SHILOH AND THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE: care of the wounded at Pittsburg Landing, April 6-7, 1862.

The “Desperate Defence” mostly shows wounded and shell shocked men. Henry Lovie, combat artist for Leslie’s.

In 1895, Stephen Crane coined the phrase “red badge of courage” to describe wounds that soldiers received in battle during the Civil War. Truth be told, more soldiers died of disease and other causes than as a result of actual combat wounds. To be wounded or to die in heat of battle was viewed as far more heroic than soldiers falling ill with Typhus, Malaria, Dysentery or other common diseases of war. All those who fell ill and who died on campaign suffered serving in the line of duty; by rights, how they became incapacitated or died should not matter. But nineteenth century notions of manliness and honor colored much of the thinking with regard to suffering and death during the war.

As with so many other things, the Civil War was a watershed period in the medical treatment of combat casualties and wartime wounded. By the standards of just a few years later, the treatment of the sick seemed primitive, barbaric even. But out of this initial chaos, doctors and nurses, and the institutions that oversaw the care for sick and wounded soldiers made great advances in care and treatment.

In earlier wars, treatment of the wounded was not the concern of the armies and governments who sent them off to war. More often than not, if a soldier suffered a wound and survived, his treatment was in the hands of his “camp follower”–his common-law wife or mistress who, with thousands of others, followed in the wake of the marching armies. The philosophy of “laissez-faire” government extended not just to economics but even to their own soldier’s well-being. A smart uniform, functioning equipment, bad food and meagre pay were the limits of a governments’ obligation to its soldiers–and sometimes not even that.

To be sure, during the latter part of the 18th century, armies began to have physicians attached to regiments and larger units, more for morale purposes, one suspects, than for any deep concern for the cannon fodder that fought for the European, and later American, states as they emerged from Medieval times to a supposedly more “enlightened” era.

But up until the Civil War, save for a few exceptions, most wars were fought on a much smaller scale, with the numbers of dead surprisingly small, and the wounds inflicted on the participants, while painful and often ghastly to behold, less fatal than one might suppose. Disease and malnutrition killed far more soldiers than battlefield wounds.

As nations became more “civilized” and technologically advanced, however, weapons too became more advanced-and more lethal. Save but for the Napoleonic Wars, the American Civil War was fought on a scale unimaginable to most modern nations and their leaders and soon the number of men needing immediate medical care could be counted not in the hundreds, but thousands, and at times tens of thousands.

The Union and Confederate armies had been in a deadly contest for nearly a year when both sides met by the banks of the Tennessee River on Easter Sunday of 1862 near a small rural church whose name meant “peace.” The level of bloodletting that April 6, 1862, was on a scale that shocked even the most hardened of warriors and forever labeled that two-day conflict as “Bloody Shiloh.”

We cannot hope in this limited venue to describe the all aspects of the care of the wounded at Bloody Shiloh and its immediate aftermath, much less the changes which the war wrought to medicine and combat surgery. So we shall have it chronicled by one lone voice, a man who was in the very center of the carnage and did his utmost to save the lives of as many American soldiers, regardless of whether they wore blue or grey, those terrible two days in April.

At the time of the Battle of Shiloh, Major Robert Murray was Medical Director for the Army of the Ohio, under General Don Carlos Buell. Most of Buell’s troops did arrive until after dark on the sixth; but they got in position overnight and on the next day were the main force which counter-attacked the Rebel Army, turning defeat into victory. By far, most of the Union casualties were from Grant’s army who, though warned, was still taken by surprise on the sixth and his forces driven back and demoralized by the large Rebel force.

Major Murray was originally from the border state of Maryland and while he served loyally in the Union Army, two of his brothers fought in the Confederate Army. What follows is his report on the medical services under his command at Shiloh, published in the OR, the massive publications of the records of the Union and Confederate armies.

MEDICAL DIRECTOR’S OFFICE, ARMY OF THE OHIO,
Camp on Field of Shiloh, April 21, 1862.

SIR: I have the honor to submit the following report of the operations of the medical department during and after the battle of the 6th and 7th instant:

On the morning of the 6th I was at Savannah, and being ordered to remain at that place, I occupied myself in procuring all the hospital accommodation possible in that small village and in directing the preparation of bunks and other conveniences for wounded. In the afternoon the wounded were brought down in large numbers, and I then superintended their removal to hospitals, and did all in my power to provide for their comfort. On Sunday evening, the divisions being under orders to come up as rapidly as possible, I ordered the medical officers, as it was impossible to take their medical and hospital supplies — the teams and ambulances being in the rear and the roads blocked up with trains — to take their instruments and hospital knapsacks and such dressings and stimulants as could be carried on horseback, and to go on with their regiments.

I left Savannah by the first boat on Monday, and arrived at Pittsburg Landing at about 10 a.m. I found the principal depot for wounded established at the small log building now used as a field post-office. They were coming in very rapidly, and very inadequate arrangements had been made for their reception. I found Brigade Surgeon Goldsmith endeavoring to make provision for them, and at his suggestion immediately saw General Grant, and obtained his order for a number of tents to be pitched about the log house.

I then rode to the front and reported to you. The great number of wounded which I saw being transported to the main depot, and the Almost insurmountable difficulties which I foresaw would exist in providing for them, convinced me that my presence was needed there more than at any other point on the field. After spending an hour in riding a little to the rear of our lines, and seeing as far as possible that there were surgeons in position to attend immediately to the most urgent cases, I returned to the hill above the Landing, and used every exertion to provide for the wounded there. I ordered Brigade Surgeons Gross, Goldsmith, Johnson, and Gay to take charge of the different depots which were established in tents on the hills above the Landing, directing such regimental and contract surgeons as I could find to aid them.

Many of the wounded were taken on board boats at the Landing and some of our surgeons were ordered on board to attend them. On Tuesday I had such beats as I could obtain possession of fitted up with such bed-sacks as were on hand and with straw and hay for the wounded to lie upon, and filled to their utmost capacity, and at once dispatched to convey the worst cases to the hospitals on the Ohio River, at Evansville, New Albany, Louisville, and Cincinnati.

