A Blaze of Glory (45 page)

“Doesn’t matter. None of that matters. Only thing we need to be thinking about right now is what happens tomorrow.”

With the setting of the sun, Sherman had been comfortable with the position of his remaining troops, was much more comfortable now that Lew Wallace’s seven thousand men had filed up against his right flank. But Sherman also knew that he had lost several of his commands altogether, regimental leaders who had collapsed, an entire brigade coming apart. Some of those men had been gathered up, rallied around different officers. But the rest … he knew of the fugitives at the river, wouldn’t go there, not yet. But he couldn’t avoid the certain knowledge that some of those men belonged to him. He glanced up, no sign of a slackening of the rain, said, “For tomorrow … you have orders for me yet?”

Grant seemed to ponder that.

“Some of the rebel prisoners say we’re whipped. Say they’re coming after us to finish the job, to shove us into the river at first light.”

“I’ve heard a little of that.”

“You think it’s true?”

“Not likely. This rain will slow down any assault. With all respects, sir, I’m hoping you will allow us the privilege of a counterattack.” Sherman looked again toward the landing, more troops marching up through deep mud. “Buell’s whole force here?”

Grant shook his head.

“Not yet. Maybe by morning, I guess. Buell hasn’t seen fit to meet with me. He’s marching in here like he’s taking over the entire operation. He wanted that from the beginning, and he’s making it pretty plain that he’s not bowing down to my authority one bit. My own staff had to poke around down there just to find out that Buell intends to launch an attack in the morning, whether we join him or not. You think he might have told me that? Or am I just to assume that Buell believes what we’re hearing from the rebel prisoners, that my poor damned army is whipped, worthless, tails tucked hard between our legs.”

Sherman was surprised, had spoken to Buell earlier that night.

“Um … sir, he came to me, a few hours ago, told me of his plans. I thought you would have known all about that. My apologies.”

Grant said nothing for a long moment. Sherman was truly embarrassed now, knew that Buell had stepped over a line … or perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps, Sherman thought, this is what Halleck intended all along. Grant takes a beating, and Buell comes in to be the damn hero. He scolded himself for that. No. No one could have known what was happening here. Hell,
we
didn’t know. But this is foolishness. Buell should at least follow some kind of protocol. Grant spoke now, seemed resigned to the absurd.

“I am assuming Buell told you his boys are ready to rip trees out of the ground, that his troops are making all kinds of talk about showing the rebs what a
real
soldier is, all that stupidity.”

Sherman bristled, had no interest in Buell or anyone else ridiculing his men, no matter their failures.

“He didn’t really say, sir. But we did a poor job today, and no matter what Buell intends to do, that will change. The men in my lines now are the best I’ve got, and they’ll rip a few trees up, too. Begging your pardon, sir.”

“Beg all you want. This isn’t some parade ground, and if I have anything to say about it, this fight will not be about whose trousers carry the greater manhood. Buell might not accept my authority, and I know damn well he wanted this show to be his. Halleck’s watching me every time I spit, and today I allowed the enemy to shove this army into a latrine. But everything has changed,
everything
. You want a counterattack? We’ll do a hell of a lot more than that. Right now, the enemy is out there drowning in this rain, and by morning, they’ll be tired, hungry, and, God willing, they’ll have had enough of this. They can shout out all they want about how badly we’re whipped, but I know damn well they took casualties as badly as we did, and their commanding general might be dead. We’ve got four fresh divisions marching in here. We’ve got rations for the men, and fresh ammunition for their cartridge boxes. The artillery is restocked, fresh horses are coming ashore alongside Buell’s troops. No matter what Buell thinks, and no matter what any damn rebel thinks, this army is a long damn way from being
whipped
.”

Sherman could feel Grant’s energy, more now than ever before. He looked again to the columns of fresh troops, saw artillery drawn by their teams of mules, men sitting high on their limbers, their boasts and shouts only muffled by the misery of the rain. Sherman tried to see his pocket watch, no chance of that, but he knew it was very late, well after midnight. Farther upriver the gunboats still thundered out their shells, a rhythm so consistent, Sherman had stopped hearing it. He thought of the enemy, all that Grant had said, felt the energy rising up inside of him. There was none of the nagging fear, the curse of uncertainty that had plagued him so many times before. All throughout the day, the extraordinary fight had erupted so close to him in so many places that all he had done was react. In the brief quiet moments, he had tested himself, couldn’t avoid thinking of Bull Run, of the disabling fear, but there had been none of that, the job at hand so desperate, so critical that the paralyzing terror seemed to be erased once and for all.

His focus had been outward, combating the enemy as he waged war with the panic in his men, working to maneuver and retreat and doing all he knew how, to put men in the best places they could be. He had seen it all, the death of his own, and the sweeping collapse of the enemy’s lines, then more lines, rising up from the low ground in screaming waves. It was the very thing that separated the cowards from the good soldiers, and he had seen all of that, on both sides. Right now, he thought, the best men I have left are out there waiting, just like I am, just like Grant is. Buell’s men have more experience, all their bragging about being veterans. But right now, the men out there, Buckland, the others,
my
men, no matter what kind of men they were yesterday … tomorrow they’ll be veterans, too.

