18 A Stray Shot

The overwhelming Northern army pressed continually against the weakened Southern force, which, exhausted by two days of fierce conflict, nevertheless fought on for the sake of the pride and stubbornness which form such important factors in bravery, and which help to make wars. Our numerous brigades, extending in long lines, threatened to enwrap our opponent and strangle him, but the light troops and sharpshooters on the flanks of the Southern army still buzzed and stung like bees and held back the heavy coils that pressed incessantly and too closely.

It was about three o’clock in the afternoon, and the battle was lost to the South—lost after it was once won. Beauregard, the Southern general, at last commanded the buglers to sound the retreat—a sad note to those gallant men, though they had long known that it must come. Losing but undismayed, its order preserved and ready to fight again if attacked, the Southern army passed off the field, disappearing in the forest from which it had emerged so suddenly, and the battle of Shiloh was over. As many had been killed or wounded as at Austerlitz or Jena, with a percentage of loss far greater, and the song of the shell had just begun.

Our army did not pursue. It, too, was sorely wounded in the mighty struggle; and, having watched its enemy retire, turned back upon the field, where nearly thirty thousand men had been killed or wounded. There it began to rest, count its dead, and relieve the wounded—and the last was the hardest task of all. Scouts were sent out to search the woods and see whether danger of a new attack existed. I was among these; and renewing my supply of ammunition I entered the forest, following the trail of the retreating Southerners. I had not reached the extreme limits of the battlefield before I saw gray figures hovering among the tree trunks. I guessed them to be Southern skirmishers, covering the rear of their army, and going closer for better information, I received a bullet through my legs, and, falling to the ground, was unable to rise again.

I felt no great pain when the bullet struck, and my first emotion was surprise that I could not regain my feet. Then the sharp ache of a broken bone began to smite me, and when I sat up I found that the right leg was the sufferer, but the bullet had gone on through the flesh of the left, and I was losing blood rapidly. I bound the wounds tightly with strips of my coat and waited for some one to come and take me back to camp.

Nobody came and I shouted for help; there was no response. The bandages stopped the flow of blood, but I became weak because of that already lost. My sight grew dim and for a little while the world wavered about me. Then I recalled my strength and tried to crawl over the ground, wishing to sit again by the camp fires and hear the voices of my comrades. The pain from my broken leg became so acute that I was forced to stop, and I lay there in silence, waiting. I wondered why no one came. Then I noticed that I was in a little hollow or depression, with thick woods on three sides of me, and searchers for the wounded might pass within a few yards without seeing the man who lay there.

I heard carts moving about the field two or three times and shouted, hoping that they would hear me, but they passed on, and then I knew that my voice had become weak. I fell into a rage that I should be left there to die alone, with thousands so near, and it seemed to me the choicest and bitterest joke of fate that I should pass safely through a great battle, lasting two days, to fall after it was over by the chance bullet of some skirmisher, and to die alone in the forest in sight of the field that had witnessed so much heroism.

But little more than two hours of the afternoon had been left when I fell, yet the day seemed to linger long. The sun scorched me and I burned with thirst. The night had terrors for a wounded man alone in the woods, but I wished for its long, cool shadows across my face. My mind grew more active, physical power being taken from me, and I began to wander over wide reaches, coloured always by the heat that had crept into my veins. My own fate, shot down in such a manner after passing safely through the battle, seemed ridiculous and designed as a special humiliation. Millions of other bullets had missed me; this alone, when the chance was a million to one that it would miss me too, had put me on my back in a hollow, where I might meditate in the little time that was left to me on the ease with which fate upsets human plans.

I heard from afar the clatter of the camp, the blending of the many noises which help to make up the life of a great army, but they sank to a murmur as the sun went down and the night came.

I did not feel the expected joy when I saw the advancing darkness. The heat of the day passed, and the fever that was upon me loosened its grasp somewhat, but the night chilled me and made me afraid. I was overpowered by a deep sense of loneliness, and the nearness of the camp increased this feeling. I longed for companionship, even if it were only another wounded man, some one to talk to, a voice to be heard.

Looking in the direction of the camp I could see a faint pink glow, and I thought of the men by the supper fires, cheerful, telling each other of their escapes in the battle and rejoicing. Then I felt another bitter pang because I was an outcast, excluded from it all. I had fought as well as they, but reward was denied to me.

The darkness covered all the earth except in the direction of the camp, where the pink glow stood out against the black, and the boughs above me became dark gray and shadowy. Toward the middle of the field several trees, fired by the cannon shots, were burning in red cones—candles of the night I called them—and presently fainter lights began to glimmer in many places. They were the lanterns of those gathering up the dead, and I rejoiced, believing now that they would find me soon. I shouted again, but my voice brought nobody. I might as well have been alone in the wilderness. To all purposes I was.

I had felt the night before a deep sympathy for the wounded lying upon the field, but it was not so personal then as it became now. I could picture to my mind the vast suffering of the twenty thousand wounded, because I was one of them, and I longed for the sound of human voices and the touch of human hands. Alone and in the darkness, all the glory of battle and joy of strife faded from me.

The moon was out and threw silver bands and circles on the trees and grass, but in the pale glimmer the boughs above became more ghostly and seemed to wave at me. The lights on the field began to diminish, and soon I saw none. I fell through pure weakness into a sort of stupor, and was aroused from it by the tread of heavy feet.

“They are coming for me, at last!” were the unspoken words in my mind.

But the beat of feet was too rapid and heavy for men. Dozens of great red eyes looked at me through the pale light, and behind the eyes I saw the dim outlines of gigantic forms. I believed myself at first to be dreaming, but then I knew that I was not. I knew the trees whose boughs bent over me, the curves of the ground, and yonder was the same pink glow that told where the camp lay.

I lifted myself upon my elbow and stared at the red eyes. The figures grew clearer in the dark, and I saw a troop of riderless cavalry horses, forty, fifty, perhaps more, all with the saddles yet on them, and some with a sabre slash or the track of a pistol ball on their flanks. They stood before me in regular lines, heads erect, muscles drawn, eyes flashing, as if their riders still rode them, ready for the charge. It seemed to me that every one was staring straight at me, and I remained upon my elbow looking into the long line of eyes that threatened me. I was in a chill of fear; they would gallop over my body, and that would be the end, the worst death of all.

I shouted, and the horses, wheeling about as if directed by a leader, galloped away in ordered ranks, their hoofbeats resounding on the earth until they died away in a distant echo.

I sank back and was glad that this danger had passed, but presently I heard the hoofbeats again, coming from another part of the field and echoing in the regular tread of an advancing squadron. On came the riderless horses, heads erect, eyes glittering through the dark, and again I was in terror lest they gallop over me. I fancied that I could feel their breath on my face, but they turned a second time, when the hoofs of the front line were within a few feet of me, and galloped away, their forms again fading and their hoofbeats dying. Perhaps now they would let me rest! In a few minutes they came back, their steel-shod hoofs cutting the soft earth, and great eyes staring at the prostrate form of the man before them. I wondered why they worried me so and kept me in such incessant fear of death under their weight. Had I known it, I was in no danger; however close they might come to me, it would never be so close that the youngest of them all would plant a hoof upon me.

They came back again and again, eyes red, flanks heaving, and always stared at me as I lay there in the hollow. My fear began to pass by and bye, and their forms became dim. A veil floated down over my eyes and I remembered no more.

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