In removing the wounded we were aided by boats fitted up by sanitary commissions and soldiers’ relief societies and sent to the battle-field to convey wounded to the hospitals. Some of these, especially those under the direction of the United States Sanitary Commission, were of great service. They were ready to receive all sick and wounded, without regard to States or even to politics, taking the wounded Confederates as willingly as our own. Others, especially those who came under the orders of Governors of States, were of little assistance, and caused much irregularity. Messages were sent to the regiments that a boat was at the Landing ready to take to their homes all wounded and sick from certain States. The men would crowd in numbers to the Landing, a few wounded, but mostly the sick and homesick. After the men had been enticed to the river and were lying in the mud in front of the boats it was determined in one instance by the Governor to take only the wounded, and this boat went off with a few wounded, leaving many very sick men to get back to their camps as they best could. By the end of the week after the battle all our wounded had been sent off, with but few exceptions of men who had been taken to camps of regiments in General Grant’s army during the battle. These have since been found and provided for.

The division medical directors were very efficient in the discharge of their duties, and they report most favorably of the energy and zeal displayed by the medical officers under them in the care of the wounded under most trying circumstances — of want of medical and hospital stores, and even tents. Owing to the fact that a large majority of the wounded brought in on Monday and Tuesday were from General Grant’s army, some of whom had been wounded the day before, it was impossible to attend particularly to those from our own divisions. Many Confederate wounded also fell in our hands, and I am happy to say that our officers and men attended with equal assiduity to all. Indeed, our soldiers were more ready to wait on the wounded of the enemy than our own. I regret to say that they showed incredible apathy and repugnance to nursing or attending to the wants of their wounded comrades, but in the case of the Confederates this seemed in some measure overcome by a feeling of curiosity and a wish to be near them and converse with them.

We were poorly supplied with dressings and comforts for the wounded and with ambulances for their transportation, and it was several days after the battle before all could be brought in. Our principal difficulty, however, in providing for the wounded was in the utter impossibility to obtain proper details of men to nurse them and to cook and attend generally to their wants, and in the impossibility of getting a sufficient number of tents pitched, or in the confusion which prevailed during and after the battle to get hay or straw as bedding for the wounded or to have it transported to the tents. The only details we could obtain were from the disorganized mob which lined the hills near the Landing, and who were utterly inert and inefficient. From the sad experience of this battle and the recollections of the sufferings of thousands of poor wounded soldiers crowded into tents on the wet ground, their wants partially attended to by an unwilling and forced detail of panic-stricken deserters from the battle-field, I am confirmed in the belief of the absolute necessity for a class of hospital attendants, enlisted as such, whose duties are distinct and exclusive as nurses and attendants for the sick, and also of a corps of medical purveyors, to act not only in supplying medicines, but as quartermasters for the medical department.

I append a list of the number of killed and wounded in each regiment, brigade, and division engaged, in all amounting to 236 killed and 1,728 wounded.(*)

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
R. MURRAY,
Surgeon, U. S. Army, Medical Director.
Col. J. B. FRY,
Asst. Adjt. Gen. and Chief of Staff, Army of Ohio.

*Major Murray’s figures are way off, but he may only be counting Buell’s casualties, mostly received on the second day. Best estimate is that Union losses were 1754 killed, 8408 wounded, and 2885 captured: total, 13,047–of which only about 2,000 were Buell’s men.

These casualties never even made it to an aid station. Two men, one blue and one in butternut, likely decapitated by the same round. Watercolor by Captain Metzner, 32nd Indiana.

MAJOR BIERCE ON DESERTION

Lt. Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce, After the war he was brevetted to Major in honor of his service.

Any of you who have read my bio of Ambrose Bierce are aware that, despite his innate cynicism regarding the art of war Ambrose Bierce was anything but a pacifist, much less a coward. During his service with the Union Army during the War of the Rebellion,

Almighty God Bierce served, first as a lowly private, then as a non-com, and finally as an officer & a gentleman (or at least as an officer), his promotions being the result of his valor on the field of battle.

Whether he ever attained the gentleman part of  the epithet “an officer and a gentleman” is a dubious proposition, but it is known that Bierce did spend a year in military school at his Uncle Lucius Bierce‘s expense. Bierce attended Kentucky Military Institute shortly before the Election of 1860, when sectional passions were running high in the border states. It is not known for certain why he left, but presumably his family’s outspoken Abolitionism may have come into conflict with one or another Southern gentleman attending the school, who held the opposite viewpoint regarding Secession and slavery. In any case, Bierce left voluntarily. So it was that, when war came, Bierce had a good bit more military training than of the other volunteers of his Hoosier regiment, the Ninth Indiana Volunteer Infantry.

When Bierce went “To See the Elephant” as the expression of the day put it, Bierce did a lot of running, but never away from the sound of the guns, but almost always directly towards them. One time in western Virginia (soon to become West Virginia) he and his fellow “Swamp Angels” (their early nickname) Bierce and his comrades conducted a self-led charge up a hill at some Georgia boys who were contesting the summit. The charge through the trees went along alright, until Bierce suddenly realized he had become an army of one, his comrades having chose the better part of valor and ducked down behind the nearest stumps and rocks. A nearby comrade having been hit, Bierce picked up the wounded soldier, grabbed both their rifles and made a hasty retreat back down to where the rest of the ninety-day warriors safely lay at the bottom of the hill. The Rebels won the laurels on Laurel Hill that day.

Bierce’s first real experience with soldiers showing their backside to the enemy came at Shiloh, but here again, it was not Bierce and his comrades of the Ninth Indiana, but Grant’s men who were found wanting in courage. Admittedly, the men of the Bloody Ninth and of General Buell’s Army of the Ohio did not see the men of Grant’s army in the best light: in fact, it was night by the time they arrived on the opposite shore and were ferried across to the landing where the badly battered remnants of Grant’s army lay. But it was a sight that Bierce never forgot:

“They were mostly unarmed; many were wounded; some dead. Not one of them knew where his regiment was, nor if he had a regiment. Many had not. These were defeated, beaten, cowed. They were deaf to duty and dead to shame. A more demented crew never drifted to the rear of broken battalions.”

