A Blaze of Glory (38 page)

Beauregard looked up at him, rubbed a hand on his chin, nodded slowly.

“Yes, that would be acceptable. You have a horse, so make use of it. Keep me informed of events on the right. You will find me here at all times. This is, after all, the army’s headquarters.”

Harris backed away, had endured all he could of Beauregard’s utter lack of humility. More staff officers were moving in, past him, Beauregard hidden by the clean gray of their uniforms. He stepped out into cool air, saw Wickham, wet sadness on the captain’s face. Harris moved to the horse, stopped, looked upward, blue sky flecked with white clouds, stared for a long moment, the sun settling slowly into the treetops to the west.

PRENTISS

NORTH OF THE PEACH ORCHARD, NEAR THE POND APRIL 6, 1862, 3:30 P.M.

T
he rebel artillery kept up their fire, directed mostly to the right now, a new surge by troops against his flank. For a long while, that part of Prentiss’s position had been wide open, a deep gash in the overall Federal lines that had attracted waves of attackers, coming up out of the trees not more than a quarter mile away. But the gap had been filled by the magnificent response of William Wallace, who had recognized the critical importance behind Prentiss’s desperate call for help. Now Wallace’s troops had filled the gap to the west completely, and farther that way, Wallace’s flank was partially protected by McClernand, the man who had given assistance earlier that morning to protect what had once been the left flank of Sherman. Throughout the day, as the disastrous impact of the rebel attack spread throughout most of the Federal forces, no one had been immune. Prentiss’s men had fallen back with the same chaotic scramble that affected Sherman, driven away from their own camps. But Prentiss had been able to rally many of his regiments from complete collapse, had made good use of the lay of the land to pull many of his units together into what had now become a hard barrier that had finally been effective in holding back the rebel advance. The rallying point for many of Prentiss’s men was a wagon trail, an old roadbed that wound across the edge of Duncan Field, then out in both directions, curving through the woods, past more patches of open ground. The trail was old, worn, and much of the way was lined by dense thickets of overgrown brush that produced perfect cover for the troops. The roadbed extended even into Wallace’s lines, and the men in blue who formed up along the road had responded to their new protection with desperately needed confidence.

Once Prentiss understood the sheer mass of the rebel assault, and once the rebel advance had eliminated any communications he had with Sherman, Prentiss began to understand that his division was virtually severed from the rest of the army, that retreat was the only viable option. The first indication he had that the rebels were coming in force had been sent to him much earlier that morning from Colonel Peabody, the brigade commander seeing firsthand the sheer bulk of the rebel advance. But, like Sherman, Prentiss had doubted the reports he had received from the picket outposts, had engaged in a heated discussion with Peabody, who Prentiss believed had exaggerated just what was happening to the west. He knew that Peabody had taken serious offense at the challenge to his skills at observation, and Prentiss would hear none of that. But soon after the magnitude of the rebel attack became clear, Peabody had of course been vindicated. Prentiss had seen for himself that most of his entire division was engulfed by a far stronger assault than anything Prentiss expected. But there would be no opportunity for Prentiss to offer his apologies to the outraged Peabody. By mid-morning, Peabody was dead.

As Prentiss struggled to re-form his division along the old wagon trail, he had expected the rebel assault to continue with the same energy he had seen earlier that morning, the kind of energy that even a good defensive line might only contain for a short while. But that kind of full-out assault never came. Instead the roughly four thousand men he managed to put into line were attacked by lines of rebels who were fewer in number than he was. Instead of one massive envelopment of his lines, which Prentiss and his officers had feared, the rebels had come at them with a
series
of attacks, each one nearly the same as the one before, usually brigade strength, perhaps more, marching in slow, neat lines across Duncan Field, or farther to the right, in the woods that kept the rebel lines from keeping any kind of order. The results had been the same in nearly every attack the rebels sent forward. The thick cover along the wagon trail had proved to be a significant disadvantage for the rebels, the Federal troops disciplined enough to wait in their blind cover for the rebels to approach within point-blank range. For the Federal troops, it was the first real advantage they enjoyed all day. The results were devastating for nearly every rebel unit who made the quarter-mile march across Duncan Field, as it was for the others who had stumbled blindly through the woods. Even worse for the rebels, Prentiss had been able to shift artillery batteries from Wallace’s positions on the right, many of those guns anchored into deep woods, their sights now perfectly ranging the Confederate flanks. The artillery had added their devastating canister to the sheets of flaming musket fire that came from Prentiss’s infantry.

Prentiss wasn’t sure just how many assaults the rebels had made, perhaps a dozen, perhaps less, but in every case the combined fire of the Federal troops had been shattering. Every attack concluded the same way, the rebels pushing directly into a mass of Federal firepower, then pulling back yet again, leaving many more of their troops in the field. Across Duncan Field, where Prentiss could see the far woods clearly, the entire stretch of open ground had become a carpet of dead and dying men, almost all of them rebels. With each new assault, Prentiss had wondered if his men would finally be overpowered, driven away by the same kind of overwhelming panic that had spread through his division that morning. But so far his lines were holding firm, and Prentiss began to receive reports that the worst problem affecting his men was a shortage of ammunition.

