15 The Song of the Shell

Thus we witnessed the drunken squad’s last stand.

“At least, they died like brave men,” said Shaftoe.

“Was it of any use?” I asked. “They were merely a bubble in the flood.”

“Who knows?” replied the regular.

We pressed on in our attempt to join Sherman, who alone had stood firm before the first attack, and was now receiving shock after shock from increasing numbers, determined to drive him back, as they had driven back the others. Bullets swept the field before and behind us, and over our heads flew the shells. I had felt a great terror at first, but a revulsion came and soon I began to swell with a foolish pride of indifference. Shaftoe was on his knees, seeking the shelter of every rock, and tree, and hillock that came in his way. I was walking upright. The regular suddenly seized me by the waist and dragged me down.

“I’m not a coward!” I cried angrily.

“No, but you’re a fool, and that’s as bad or worse,” replied the regular, phlegmatically.

I made another effort to rise, but he held me back.

“Raw volunteers like you,” continued Shaftoe, in a fatherly tone, “are always one of two things: either an infernal coward or a regular Hector. Usually they are both in the space of an hour; and one is as bad as another. Now, if you are shot dead going across this field, of what use is it? You are sent here by your Government to get killed to some purpose. This would be to no purpose at all; and you would be a fraud upon your country, taking her pay and pretending to be killed in her service, when you give no service, and get yourself killed merely to gratify a boiling hot pride purely personal to yourself. Keep down, and try to earn your wages honestly.”

The regular’s face was impassive, but I concluded to take his advice, and crawl, instead of walk.

The ghastly traces of the battle thickened as we advanced. The ground was covered with the fallen, most of them slain in isolated fighting; some in single combat. A stream of wounded, each following the other in Indian file, passed us on their way to the rear. It was a blood-stained and halting line, but neither the blood nor the weakness impressed me like their silence. No man uttered a word. Not a groan was heard. Grim and unspeaking, every one nursed his own wound, enduring it without complaint and staggering on with the strength that was left to him. It was a solemn procession that never ceased.

“They are becoming veterans,” said Shaftoe, with deep sympathy, “and they are paying the price of it.” A minute later we were with Sherman, behind the little church of Shiloh and at the heart of the conflict.

Few of the Northern troops at this point had ever been in battle before, but led by a born general, one who never lost his presence of mind, and could take in a battlefield at a glance, they set their feet in the earth, and resolved not to give back, though the heap of dead in their front ranks grew fast and the stream of wounded in the rear thickened. The places of the dead and the hurt were taken by others, the debris of broken brigades, gathering instinctively around Sherman as the chief core of resistance.

The Southern army seemed to understand that it must uproot Sherman if it would win fully, and increased its strokes. Already victorious elsewhere, heavy gun after heavy gun was brought forward, and added to the unceasing shower of iron and lead that beat upon our lines, seeking to annihilate us and complete the victory.

“Now you can fight, Henry, and fight with all your might!” shouted the regular in my ear.

The savage instinct, that loves fighting because it represents supreme physical force, rose steadily in me. I forgot that I was a civilized human being, and reloading my rifle I fired again and again into the gray-coated mass. The flame was in my blood.

Grant at Savannah, nine miles away, heard the roaring of the guns and arrived upon the field at ten o’clock, sending urgent messages to Nelson and Buell to hurry on. Noon came and the sun shone over the centre of the earth, taking no note of the battle, pouring out all its rays of red and gold in honour of a fair, spring day. Those rays did not pierce the canopy of smoke which hung over the field of Shiloh; only a haze seeped through, and we fought in the twilight of a great vault, of which the earth was the floor and the floating smoke the roof—a vault filled with the shouts of men, the roar of guns, and the flash of the cannon and rifle fire. The hostile lines were often hid from my sight by the rolling clouds of smoke, which, caught by some stray breeze, would lift presently, disclosing again the thousands of hot faces, the bayonets, and the cannon.

I began to feel pride in both combatants—the pride of a race and its valour. People had talked of earlier times when men were braver and more enduring than now, built on a more heroic scale, but I had never read of any battle in which they fought more fiercely and with steadier courage and endurance than the one which now swelled around me, and of which I was a part. Perhaps it was not a thing for pride, nevertheless I knew that all would feel it.