Grant’s men deserted en masse on the first day of Shiloh, many fleeing to the Landing desperate to escape.

With that sardonic wit typical of him in the postwar years, Bierce observed that, “an army’s bravest men are its cowards. The death which they would not meet at the hands of the enemy they will meet at the hands of their officers, with never a flinching.” There were, of course, far too many deserters to shoot at Pittsburg Landing, but that may not have kept the Bloody Ninth’s divisional commander, General “Bull” Nelson, from plugging a few anyway.

A Union firing squad executes deserters, who are forced to sit on their own coffins.

We do know that Bierce and his comrades witnessed at least one execution of a deserter while stationed in Nashville in the early part of 1862 and was he present at other military execution. As Provost Marshall, he may even have presided over one or two himself. He would later write an essay on the subject as well as cataloging some of the more barbaric punishments the US Army meted out for lesser crimes.

In the postwar era, after spending a short stint as a Treasury Agent in the deep South, trying to track down contraband cotton being hidden by unreconstructed Rebels, like many veterans who were bored and restless, Bierce headed west. His old commander, General William Hazen, was conducting a survey of the western territories and recruited Bierce to come along to put his talents as surveyor and map maker to use.

At one point, Bierce even toyed with rejoining the army and aspired for a captain’s commission. When that was not forthcoming, he headed out to California. Bierce would also spend an interlude in the Black Hills helping an old army buddy with a mining venture. Bierce did not discuss his personal adventures in the west at any length—although they inspired a number of his short stories—save to intimate that the threat from the native tribes was greatly exaggerated and the postwar army not up to the quality of the Civil War army he had served in. Bierce may have had in mind the fact that when Custer’s command was massacred in the Black Hills, besides being bad marksmen, they had obsolete single-shot carbines, versus the Sioux’s deadly accurate repeating rifles.

Regardless, what little we know of his frontier experience indicates he was frequently exposed to danger of one sort or another. It is not certain what set off his later ruminations about desertion, but in the following essay, he had some choice things to say about the frontier army of his day and its lack of readiness.

Concerning Desertion

San Francisco Examiner September 9, 1889

In attempting to account for the wide and lasting popularity of desertion among our country’s gallant but uncommissioned defenders, everybody seems to have overlooked one reason which can hardly fail to influence many of our hardy warriors to “take their hook.” While all the other civilized nations are arming their soldiery with the most afflicting modern weapons—cannon of desolating power and repeating rifles exceedingly disagreeable to confront—we retain the ancient arms of the Rebellion period, whose fire it is more blessed to receive than give.

Now, the American private soldier, born abroad in most cases and having the advantage of personal acquaintance with the superior European weapons, may be supposed to know that in combat with those who wield them he would not have the ghost of a chance for his life. The gratification of dying for his adoptive country is all that we can promise him. In the pomp and circumstances of parade that may be sufficient to sustain his courage and urge him to spectacular deeds; but in the silent watches of the night, when the monotony of his toil is unbroken save by the sound of his brush as he polishes the boots of his officer, he needs a spiritual stimulant of robuster strength. If the pattern of his weapon would assist his fancy to picture himself in triumphant contemplation of a fallen foe it would wonderfully lighten his task of tidying up the rooms of his officer’s wife and pushing the perambulator of his officer’s wife’s baby.

The American private soldier is not insensible to perils of war that lurk in Bismarck’s hostility to the American hog. He is alive to the significant affirmation of his country’s unworthy by the Canadian press, and to all the possibilities involved in our determination to maintain our fences around the Bering Sea. That these “questions” are full of thunder he knows as well as the Secretary of State does; and the consciousness that he may be pitted against a British or German veteran gifted with a gun that will kill is naturally disquieting. We are far from implying that our private soldiers are lacking in the military virtue of courage; they are willing to fight, but do not wish to be made ridiculous. Some of them have already felt the sting of an enemy’s derision while endeavoring to conquer the Red Man intelligently armed by the War Department of his tribe.

If for every man who deserts we would arm a remaining man with a good serviceable weapon we could well afford to let the deserter go, grant him a full pardon and permit Commissioner Tanner to pension his whole family. An army of even one-third the number that we have now would be, if well-armed and equipped, a more effective force. We do not need a large army, but whatever army we have should be maintained in the highest possible state of efficiency. The better our soldiers are armed the fewer we need—a consideration imperfectly apprehended by the economists who are ever to the fore in Congress, demanding a “reduction of the army.” Expended in purchase of improved arms, the amount of a month’s pay to 10,000 men would enable us, with distinct advantage to the service, to muster out that number, giving them back to the arts and industries and making them back to the arts and industries and making them producers of wealth. It would not only increase the efficiency of the force as then constituted, but would secure a better quality of recruits and do at least something to check desertion; for even if all should leave, the blacklist would not contain as many names by 10,000 as it now bids fair to do. AGB

For more about Ambrose Bierce’s war service, see Ambrose Bierce and the Period of Honorable Strife, published by University of Tennessee Press.

Ambrose Bierce and the Period of Honorable Strife for the first time chronicles this pivotal period of Bierce’s life.

The Battles and Bleaters of the Civil War: Some Thoughts on the History of the History of the War

The Skirmish Line by Gilbert Gaul

This edition of the Late Unpleasantness deals not so much about any specific person or event of the Civil War as it does about the search for the truth of what really happened between 1860 and 1866.  That may seem a simple task; after all, every week another book comes out about what happened in the first fifteen minutes of the second hour of the first day of Gettysburg; or of how General Grant won the war single-handedly; what a great guy Lincoln was and how he freed the slaves.

Yet, as any Civil War buff worth his salt knows, or should know, determining what actually happened in the chaos of battle is not a simple task, nor is the consensus of leading historians about some leaders and their actions necessarily based on fact, but rather on inherited opinions which have come to become accepted as truth.  I will confess to have been as guilty of this latter fault as some of the more famous writers whose books have gone on to become the “bible” on certain battles and leaders.