Despite the amazing willingness of the rebels to attack Prentiss’s position with what seemed to be piecemeal efforts, the sheer volume of fire on both sides was taking its toll. Rebel artillery was doing their work as well, and all across his position, rebel shells poured down with relentless efficiency. Unlike the foot soldiers, the artillerymen didn’t have to see their targets to be effective. After several of their failed attacks, rebel artillery commanders knew with perfect precision where to direct their fire. As the day wore on, a new tragedy erupted, mostly for the wounded on both sides. The brutal storm of shell fire had ignited several patches of thick brush in front of the Federal position, fires carried on the breeze that spread quickly through the woods and across the grassy fields, engulfing anyone unable to move out of the way. The screams of burned men only added to the horror that every man in the field was experiencing, Prentiss among them.

B
enjamin Prentiss was not a West Pointer, had instead gained experience during the Mormon conflicts in Illinois, and later in the Mexican War. Originally a Virginian, he spent most of the 1850s practicing law in his adopted home of Quincy, Illinois, but the eruption of the war brought Prentiss back to the army. Though he had remained active in his local militia, serving as colonel of his local regiment, it was Ulysses Grant who had some familiarity with Prentiss’s good experience under Zachary Taylor, more experience than many of the professional soldiers who had staked their claim to command. Throughout 1861, Prentiss did nothing to discourage Grant’s well-placed confidence, and served efficiently in Cairo, Illinois, guarding the crucial junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers, and later, protecting the rail lines in war-torn Missouri. When Grant’s army was mobilized for the drive toward Corinth, Grant had no hesitation in suggesting Prentiss, now a brigadier general, for division command. Like Sherman, Prentiss had been assigned to lead a division of raw recruits who had never seen combat. In the weeks following their encampment west of Pittsburg Landing, Prentiss had tackled the same tasks as Sherman and the other division commanders: drill and train men who had most likely never seen a rebel soldier. Now, by the chance positioning of his Sixth Division more southwesterly from Pittsburg Landing, Prentiss had become the center of the entire Federal position, the first to receive the rebel assaults. As much of a chore as it had been to train so many green soldiers, Prentiss had every reason to feel a distinct pride that his men had rallied just enough to keep the rebels from driving straight through the Federal army, to Grant’s base at the river.

Though William Wallace’s Second Division had rushed forward to protect Prentiss’s right, there was very little order to the placement of troops, no time for any neatly drawn out battlefield planning. The jumble of commands was as confused now as it had been since early that morning, and as his position solidified along the wagon trail, Prentiss found himself commanding regiments from Wallace’s Division, as well as his own. Some of Prentiss’s units had disappeared altogether; some were mere fragments of their former strength. But thus far, after so many Confederate assaults, and a withering storm of fire from rebel artillery batteries, those lines had held. Wallace knew as well as Prentiss that it made little difference which officer stood to your backside while the guns of the enemy were tearing into your ranks. Not only was Prentiss grateful for Wallace’s unquestioning assistance, but he actually liked Wallace. He couldn’t say the same for some of the others in the Federal command, had no great affection for either Sherman or John McClernand. But right now, personal opinions had nothing at all to do with what was happening around him. And down to his left, in the vicinity of a peach orchard, the tide of the battle was not nearly so static, the defenses not quite as complete.

There the morning had begun with a yawning gap a half mile wide, which separated Prentiss’s Division from the single brigade of Colonel David Stuart. Stuart’s men, who were actually a part of Sherman’s Fifth Division, had been sent far out beyond Prentiss’s left flank almost as an afterthought, someone’s revelation that the dense woods and gullies closer to the river should at least have some token force there, more as observation than defense. Prentiss could not worry about Stuart, had no idea if those troops were even in the fight at all, not while waves of rebels were striking Prentiss from the southwest. Stuart’s meager presence notwithstanding, Prentiss had to believe he was now the left flank of the entire Federal position.

As the morning passed into afternoon, Prentiss could see that the rebels had discovered that gap and were shifting their troops eastward, bringing up fresh regiments to exploit the opening that might turn Prentiss’s left and cut off Stuart altogether. With the rebel assaults threatening to envelop his flank, Prentiss had made a desperate plea for the closest Federal forces to do anything they could to fill that gap. That call had been answered with admirable speed by Stephen Hurlbut’s Fourth Division. As had happened on his right, Hurlbut’s rapid and disorderly advance had resulted in a jumbled mess of overlapping and confused commands, entire regiments stumbling through woods and thickets, some marching directly across the firing line of other Federal units or wandering blindly into pockets of advancing rebels. Many were now fighting under officers they had never seen before, soldiers moving into line beside men from other states. As the day wore on, and the attacks shifted eastward, it had become evident to Prentiss that his division, and those who had rallied to his aid, were confronted by an enemy who was nearly as jumbled up as the Federals.

H
e rode quickly, avoiding the bursts of incoming artillery, maneuvering his horse through shattered trees, past clusters of men who were hunkered down in whatever cover the woods provided them. For the past hour, he had heard what many of his officers had heard, their attention directed eastward, toward the river. The sound was unmistakable, so different from the artillery shells the rebels were throwing toward them. From near the landing, one of the Federal gunboats had begun shelling what their crews must have presumed to be the vanguard of the rebel advance. It was an honest attempt to hold the rebels away by launching the enormous shells of the naval guns onto the enemy’s position. Instead, as Prentiss could see now, the shells were falling more into his own lines than doing anything to hold back the enemy. Besides cursing the navy, the Federal troops had absorbed the incoming fire the only way they could, by keeping low, and holding to the desperate hope that the shells would fall on someone else, or that someone in command might inform the gunboat that the enemy was
over there
.