He felt the gnawing need to ride back out there, a pair of staff officers sitting far to one side, waiting for him, men who would know how to find the tent that was now his headquarters. He couldn’t sit still any longer, and he said aloud, not to Grant, not to anyone but himself, “Get this damn night over with. I’m ready for more.”

BAUER

NEAR PITTSBURG LANDING APRIL 7, 1862, MID-MORNING

T
he rains had stopped before dawn, and the order had gone out to every division commander in the Federal army, passed down to their men, that this day would begin with an advance, not of picket lines and cautious observation posts, but by the entire force. Though a good many of Grant’s troops still suffered the scars and bruises from the day before, Buell’s troops were almost entirely fresh, and when the first bugle calls opened the day, Buell had already positioned more than fifteen thousand of his troops on the line, with more advancing as rapidly as they could be ferried across the river. As Grant had dreaded, a nasty sniping rivalry had begun, some of Buell’s officers making too much of the
salvation
they brought to the fight, rescuing Grant’s beleaguered troops, the men who could not avoid the indignity of what had been done to them the day before. That sniping came all the way from the top, and though Buell was too discreet to say anything directly to Grant, Buell was very clear to his own staff, and to many of his senior commanders that this day would prove just whose troops were superior. Those units Grant had positioned closest to Buell’s men, including the 16th Wisconsin, were hearing too much of that even before the advance had begun.

Once the massive counterattack was in motion, Grant’s men began to feel a pride of their own. This time there was none of the hesitation, the carelessness and frustration of junior officers, whose nervous agitation had led to so much of the previous day’s disaster. This was an entire army making its move, what these men had so impatiently hoped for since their first disembarking of the boats. Then, the target was to be Corinth. On this day, it was a battered rebel army spread out all through the countryside, an army that Grant’s men in particular were confident had already given their best effort. To many of the troops of the 16th Wisconsin, who had reacted to the overwhelming rebel attack by scattering like rabbits, today they believed they would have their pride returned. Today, the
rabbits
would not be wearing blue.

The night before, when the rebel attacks wound down, many of Grant’s men had spread rumors, born of wishful thinking, that the rebel army would simply vanish, abandoning the field altogether. Those who had seen so many men fall to musket fire had convinced themselves that the rebels had certainly absorbed too much punishment, that the sudden halt in the rebel assaults could only mean that the rebels had taken a far worse beating than they had given the blue troops. Among Buell’s army, the rumors were very different, and even before the counterattack began, word began to spread that they had simply missed out on the adventure, that the rebels had escaped their due by running away before Buell’s veterans had their crack at them. Naturally, Buell’s officers assumed it was their very presence on the field that had drained away the enemy’s will to fight. The hopeful euphoria of Grant’s men and the annoyance from Buell’s were short-lived. Though the rebels had backed away, they had conceded nothing.

No matter the utter lack of coordination with Buell’s forces, Grant accepted that Buell’s initial assault would be the signal to the entire army to start the attack. At first light, that attack began, an expanding arc, moving out from their compact base. As they had come across the river, Buell had positioned his people to the ground closest the river, to Grant’s left. Grant, now strengthened by the addition of Lew Wallace’s Division, had anchored the right, making good use of Owl Creek. Wallace held the far flank, and to his left was Sherman. Both men knew that their advance was tied to the advance of Buell’s men, and so they waited for the first thunder from Buell’s artillery, the signal that meant Buell was on the move. As Wallace drove forward on the flank, that end of the line soon made their first contact with the rebels. But it was no great barrier, no powerfully organized line. Instead the Confederate left was anchored by a single brigade under the command of Preston Pond, of Bragg’s Corps. After a brisk exchange of volleys, Pond recognized just how badly outmanned he was, and wisely withdrew. The move exposed an enormous gap on the Confederate left, and exposed as well an enormous flaw in Beauregard’s strategy. The night’s dismal weather had left many of the rebel troops out of touch with anyone with the authority to improve their position, or anyone who could either locate or order forward their supply wagons. The Confederate commanders, Beauregard in particular, could only assume that their troops had been able to refill their cartridge boxes from the vast stores of ammunition believed to be found in the abandoned Federal camps.