In my research for The Paranormal Presidency, for example, I made ample use of the Historical Society of Illinois online Lincoln Papers as well as the Library of Congress’ ample resources as well as numerous other primary and secondary sources.  Not much new here; all well worn territory insofar as Lincoln scholars go.  Yet my take on those same sources and on Lincoln the man clearly does not square with the dominant consensus which generations of Lincoln scholars—one might more properly call them hagiographers—have arrived at.  I, like his scholarly acolytes, regard Lincoln as a great President; but where I differ is that I do not ignore or disregard evidence where it does not square with the received views of him that have become academic dogma.

Disputes over certain campaigns, battles and leaders are nothing new; some have been going on since before the war was over.  However, two recent books raise old issues and to varying degrees promise to throw a new light on what we thought was established fact.

Stephen Hood’s new book, John Bell Hood: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of a Confederate General, has stirred no little controversy among Civil War enthusiasts and scholars.  Hood the Younger makes no bones about his revisionism regarding General Hood’s military career and takes aim at several well respected historian’s previous work on the subject.  His work has been criticized as biography; in fact, it is not a biography per se, but explicitly a work of historiography.  Mr. Hood has gone back into the primary sources and his reading of them varies considerably from previous writers on the subject.  He has weighed their arguments in the balance and found them wanting.

General John Bell Hood, controversial commander of the Army of Tennessee

While I leave it up to Civil War enthusiasts to read his book and decide for themselves how well Stephen Hood has succeeded in his task, I will cite incident which caused me to begin to question the consensus views on General Hood.  When Jefferson Davis sought General Lee’s views on appointing John Bell Hood as commander of the Army of Tennessee, Lee replied that in his view, Hood was “all lion and none of the fox,” and I have even seen the statement footnoted with the source cited; so it must be true, right?  Except, that Lee never actually said that.  As Stephen Hood reveals, that phrase was coined after the war and whether true or not, it was not Lee who said it.  On checking the citation, I found it did indeed go back to the Lee/Davis correspondence about Hood, but nowhere in those messages does that phrase attributed to Lee appear.  A minor point, admittedly, but it is a cautionary tale about accepting authority at face value.

Another new work takes aim at that icon of the Union cause, General Ulysses S. Grant, questioning the accepted narratives of the battles for Chattanooga and Grant’s claims to being the mastermind of that campaign.  In the past Grant has been the subject of criticism, but in recent decades the consensus of historians has been generally favorable to him and have generally accepted Grant and his supporter’s version of his campaigns with little question.  However, in General Grant and the Rewriting of History, Frank Varney  disputes that consensus, at least insofar as the war in the west is concerned.

Grant and his commanders at Orchard Knob watch the Battle of Missionary Ridge

There are many, myself included, who feel that Grant has been given a pass by many historians on a number of points.  In my forthcoming work on Ambrose Bierce and the Civil War, in researching the context behind Bierce’s service with the Army of the Ohio and with the Army of the Cumberland, I found much of Bierce’s critique of Grant to be well founded and largely grounded in a greater debate in the postwar era over the credit and blame for the bloodletting at Shiloh.  Bierce’s criticisms of Grant were well known, although his overall assessment of Grant was generally positive.

Chickamauga and Chattanooga have also been the subject of much controversy over the years, with much blame and praise being disbursed by various historians.  The modern view of Grant and Sherman as the heroes of the campaign has generally been the dominant narrative however.  So Varney’s revisionism had been initially received in some quarters as a much needed correction to the record.  Varney takes eminent historians to task for shoddy scholarship.  While I reserve final judgment on Varney’s work and encourage others to also make their own assessment, from what I’ve read so far, it is Varney’s scholarship which has been found wanting.  Civil War bloggers have checked several of his citations, backing his criticisms of what other historians have written, and in too many cases have found them in error or just plain bogus.

General Grant’s Personal Memoirs were very well written and his narrative has been often taken at face value by generations of historians.  There remains much about Grant’s career that requires a more critical review of the facts.  It remains to be seen whether Varney was up to the task or whether that remains for others to do.

Forts Donelson and Henry’s Restless Dead

Federal forces under General Grant traversed the isthmus separating the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers and took the Rebels of Fort Donelson by surprise. A bloody battle ensued.

In both Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War and Strange Tales of the Dark and Bloody Ground, I chronicled several different hauntings related to the Battle of Shiloh. But before Shioh were Donelson and Henry.

Forts Donelson and Henry were the twin Confederate bastions which guarded the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers on the border between Kentucky and Tennessee. The Rebels had fortified the two rivers where they came close to one another–called Land Between the Rivers back then; now, thanks to the TVA, it is Land Between the Lakes. Here in the winter of 1862, a Union amphibious force came to break the Confederate defenses. Led by General Ulysses S. Grant, the Yankees first bombarded Fort Henry on the Tennessee River into submission and then, in a bold move, Grant took a small force overland and besieged Fort Donelson from landward, catching the Johnnies off-guard. The Rebels had all their big guns pointing down-river, in the direction from which they thought the Yankee fleet would come.

Fort Donelson falls to the Union army under Grant, opening the way for the Union occupation of the entire mid-South.

It was a bitter cold winter and both sides suffered terribly. The wounded lay thick in the no man’s land between the two armies and suffered as much from the cold as they did from their wounds. Many died a slow and agonizing death. The Rebel troops, for their part, were ill-prepared for a winter campaign and suffered even more than the Yankees from the cold. Ultimately, Grant bluffed the incompetent Rebel commanders into surrendering, thereby assuring his fame and opening the way for the Union to conquering the heartland of the Confederacy.

General Ulysses S. Grant smoked, drank and liked to play poker. His skills at poker came in handy at Fort Donelson where he bluffed a superior force of Rebels into surrendering to his small army.

Although the dead of both sides were quickly interred, their undead shades lingered–and they linger still at Land Between the Lakes. After my first book, Strange Tales of the Dark and Bloody Ground, which chronicled a few of Shiloh’s ghosts and haunts, and Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War, where I covered more Shiloh ghosts and also a tale relating to General Grant, I had occasion to talk with several re-enactors who had camped at Fort Donelson at various times, trying to re-create conditions as close to January, 1862, as they could.

