warfare that was ever printed. What would our colonel have said to such a thing in the little old regular army?”

I grew sleepy. The old accordion still played the martial tunes, the forest giving back discordant echoes, but its tones seemed softer, the fires danced about in queer fashion, and I lay down upon the ground for my night’s rest. I was aroused by a jerk from Shaftoe.

“Get up!” cried the regular. “Don’t you know enough yet not to go to sleep on the bare ground, ’specially when it’s soaking with damp as it is to-night? One would think that you were a raw recruit.”

I apologized with some shame for my lack of precaution, and securing an armful of boughs and brushwood stretched myself upon them, wrapped in my blanket. The forest moved off into space, the noises ceased, the fires faded and went out, and I slept.

I awoke once in the night, and I always remember that scene as if it were a dream. A light fog was rising, the earth having received so much rain that the dampness lingered. The fires smouldered, and the soldiers lay so thick that they seemed to my half-conscious senses to form a living carpet for the earth. Sleeping the heavy sleep of exhaustion, they were so silent that I was awed. Forty thousand men lying there in the forest were like forty thousand dead. The horses, weary with work, were as still as their masters. Above them all floated the clouds of fog and darkness.

I was aroused after midnight by Shaftoe, who told me that it was my turn at the watch. He was to stand guard with me.

We walked westward through the forest, no one paying the slightest heed to us, and passed a large tent open at one side, with the light of two lanterns shining from it and disclosing its occupants. A half dozen men sitting in the tent were talking earnestly or bending over maps and papers.

“That’s Grant on the left,” said Shaftoe.

I looked curiously at the victor of Fort Donelson, the short, thickset man with the reddish beard, the strong face, and the heavy jaw. This general had begun to attract attention by his vigour and his capture of Donelson, and it was said that he was the single Northern leader of great promise in the West. I noticed that he was the only one in the tent who said nothing, apparently content with listening.

“A council of war,” said Shaftoe. “They’re trying to put their hand on that Southern army; they can’t, and maybe if they could they’d be sorry they did, like the man who caught the fox.”

We moved on in the darkness, which closed in behind us, enveloping the tent and its occupants and hiding them from our gaze.

As we took our places we heard the reports of many shots, and again Shaftoe scored the foolish habit in which the men were indulging as they changed the guard, and the laxity of the officers in permitting it.

“More good powder burnt,” he said, “and a lot of noise for nothing. War isn’t a mere popping of firecrackers.”

After that the night was not disturbed, and, the long hours passing in silence, I saw at last the sun rising out of the east, the welcome signal that our watch was over. Resigning my place to my relief, I returned with Shaftoe to the camp and breakfast. As we approached we heard a tumult and the sound of oaths.

“Only some of those Kentuckians drunk again,” said a regular, an acquaintance of Shaftoe’s.

They were bringing the drunkards in, a sodden lot, some young, and all very drunk. They had got at the sutler’s stores and had gone through the liquor like a fire in a broom sedgefield. A middle-aged man with a scar on his face was sustained by two of his comrades and his faith in his own greatness, though his feet wabbled like those of a baby. A boy walking near him lurched wildly, but did not fall. Two or three others were trying to sing, committing hideous outrages upon familiar old tunes. I was disgusted and I felt shame, too, because they were from my own State.

“It’s a pity,” said Shaftoe, “especially as some of ’em would make good soldiers—if they’d keep sober. The man with the scar on his face, Jake Sibley, went through the Mexican war—that’s where he got the scar—and he’s as brave as a hornet.”

“Perhaps,” I replied; “but he’s only drunk now.”

Sibley had begun to shout in a kind of lax enthusiasm, and one of the guard prodded him in the side with a gun muzzle to keep him quiet. A tall, thin man with the face and gravity of a clergyman, but as drunk as any of the rest, began to remonstrate, but made his protests with curses, which he poured out in such a stream and with so much solemnity that I was amazed.

“His name’s Parker, William Parker—the ‘Reverend Bill’ they call him sometimes,” said Shaftoe. “He was educated for the ministery, but I don’t think his education was finished; at least there was a misfit somewhere, as you can see.”

The noisy crowd was driven on by the guard to work out its offences in camp labour, and I sought my bed of boughs again as the army about us came to life and prepared to take breakfast. The note of many thousand voices rose cheerfully. The men of the West, sinewy and enduring, were forgetting already their labours and privations. Used to the open air and the woods, they found no difficulty in making this forest, new to them, their home. I thought of Shaftoe’s words, and I began to see what soldiers these long-limbed, hardy sons of the fields and plains would make when they acquired the proper experience and discipline, and, so thinking, I went to sleep again.

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