The Battle of Shiloh: Union and Prentiss's

By one of those undefinable impulses of misgivings which detect the approach of catastrophe without physical warning of it, it happened that Colonel Peabody, of the 25th Missouri, commanding the first brigade of Prentiss's division, became convinced that all was not right in front. Very early Sunday morning, therefore, he sent out three companies of his own regiment and two of Major Powell's 12th Michigan, under Powell's command, to reconnoitre, and to seize on some advance squads of the enemy, who had been reported flitting about, one and a half miles distant from camp, on the main Corinth road. It was the gray of dawn when they reached the spot indicated; and almost immediately, from long dense lines of men, coming swiftly through the tall tress, opened a rattling fire of musketry. It was the enemy in force. The little band fell back in haste, firing as best they might. Close on their heels pressed the whole of Hardee's line, and, enveloping the left of Prentiss's camp, stretched in a broad swath across to the gap between his division and Sherman's, and thence onward across Sherman's. Instantly the woods were alive with the rattle of musketry right and left, on front and flank. The Confederate batteries, galloping up on every practicable road and path, unlimbered in hot haste, and poured their shot over the head of the infantry in the direction of the tents now faintly gleaming ahead. The startled infantry outposts, mechanically returning a straggling fire, yielded, overborne by the mighty rush of their enemy, and then streamed straight back to the main camps. The divisions of Sherman, Prentiss, and McClernand started from their peaceful slumbers amid the roar and smoke of battle. The exultant Confederates, creeping so long with painful reticence, now woke the forests with their fierce, long-pent yells. The flying pickets served, like avant-couriers, to point the way for their pursuers. And thus, with the breaking light of day, overhung by sulphurous battle-clouds, through which darted the cannon-flash, while the dim smoke curled forward through every ravine and road and enveloped the camps, Grant's army woke to the battle of Shiloh. .

At the height of the shouting, the forming of the troops, the spurring hither and thither of the aides, the fastening of belts and boxes, and the dressing of laggards, the enemy's advance with loud yells swept through the intervening forest and burst upon the camps.

It was now about seven o'clock, and the resistance of the Union picket-line, feeble as it necessarily was, had been of priceless service in gaining time, while the rough and impracticable interval over which the Confederates had to pass served to break up somewhat as well as to extend and thin their lines. There seems to have been no special tactical formation, nor any massing of men on a key-point: the key-point, if any there was, had not been discovered. The movement, in short, was predicated on a surprise, and the method, to fling the three corps-deep lines of the Army of the Mississippi straight against the Union army from creek to creek, to "drive it back into the Tennessee." As for the Union generals, overwhelmed with surprise and chagrin, they could only strike back where the enemy struck, seeking above all to save the camps. Such was the nature of the confused, irregular, but bloody series of conflicts which now raged for three hours, during which time the Union troops succumbed, and yielded the first breadth of debatable ground.

Onward swept the Confederates, gaining ground, now on the right, now on the left, till before nine o'clock they were in full possession of Prentiss's camp. By ten o'clock the Union forces generally had yielded to the impetuous onset, and the camping-ground of nearly the whole line was in the hands of the foe. The plundering of the camps, which their generals could not hinder, detained them for a time, while the Union commanders were doing their best to re-form their broken lines. For five hours the battle went on confusedly, the Union troops being forced slowly back to the Landing, the nature of the ground, rolling, wooded, and cleft by ravines, enabling them to protract their defence. Both lines were badly broken up, and the different brigades mingled, each side fighting with no definite plan, other than to hold their ground on the one side and to advance on the other. Later on, the Confederates made a desperate effort to turn the Union left, capture their base at the Landing, and drive them down the river. This effort was vigorously opposed, and during the hard fighting at this point a ball struck the Confederate commander, General Johnston, wounding him severely. He continued on this horse, unheeding the bleeding, and before long reeled and fell from the saddle, quickly expiring. General Beauregard succeeded to the Confederate command.