The re-enactors I spoke with told me it was not uncommon for one or another of their ranks to have uncanny encounters at Fort Donelson. One lady, a sutler, describes awakening in her tent in the dead of night to fight all her wares and her tent violently shaking and rattling. There was no wind or storm or any natural event that night to explain it. But apparently there was something supernatural that could.

Another re-enactor told of performing picket duty at night while his unit was there. Many re-enactors try to get into the spirit of the period, not just for visitors during the day, but at night as well. An onlooker might well mistake them for the real thing. This re-enactor was on duty late at night when he saw a light coming up the hill in the distance.

The dim glow grew larger and larger as it approached him and at first he could not make out what it was. Then it came close and passed him; in the eerie glow he could see the torso and head of a man–seemingly an officer, wearing a broad-brimmed hat and smoking an old-fashioned stogie; it was the phantom cigar that illumined the figure. It almost seemed as if the phantom officer were making the rounds, checking on the bivouac to see all the guards were on duty. But the cigar-smoking figure was no re-enactor; he had no lower body, just a materialized torso and be-hatted head. Was it the ghost of General Grant? Or was it the shade of some other tobacco-loving commander, North or South? Who knows?

To paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill about another war, Fort Donelson was not the beginning of the end of the Rebellion; but it was the end of the beginning. And they’re those who say that many who met their end there abide on the grounds of the battle-field still.

For more Civil War ghost stories see my Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War; Rutledge Hill did the original editon which is still in print, although Barnes & Noble, Lone Pine and Sterling have come out with economy hardcovers in addition to the paperback editions. My first book, Strange Tales of the Dark and Bloody Ground, also chronicles the battlefield hauntings of Shiloh, Chickamauga and Franklin.

Re-enactors conduct an artillery barrage at night at Fort Donelson

William B. Hazen, the “Best Hated” Man in the Army

Brigadier General William B. Hazen, whom Ambrose Bierce called “The Best Hated Man in the Army”

If there was a single person who left an indelible impact on Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce’s life, it was Brigadier General William Babcock Hazen.

Hazen was born in Vermont in 1830, but his family moved westward from New England to the Midwest when he was still young. After graduating from West Point in 1855, Hazen spent his early military career on the frontier fighting Apaches, Comanches and other tribes; later he was posted to West Point as an instructor of infantry tactics.  If any officer in the army exuded spit and polish, it was William Hazen.

Despite his years of service, it was not until the war broke out that Hazen was promoted to captain in the 8th U.S. Infantry.  As the U.S. Army expanded, Hazen’s own career grew aw well; at last, on October 29, 1861, he was made Colonel of the 41st Ohio Infantry. Then, in January, 1862, he was put in charge of the newly formed Nineteenth Brigade as part of General Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio. It was not long after this that his new command was ordered south to occupy the formerly Rebel-held state capitol of Nashville, Tennessee.

Ambrose Bierce, who had served on Hazen’s staff during the war, described as “the best hated man that I ever knew, and his very memory is a terror to every unworthy soul in the service.” Intolerant of dishonesty and incompetence in the military, General Hazen spent almost as much time fighting his brother officers as he did fighting the enemy, both during and after the Civil War.

After a little more than a month of drilling and training his mostly green troops into a semblance of military discipline, (which many of the volunteer troops took a keen dislike to), orders came down to advance overland to the port town of Savannah, Tennessee, to rendezvous with General Grant’s army. As part of General Bull Nelson’s 4th Division they took the van in Buell’s advance, arriving near the town only a day before Easter Sunday of 1862. The next morning they awoke to the sound of distant gunfire; Hazen mustered his men, and then it was a game of hurry up and wait, until finally they were ordered to make a forced march to the rescue of Grant’s men.

Union troops under Buell struggle to recapture artillery lost by Grant at Shiloh. Ambrose Bierce described it as “a tough tussle.”

Hazen and his brigade crossed over to Pittsburg Landing during the night of April 6, enduring a night of drenching rain and then a day of hell as Hazen’s Brigade took heavy casualties pushing back the Rebels from the captured Union camps. During the afternoon, Hazen became temporarily separated from his troops, but his stern discipline and rigorous training made them through the day, repulsing repeated Confederate counterattacks. The struggle of Hazen’s Brigade was immortalized in Ambrose Bierce’s famous memoir of the battle, “What I Saw of Shiloh.”

The following months proved frustrating, both for Hazen and his men and for the Army of the Ohio in general, as they first spent a month slowly advancing on the Rebel army in Corinth, Mississippi, only twenty miles away, and then were assigned to advance on Chattanooga while trying to both repair and defend the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, which ran through northern Mississippi and Alabama, the entire length of which was vulnerable to attack by Confederate cavalry and Rebel guerillas. The guerilla warfare became quite nasty and the Federals replied in kind. Again, one can look to the recruit from Indiana, Ambrose Bierce, who immortalized this obscure period of Hazen’s Brigade service in his short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”

“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” by Ambrose Bierce was based on the experiences of Hazen’s men in the late spring and early summer of 1862 in northern Alabama.

By late summer, Hazen and his men were relieved of frustrating duty along the railroad and instead headed north into Kentucky in pursuit of the Army of Tennessee under General Braxton Bragg, finally halting them at the Battle of Perryville.
Following the Kentucky Campaign, the Federal army was reorganized under a new commander, General Rosecrans and renamed the Army of the Cumberland. Hazen’s Brigade was also renumbered and reorganized, having become ragged and lax (according to General Hazen’s thinking) during the chaotic summer and fall campaigning. By the time Christmas came, they were back up to his standards and fought in the bloody winter Battle of Stone’s River.

Here again Hazen’s men fought the Rebels to a standstill, preventing the enemy from rolling up the Union flank at the Round Forest. Although the brigade went on to other duties, they erected a monument on the site of the fight, which still stands on the battlefield today.

The year 1863 saw Hazen and his men heavily engaged, first in the lighting fast Tullahoma Campaign and then in the subsequent maneuvering to force Bragg out of Chattanooga. Unfortunately, having succeeded beyond all expectations, Rosecrans became overconfident and engaged in a headlong pursuit of the Army of Tennessee before he had consolidated his own army around Chattanooga, leading to the Battle of Chickamauga, in which Hazen and his men again played an important part.