As confident as Grant might have been, his adversary began the day with the same optimism. Beauregard had every expectation that this day would begin with a resumption of their successful advance the day before, with the expectation of driving a wedge between the river and much of the Federal army. Virtually ignoring his left, Beauregard focused most of his attention, and the attention of his senior commanders, on the center, the logical place to drive their first assault. Before the dawn, orders had been sent forward that the assault would begin at first light. In those places where officers could actually organize a battle line, that advance began as ordered. But, instead of empty woods and a weak, rattled Federal defense, the rain-soaked, hungry, and underequipped Confederates were soon confronted by the fresh troops of Don Carlos Buell. And, to Buell’s right, Grant’s troops, who had done so much of the fighting the day before, who quickly advanced over ground they had abandoned, learned that their wishful thinking was premature. Instead of a victorious romp to reclaim their camps, and drive remnants of a beaten rebel army away, they found what Buell’s men found: an advance by entire brigades of rebel troops who didn’t seem beaten at all. As the two armies came together, many of Grant’s men found themselves confronting the enemy on the same ground that had seen some of the worst bloodletting the day before. From the peach orchard and the old wagon trail that had been so tenaciously held by Benjamin Prentiss, many of the same regiments who had given up so much faced one another again. With the first bugle call to advance, Bauer could feel the same optimism that affected much of the army, that this time they were moving
forward
. In the ranks, the sergeants were there as they had always been, but the orders weren’t harsh, no need for prodding hesitant men who had no stomach for a fight, or green troops who had no idea what the enemy could do. Immediately the men learned that
advancing
was a far different and far more inspiring experience than they had suffered the day before. The horrors and the terrifying retreat were a far distant memory for Bauer, and no one around him spoke of that at all. If any of those men were likely to break, to repeat their stampede to safety, no one showed it.

GRANT AND BUELL COUNTERATTACK

NEAR DUNCAN FIELD, THE OLD WAGON TRAIL APRIL 7, 1862, 10:00 A.M.

The 16th Wisconsin had moved out alongside men from Missouri, many of them the same men who had fought on their flanks the day before, their last real stand in the wood lines north of what some were now calling the Bloody Pond. Bauer didn’t know how much of the regiment stood in line, but anyone could see that the unit was most likely below half strength. Bauer knew that if most of those men were casualties, or instead, if some were gathered in shameless paralysis at the river, what mattered now was the number of muskets, and the backbone of the men moving forward.

Even before seven o’clock, the artillery had begun on the left, a scattering of fire that seemed disconnected, unorganized. But those sounds were increasing, and the farther forward the Wisconsin men stepped, the more they could hear waves of musket fire. Most of that came from the left and center of the Federal position, where Buell’s men had marched right into the teeth of the renewed rebel advance.

As the 16th Wisconsin pushed closer to the sounds of the new fight, the woods that had tormented and protected them began to change. There was cover still, and thickets of vines and briars clogging the deep ravines, but the great sweeping canopy of treetops was mostly gone. Past the field where Prentiss had surrendered, the trees were mostly broken and shattered, enormous matchsticks tossed about in a haphazard jumble. Here the lines came apart, the men making their way through entirely new thickets, fallen limbs and treetops that broke down any organization. The officers were powerless to change that, and the orders were shouted out with a strange kind of hesitation, even the captains unsure what was waiting for them up ahead, or just how these men would react once they saw the enemy.

Buell’s fight on the left had become far more intense, opening up in distant fields, the noise distorted by the woods and hilly ground in that direction. Some of that ground had not been as devastated, had not suffered the long hours of artillery barrages that had swept the ground where Bauer marched now. Where the lines could be brought back together, the men around Bauer reacted to the changes around them, the shattered trees spread over thick mud, the ground pockmarked by craters from the storm of cannon fire that had driven these men away the day before.

Around him, the talk was silenced by the effort it took to shove through the ruins of the woods. The land was far more open now, more visibility to the fields that spread out all around them. Some of the men stopped, focused on what they could hear, and Bauer heard it, too, the musket fire shifting direction, still to the left, but the right as well, a sudden burst to that side that made him flinch, ducking low, dropping to one knee behind the protection of a fat tree limb. Others were down as well, but the sergeants seemed to pounce on them like cats on a wounded bird, yanking men up by the collar, cursing hard into scared faces. Bauer saw Champlin screaming at a man who stared at the sergeant with wide-eyed terror, the man turning forward as though fearing more from Champlin than he did from the sounds of the fight. Bauer rose, didn’t wait for the hard hand of the sergeant. But the terror was there, unavoidable, the musket fire and bursts of artillery still making him flinch. He pushed forward, helped by the movement of the men beside him, men who were no doubt helped by him. Champlin was shouting out still, and Bauer knew that the sergeant was doing exactly what he had to, but no amount of mouthy bravado could keep the fear away completely. The closer the men drew to the enemy, the more the memories would leap out, and the more they would need men like Champlin to hold them together.

Willis had stayed beside him, a bond that Bauer believed he needed. He drew strength from Willis’s stoicism, the man not ever showing the kind of fear that Bauer fought along every step. Through the rainy night, the Wisconsin men had been grateful to share huge Sibley tents brought to the landing by Buell’s supply officers. Willis had done as he had done every night, had pulled out that same letter, crumpled and worn now, then folded it, returning it to his pocket, no words at all. Bauer still would not ask, knew there would be no answers. But in the morning, when the bugles called them out, Willis was the same he had always been, as he was right now, and as long as Bauer carried the musket, he would make every effort to stay close to him.