The roar of detached combats to the right and to the left came to us, though subdued to a minor note by the thunder of our own, which seemed to me to culminate directly in our front. The clouds of smoke sank lower and the stray winds drove them into the faces of one and then the other; the heavy sickening odour of mingled blood and gunpowder permeated the forest, and the burning trees gave forth sparks in myriads. Twisting columns and pyramids of smoke sometimes hid all but the faces of our assailants, and at the moment they seemed to us to swing in the air.

The dominant note of the battle was still the song of the shell—a fierce, triumphant cry, more like a shriek—an insistent, continuous sound, shrill, piercing, rising and falling perhaps, but never ceasing to drum upon the ears of all the eighty thousand engaged in that combat—a song that swept through the oak woods, not without a certain rhythm and music. It was the deepest impression made upon the men who survived that day and the next—ask them and they will tell you so—the hissing of the shell and the shrapnel, the screaming flight of the missile through the air, its bursting, and then the short, fierce buzz of the fragments of steel or iron, or the wheet-wheet of the leaden bullets from the shrapnel.

It was a sound so full of ferocity and malignant triumph that we who fought there can never forget it. I often hear it echoing in my ears—even now, when the rank grass and bushes have grown long ago over the lost skeletons of the slain, and peace and silence reign again in the Shiloh woods—as fierce and insistent as ever, that old song of the shell that was sung when so many good men slew each other.

The fire of the enemy sank without warning, the sudden decrease of sound producing the effect of silence, though it was far from being such.

“They can not drive us back now!” I cried joyfully. “They have given up!”

“Not so,” said Shaftoe. “The most dangerous time has come. Listen to the trumpets!”

Clear and full the voice of the Southern trumpets rose above the softened note of the battle, resounding and joyous, as if there had been nothing that day for man save pleasure, calling the hunters to the chase.

“Can’t you understand that?” asked Shaftoe. “No man ever spoke plainer English. It says: ‘Come on, boys, come on; gather all your strength for one big rush, and we’ll drive the Yankees into the river!’” He added in a lower voice, “And maybe they’ll do it, too.”

The face of the regular was anxious, but it showed some pride, too. The raw levies—his boys, he had called those in his own company—were acquiring discipline and steadiness faster than he had ever hoped, and the sun would set upon every one a veteran, if he lived.

The clouds of smoke lifted, the plumes of flank sank, the notes of the trumpet died, and the long lines of the Southern army swept forward again among the trees and over the hillocks with their carpets of dead and wounded, as if propelled by a single hand. The front of our brigades burst into fire, the Southern batteries replied, and once again the shells and shrapnel filled the air. I saw the enemy coming nearer and nearer, and in all the activity of the defence I never forgot to watch their faces. I saw holes broken in their ranks by shells, shrapnel, and grapeshot. Lines of men were swept down by the hail of bullets that beat upon them. They did not stop, nor did hesitation interrupt their onward rush. I realized that this was the supreme effort which Shaftoe had said was coming; and as the iron and lead fell upon the Southerners I wondered how long they could stand it, feeling at the same time a pride that they stood it so well. For were they not of my own South?

“Those boys coming against us are veterans now!” shouted Shaftoe in my ear. “If they cross that ravine in front of us—well, we are theirs.”

The Southern ranks, terribly thinned by the fire of the cannon and rifles, were almost at the edge of the ravine, but, borne on by physical and mental impetus, none stopped save those who had fallen.

Our fire doubled in intensity. The front line of the Southerners reached the edge of the ravine and melted there before the shells and bullets; the second line rushed into its place and then plunged into the ravine, appearing the next instant on our side.

All became a confused and terrible blur, and presently I heard a cry of despair. Our whole line had been pressed back and we were losing the battle. A shout of triumph from the enemy rose and filled the air, striking to our hearts. Then the Southerners came again with a rush as fierce as the others, and once more we were forced back toward the river, yielding the ground foot by foot, though we left it red behind us.

The troops that yet lived, worn by long hours of fighting—the regiments cut to ribbons—could not stand the repeated shocks. The Southerners continued to push us back slowly. One of our brigades faltered and began to retreat more rapidly. The Southerners threw themselves upon it at this, the critical moment, when the minds of the men hovered between fighting to the end and the folly of fighting longer. The brigade, struck at such a time, was paralyzed. It ceased to be an organized body, fell apart, divided into companies, then the companies broke up, dissolved like dew under the sun, and the brigade existed no longer, just a huddled mass of fleeing men, pelted by steel and lead, and urged on in their flight. Those of us who yet stood were cut off; but led by Sherman, we seized a hill and clung to it, seeking to hold the head of the bridge across the marshes of Snake Creek, over which Wallace, who was nearest to us, must come to our relief, if he came at all.