In a daring night raid, General Hazen and his men seized Brown’s Ferry and broke the siege of Chattanooga.

During the subsequent siege of Chattanooga, Genera Hazen led a dangerous night mission to seize Brown’s Landing to open up the “Cracker Line” which effectively broke the Confederate siege of the city. At the Battle of Missionary Ridge, Hazen’s men took first honors in reaching the summit and beating back the enemy—although he butted heads with General Sheridan, who tried to claim credit for reaching the summit first.

Assault on Missionary Ridge. General Hazen’s Brigade were the first to seize the summit and capture the Confederate cannon there.

During the Atlanta Campaign, Hazen’s Brigade suffered further attrition, until the by now eight regiments of his command numbered little more than one new regiment in strength. Often the brigade suffered more from the incompetence of its superior officers—such as the notorious General O. O. Howard—(or as his men called him “Uh-Oh” Howard) than from the enemy. At Pickett’s Mill, Hazen was ordered to attack a superior force, entrenched and prepared for them, without proper support. Hazen’s men suffered heavy casualties as a result.

After Atlanta, General Hazen, in recognition for his fighting abilities and qualities as commander, was given a full division in Sherman’s March to the Sea and in the subsequent Carolina Campaigns, leading troops in battle up to the end of the war.

After the war Hazen, now reduced to Colonel, served on the frontier, not only protecting settlers from the Indians, but also occasionally protecting peaceful Indians from the murderous attacks of his fellow army officers. Hazen also blew the whistle on army scandals within the Grant administration, which did not endear him to politicians or some of his fellow officers.

He died relatively young, at age 56 in 1887, and is buried at Arlington Cemetery. In his obituary, the New York Times called him “aggressive and disputatious”, while his former subordinate and close friend, Ambrose Bierce, described him as “the Best Hated Man in the Army.” Both descriptions aptly fit William B. Hazen, an irascible but brave officer and one of the best generals in the Army both during and after the war.

For more strange but true Civil War stories and events, Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War and The Paranormal Presidency of Abraham Lincoln.

The Two Generals Wallace, Part 2

Shiloh. Union troops on April 7 recapturing Federal artillery lost to the Rebels in the previous day’s defeat. Print by Alonzo Chappel.

 

General Lewis Wallace would have arrived on the battlefield of Shiloh earlier in the day, had it not been for Grant’s own delay in sending for him.

Lewis Wallace came from a political background, much as had William Wallace. His father had been a successful lawyer and jurist and later served as Lieutenant Governor and then Governor of Indiana. Lewis followed in his father’s footsteps and became a lawyer in his turn.

Lew Wallace was active in Indiana politics but remained a Democrat even when Oliver Morton, disenchanted with the party’s growing appeasement of the militant pro-slavery Southern wing, bolted the party and joined the new Republican Party.

Lew Wallace’s career, like William Wallace’s, was interrupted by service in the Mexican War, where he served in the 1st Indiana Volunteer Infantry.

However, when Lew witnessed the Lincoln-Douglas debates, he was greatly impressed by Lincoln’s performance–far more so than that of Stephen Douglas’s. Witnessing the growing sectarian division in the country, Lew even organized a militia company–The Crawfordsville Guards Independent Militia–in Indiana several years before the outbreak of war, looking towards the day it would be needed to help preserve the Union.

After the Election of 186O, as it became obvious that it was pro-slavery militants who were actually going to precipitate a civil war, Lew Wallace finally threw his lot in with the Republicans. Lew was what was called a “War Democrat.” Wallace went to Governor Oliver Morton to volunteer his services for the Union.

Initially, Wallace was made Adjutant General and put in charge of helping organize the masses of recruits flooding into the training camps throughout Indiana. Lew was then given commission as Colonel of the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry and dispatched with his command to help liberate western Virginia (later West Virginia). The core of Wallace’s regiment consisted of his old company of volunteers, now expanded to a full regiment of zouaves. After seeing some brief skirmishing in Virginia, the regiment’s term of enlistment expired, but it was soon replaced by a three year regiment. In September, however, Colonel Lew was promoted to general and given a brigade to command.

In February, 1862, Brigadier Lew Wallace took part in the expedition to attack the Confederate forts guarding the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers on the border between Kentucky and Tennessee. Now part of General Smith’s division, Wallace’s brigade was at first given the passive role of garrisoning Fort Heiman, an unoccupied Rebel defense across from Fort Henry, which had been blasted into submission by Flag Officer Foote’s flotilla of gunboats.

Soon, however, Grant precipitous advance on Fort Donelson necessitated his calling up Wallace’s unit to close the siege of the Rebel stronghold.  Although told not to take offensive action by Grant, General Wallace, now in charge of a full division, realized that nearby Federal troops were about to be overrun and, against orders, advanced to prevent an enemy breakthrough. He arrived to find General William Wallace’s outnumbered troops falling back and rushed to their rescue, saving the day.  The Confederate counter-attack a failure, the enemy inside Fort Donelson soon surrendered to Grant.

After the successful conclusion of the Donelson Campaign, Lew Wallace found himself promoted to Major General and in command of a division on a permanent basis. He was soon dispatched up the Tennessee River where the next campaign, aimed against the strategic rail junction of Corinth, Mississippi, was starting to take shape. Lew’s first mission was to cut the Mobile and Ohio Railroad north of Corinth, even as Sherman’s division was to cut the railroad south of the city. Wallace’s mission was a success and he returned to his temporary camp along the Tennessee.  General Lew Wallace expected an advance on Corinth proper would follow almost immediately as that post was still weakly held. But it was not to be.

Instead, General Henry Halleck, the departmental commander–nicknamed “Old Brains”– had decided to wait and have both Grant and General Buell’s armies rendezvous near Savannah, Tennessee, before moving against Corinth. In the wake of the spectacular victory at Fort Donelson and the fall of Nashville, Wallace’s superiors believed the Rebellion was all but over. Wallace’s temporary advance base at Crump’s Landing was therefore made his division’s bivouac, as he awaited the rest of the Union forces to accumulate further downriver.

