A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [144]
Map.8 Shiloh or Pittsburg Landing, April 6–7, 1862
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Johnston had chosen to attack Grant at Pittsburg Landing because he knew that an additional 25,000 reinforcements under General Don Carlos Buell were coming from Nashville. Once the two armies combined, Grant’s numerical superiority would be overwhelming, and Johnston had no doubt that capturing the strategic railroad junctions at Corinth, which was only twenty-two miles from Pittsburg Landing, would be their next object. Johnston’s own army was 44,000 strong, but he hoped that General Van Dorn and the survivors of Pea Ridge would arrive in time to give him additional support.
The plan, drawn up by Beauregard, was modeled on Napoleon’s strategy during the Waterloo campaign, where he had divided his forces to pick off the allies one by one. Historic plans rarely translate well, and those of the defeated even less so; yet the first day of the battle, April 6, began promisingly for the Confederates. Grant was taken by surprise. Sherman’s troops were sitting by their tents eating their breakfast in the warm morning sun when the rebels came yelling and whooping out of the woods. “Stand by, Gentlemen,” Stanley’s captain had ordered while they gathered in formation. The boy standing next to Stanley stopped down to pick a small posy of violets. “They are a sign of peace,” he told Stanley. “Perhaps they won’t shoot me if they see me wearing such flowers.” Impulsively, Stanley also stuck a sprig in his cap. Once they charged, “We had no individuality at this moment.… My nerves tingled, my pulses beat double quick, my heart throbbed loudly, and almost painfully,” Stanley recalled. The rebel yell jerked him out of his fear. “The wave after wave of human voices, louder than all other battle-sounds together, penetrated to every sense.” He remembered he was not alone but surrounded by four hundred other companies. “I rejoiced in the shouting like the rest.”2
The Union soldiers had fled Shiloh by the time Stanley’s regiment arrived. The Confederates were stopped in their tracks by the sight of such abundance. Here was a neat little village of tents, many with a smoking stove in front, and all surrounded by mounds of new equipment. Everything was superior to their own camp, even the bedding. The sudden resumption of cannon fire recalled them to their senses, and the soldiers moved off. A short while later—whether it was five minutes or five hours Stanley did not know—he heard a piteous cry behind him. “Oh stop, please stop a bit.” He glanced back. It was the boy with the violets. He was standing awkwardly on one leg, staring at the remains of his foot.3 Henry Stanley continued to run until something hit his belt buckle with such force that he flipped over and landed on the ground headfirst. When he came to, his regiment had disappeared and all was silent.
As he stumbled through the forest, he almost fell again, tripping over a body lying faceup. The eyes of the dead soldier seemed to stare back at him. With a shock, Stanley recognized him as the “stout English Sergeant of a neighbouring company.… This plump, ruddy-faced man had been conspicuous for his complexion, jovial features and good humour.” The more he ran, the more bodies he encountered. The dead, he recalled, “lay thick as the sleepers in a London park on a Bank Holiday.” The rest of the day became a series of wordless images. By the time he found his company again only fifty men remained.
Johnston and Beauregard’s Waterloo strategy fell apart in an area known as the Hornet’s Nest, where a sunken road acted like a defensive trench for the Federal troops, enabling them to hold steady for six hours against dozens of Confederate assaults. General