I felt like one shut up in a furnace, and I gazed into the face of Shaftoe for comfort, finding none there. A shell with a new note flew high over my head, and, looking at its flight for a moment, I saw that it passed on and fell among the enemy, a fresh salute to the charging squares. It was followed by another and then another. Our troops began to shout with new. hope. We had been pushed so far back toward the Tennessee that two of the Northern gunboats in the river opened fire over our heads and into the enemy—a water battery welcome beyond compare. It was the first help that came to us in eight hours of fighting, and we drew encouragement from it, feeling that if we were succoured thus at the last moment we might expect yet more. The trails of fire made by the shells seemed beautiful to us, and our spirit increased for a resistance still more stubborn. We dug our feet deeper into the earth and clung to the hills covering the bridge head. Nothing could drive us back farther. Our numbers melted away, but not faster than those of our assailants. We gave blow for blow.

The day was waning, and the night, tinged red by the cannon blaze, was at hand. Many of the Southern soldiers considered the battle gloriously and completely won. They had taken thirty cannon, and thousands of prisoners were in their hands. Rejoicing at the sight of the plenty in our captured camp, so unlike their own want, they scattered to pick up plunder, and, above all, the superior Northern arms. The camp was luxury to them, for it was full of provisions, and these Southerners already knew what it was to march and fight on empty stomachs and bare feet. They had made a great journey and fought a great battle, and they had not eaten in forty-eight hours. They believed that the time to take their reward had come, and they took it, shouting to each other their joy and congratulations. Discipline was relaxed and their army lost cohesion. Johnston, their brave leader, conspicuous on horseback, had been killed earlier in the day at the head of his troops, and the other generals failed to grasp his plans and make his victory secure. Sherman still held the bridge head, and all the great qualities of our chief commander, Grant, were coming out. Silent, unyielding, he knew that he had lost one battle, but he determined to win another.

The sun was going down upon this sanguinary combat. A great globe of red and gold, it hung just above the forest, in the west, throwing only a few rays through the thick clouds of smoke that rolled over the battlefield. The twilight deepened in the dim woods, but before the night could come the Southerners rushed upon a new battery that had been formed at the river’s bank, determined that the long delayed completeness of their triumph should yet be won. Gun after gun was discharged point blank into their charging lines. The man who had known how to form the battery knew also how to use it. The blaze of the cannon was magnified and intensified in the dark. It seemed to the Southerners that they were rushing into the mouths of furnaces; yet they came on, to be broken by the showers of projectiles, to stumble over their own fallen, to reform their lines and to charge again. A wide stream of shells from the gunboats in the river, curved over the battery and plunged among them. They formed a battery of their own, but it was shattered by the fire of its heavier Northern antagonist. The cannoneers were killed and the guns dismounted. Nevertheless, the infantry still attacked.

A boy in the Northern battery waved his hat and pointed to the river. The men looked behind them for the first time and a shout of triumph and joy arose. The steamers were bringing fresh troops across the Tennessee. Nelson’s division had come up and would soon be in the battle. These raw men, from Ohio and Indiana chiefly, landing, were compelled to form among a mob of fugitives and of wounded who had been able to come off the field. They were faced immediately by one of the most terrible aspects of war—crowds of frightened men, many of them badly hurt, some who had been gallant soldiers until panic overtook them, nearly all believing that the end of the world was at hand; while above them on the bank, in the twilight, the battle thundered as it had thundered all that long day, and over their heads the fire of the gunboats curved and streamed. But they went up the bank and to the relief of their comrades, pressed so hard and so long. They were received there in a voiceless welcome, the depth of which none can know save those who have fought all day a losing fight, until, at the twelfth hour, help comes.

The Southerners made one last charge upon the battery, and, like the others, it was beaten back. Nothing availed against those cannon mouths. The defenders now outnumbered the assailants, who were worn to the bone by their work. The night was at hand, and all knew that a further attack upon the battery meant a further loss of life and no result. The word was given to retire, and the unbeaten Southern troops fell back to the field that they had won, and from the battery that they had not won, leaving us at last to rest.

The sun sank behind the trees, and its light went out. All the firing ceased suddenly. Darkness swept down over the field and enveloped the two armies, the living and the dead.

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