As the bulk of the army gathered at Pittsburg Landing, some six to eight miles distant, Lew Wallace feared that his isolated division was vulnerable to enemy attack.  Wallace deployed his brigades in depth, even as he sent out cavalry patrols and scouts (spies) to reconnoiter the countryside.

Wallace also familiarized himself with the roads in the area and set work details repairing all the roads and bridges leading to Pittsburg Landing. Unfortunately, Generals Sherman and Grant were not so diligent in scouting and patrolling, nor in constructing roads to link the separated sections of their main camps at Pittsburg Landing. Of redoubts and barricades, there were none built by Grant to slow an enemy attack.

Several days before the April 6 attack, Lew Wallace’s spies reported a major movement of the Confederate Army from Corinth, headed for Pittsburg Landing. Lew Wallace immediately sent a dispatch to Grant, which should have been in Grant’s hand no later than the morning of the 5th of April. In his memoirs, Wallace gives Grant “the benefit of the doubt” as to whether or not Grant received the dispatch. In any case, Wallace informed his brigade commanders to make ready to move on short notice, expecting an attack at any time.

In the actual event, on the morning of April 6th, although Grant and Sherman were not technically surprised—several frontline units had tried to warn their superiors to no avail—in fact the Confederates caught them unawares and totally unprepared.

When Wallace, at Crump’s Landing, first heard the firing around six a.m., he immediately put his command in readiness to march, awaiting Grant’s marching orders. It wasn’t until about 8:30 that Grant appeared on the Tigress at Crump’s Landing and at that time merely instructed Wallace to “hold yourself in readiness to march upon orders received.” When Wallace informed Grant that his command was ready to march immediately, Grant simply said “hold the division in readiness ready to march in any direction.”

Chaos characterized the first day’s fighting at Shiloh, with Union camps being overrun and successive lines of the Federals being outflanked. It was Grant’s indecision and vague orders, not Lew Wallace’s slowness, which caused his division to arrive late to the battlefield.

 

It wasn’t until 11:30 a.m. that Wallace finally received Grant’s marching orders via one of Grant’s aides, who had translated Grant’s verbal orders into writing. Whether the written orders actually reflected Grant’s verbal intent has been the subject of dispute.

General Wallace’s column was actually making good progress towards the battlefield, when a series of orderlies and aides came up from behind, with panicked instructions from Grant, urging Wallace to “hurry up.” Finally, Grant’s assistant adjutant, Major Rawlins, came up and under threat of being relieved, told Wallace he was on the “wrong road,” and to divert towards the low-lying road close to the river.

In fact, Wallace had long since surveyed all the roads towards Shiloh and was proceeding on the shortest route; it was a route that would put him on the right of Sherman’s original camp, where Grant’s original instructions ordered him to go. However, the Union forces had been forced backwards towards the river since the early morning and Wallace’s route would put him behind and on the flanks of the Confederate attackers—as it turns out, exactly where he would have been able to make a difference in the first day’s flight.

However, taking Major Rawlins petulant demands as a direct order from Grant, General Lew turned his column around and marched it back to a road that would take the division southward to the sodden and marshy river route—a route which was in places covered with water as high as a horse’s breast. After making this detour, Wallace’s progress slowed to a crawl and his force was not able to reach the battlefield until after dark–after the end of the day’s fighting and too late to make a difference in the first day’s battle.

Earlier that day, as General Lew Wallace awaited orders, the situation at Shiloh had gone from bad to worse, as the Union forces were repeatedly outflanked and pushed back towards the river.

General William Wallace, by his defense of the Hornet’s Nest on April 6, helped delay the Confederate advance long enough to save the remnants of Grants army at Shiloh.

     William Wallace, now in charge of the Second Division, had his command’s bivouac close to the river. Nevertheless, as soon as William Wallace heard the distant sound of firing, he ordered the drummers to sound the “Long Roll,” mobilized his division and arrived close to the front in short order. Initially, the Second Division was employed as a reserve, detaching units to the support of the frontline divisions that were desperately attempting to repulse the repeated Confederate attacks. However, because of a lack of unified command—each division fighting on its own front and lacking coordination from Grant—and a lack of prepared defenses to rally around, the Confederates were able to penetrate between the separated Union forces and flank them repeatedly. Whole regiments and even brigades of Federal troops disintegrated and fled to the rear—but not the men under William Wallace’s direct command.

It was not until the afternoon that Wallace, along with the surviving fragments of General Prentiss’ division and miscellaneous units, were able to form a stable front on the crest of a thicket covered ridgeline with a shallow sunken road meandering along it—what the Rebels called “The Hornet’s Nest.” For a large part of the afternoon Wallace’s division, along with the other units, held back repeated Confederate attacks, drawing off Rebel units from other parts of the battlefield and allowing the beaten and demoralized survivors elsewhere to retreat to Pittsburg Landing, where they crowded the riverfront by the thousands—perhaps the tens of thousands.
Finally, subjected to a massed artillery barrage and nearly surrounded, William Wallace ordered a fighting retreat. All was going well for the Second Division as it escaped the tightening noose. However, as he directed his men’s withdrawal, a sniper shot hit William Wallace in the head and he was left for dead as the retreat became a rout.

The next day, General Lew Wallace launched a counterattack on the right on his own initiative, lacking any direct orders from Grant since the day before. Similarly, on the left of the field, General Don Carlos Buell’s troops also counterattacked. Supposedly, the survivors of the first day’s fight, compressed into the center of the semi-circular federal line defending the landing, also attacked—although by mid-afternoon on Monday, April 7th, General Buell’s extreme right was covering General Lew Wallace’s extreme left.

The action of the 7th—which Buell’s men forever after called “Buell’s Battle”—is what allowed Grant to claim victory in his reports and memoirs. In all the recriminations following the Battle of Shiloh, Lew Wallace was criticized as “going slow” on the 6th and becoming either confused or lost on his way to battle—none of which was true.

General William Wallace, whose courage and rock-steady leadership in the face of overwhelming odds helped save Grant’s command, received scant recognition in all the reports of the battle. Due in large part to his fatal wounding and being unable to tell his version of the battle, William Wallace never received the full credit due him at Shiloh.

As for Lew Wallace, while Grant ultimately exonerated him of any wrongdoing, his reputation remained under a shadow even after the war.

The two Generals Wallace, both “political generals,” men committed to the cause and competent leaders in peace and war, each deserved far better of History than they have so far received.

For more about William Wallace and his wife Ann and the Battle of Shiloh, see Chapter 12 of Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War; for other, more unusual aspects of Shiloh and its aftermath, also see Chapter 11 of Ghosts and Haunts, as well as Chapter 31 of Strange Tales of the Dark and Bloody Ground.

 

Ambrose Bierce was an eyewitness to Shiloh and his account of the battle is justly famous. For more on Shiloh and Bierce, see Ambrose Bierce and the Period of Honorable Strife.

 

The Two Generals Wallace Part 1

General Lewis Wallace, the savior of Grant at both Ft. Donelson and Shiloh and author of Ben Hur. (Colorized photo)

General William Hervey Lamme Wallace leading his men to battle, after Ottawa mural by G. Byron Peck

In all the chronicles, memoirs and histories of the war, then and now, some generals have, fairly or not, gotten a disproportionate share of attention. Of course, it is easy to see how Grant and Lee should get the lion’s share of ink. Yet no war is won—or lost—by just one man. Often the one who is hailed as victor in truth may owe his laurels to the efforts of those of lesser rank whose contribution to the cause has been overlooked or even deliberately slighted. Such is the case with the two generals Wallace.

General William Hervy Lamme Wallace and General Lewis Wallace, although from different states and different backgrounds, in many ways followed a similar path to the war. Both were “political generals.” As many military historians come from a professional military background, there has been a tendency to look down on such military commanders; the “political general” is almost universally regarded as either incompetent, venal or vainglorious—or a combination of all three. Some political generals were unfit for high command.  However, a civil war is in essence a political conflict, and men who are politically committed to their cause can often of great service on its behalf. Such were these two men. Conversely, a commander who possesses technical competence, yet has little appetite for the cause he serves can not only be of limited value, but may at times even harm the cause they ostensibly serve.

William Wallace, named after the famous Scottish national hero, was born in Ohio but grew to manhood in Ogle County, Illinois. Young William attended the Rock River Seminary, a school of higher learning for young men, whose alumni also included John A. Rawlins, who would later rise to become General Grant’s Chief of Staff. After graduating from there in 1844, William resolved to pursue a career in the law and was fully intending to apprentice with the firm of Logan and Lincoln. On the way, however, he met the acquaintance of Judge T. Lyle Dickey—and his daughter Ann—and decided to clerk with that esteemed Illinois jurist. Earning his admission to the Illinois Bar, Wallace  became friends with Abraham Lincoln and rubbed shoulders with many prominent lawyers and politicians of the day, many of them of like mind as Lincoln. Wallace and his wife attended the Lincoln-Douglas debate in 1858 that was held in Ottawa, Illinois.  There is little question that William Wallace was a Lincoln man through and through.

When the Mexican War broke out, William Wallace volunteered and served as a lieutenant in the 1st Illinois Volunteer Infantry, seeing active combat in Mexico, particularly at the Battle of Buena Vista. Having witnessed the battle first hand, his comments regarding the role of volunteers versus regular troops are instructive as to his views of their respective abilities. Wallace was particularly irked at efforts by the regular army commanders to take credit for the victory–a victory which he felt was due to the volunteer troops in the army. Wallace wrote, “the bull-dog courage (and) perseverance of the volunteers saved the day.”

As a friend and associate of Lincoln, William Wallace tirelessly worked for the latter’s election and when secession came, William Wallace was quick to volunteer his services, becoming Colonel of the 11th Illinois Volunteer Infantry. Although most of 1861 was uneventful for Wallace, late in the year he saw action in the field, joining General Grant’s expedition against Forts Donelson and Henry and earning a promotion to brevet brigadier general.

When Fort Henry on the Tennessee River felt easily to the Federal flotilla under Commodore Foote, General Grant resolved to march across the thin strip of land that separated it from Fort Donelson, which guarded the Cumberland River, and attack that fortress from landward. Wallace’s brigade was part of General McClernand’s division, assigned to the right flank of the besieging Federal force.

In truth, General Grant’s force was smaller than the Confederate army he was besieging inside Fort Donelson, although the Rebel commanders did not know it. On February 15, however, the Confederates resolved to break the siege and escape southward towards Nashville, where they hoped to regroup and renew the fight. The brunt of the Rebel attack therefore fell on Grant’s right, where McClernand’s troops were blocking the roads southward to Nashville.

Although attacked with overwhelming force, William Wallace’s regiments resisted valiantly, until at last, their ammunition exhausted, they were forced to retreat. Other brigades of McClernand’s division broke under the pressure of the assaults and fled in panic, but Wallace managed to keep his men together and fell back in good order. Still, the situation was critical, as the Rebels were on the verge of making good their escape; if they realized how weak Grant’s force truly was, they may even turn and overwhelm his vulnerable force.

As fate would have it, however, as William Wallace led his battered brigade back, another Union force, fresh to the battle, was advancing to fill the gap. This was a hastily assembled division, made up in large part of troops transferred from General Buell’s Army of the Ohio and under the command of General Lewis Wallace. Leading the troops relieving William Wallace was General Lew Wallace.

The two Generals Wallace exchanged brief courtesies, with General Lew directing William to his ammunition wagons to resupply, even as Lew Wallace’s troops advanced in battle formation to counter-attack. The Rebel breakthrough was blunted and then forced back by Lew Wallace’s men; General Grant’s victory at Fort Donelson was thus assured. Thanks largely to the two Wallace’s, Grant earned his laurels as the victor of Forts Donelson and Henry.

—–To Be Continued—–

For more about General William Wallace and his wife Ann Wallace, see Strange Tales of the Dark and Bloody Ground. For more on General Buell and the Army of the Ohio, see Ambrose Bierce and the Period of Honorable Strife.

Ambrose Bierce served first with the Army of the Ohio and later the Army of the Cumberland in the Western Theater during the Civil War, where he saw combat in some of the bloodiest battles of the war. For more, see, Ambrose Bierce and the Period of Honorable Strife