Shiloh Read Online Free PDF Page B

from Savannah.
    It had been a nightmare operation, floundering in the
bottoms. Probably we had done no earthly good. We were wet and tired and hungry
and cold. Some of us had been somewhat frightened, to tell the truth. But
curiously enough, when we were back aboard the transports where they passed out
hot coffee and blankets, everyone felt fine about the whole business. For one
thing, we had been into the enemy country— a division on its own, looking for
trouble: that gave us a feeling of being veterans—and for another, we had seen
our commander leading us.
    Sherman was not the same man at all. He was not so nervous.
His shoulders didn’t twitch the way they’d done in camp. He was calm and ready,
confident, and when he saw the thing wasn’t possible he did not fret or fume
and he didn’t hesitate to give it up. Whatever else he might be, he certainly
was not crazy. We knew that now, and we were willing to follow wherever he said
go.
    There is
a thing I hope you will do for me, Martha — Bake me one of those three decker
cakes like the one you brought out to Camp that day while we were training near
home. All I got that time was a single slice. Every officer in the regiment cut
himself a hunk & of course Col. Appier got the biggest but they all said
how good it was. They shall not get a sniff of this one though. Wrap it careful
so it won’t get squashed & mark it Fragile but do not write on the box it
is food because there is no sense in tempting those lazy mail clerks any more
than necessary — they are already plump on the soldiers in the field. I can
taste it right now it will be so good, so please do not delay.
    In peacetime Pittsburg was the Tennessee River landing where
steamboats unloaded their cargoes for Corinth, twenty-odd miles to the
southwest. There was a high bluff at the river bank—it rose abruptly, its red
clay streaked at the base with year-round flood-stage marks. Beyond the bluff,
a hundred feet above the water level, there was a rough plateau cut with
ravines and gullies. The creeks were swollen now. Oaks and sycamores and all
the other trees common to this region were so thickly clustered here that even
at midday, by skirting the open fields and small farms scattered there, you
could walk from the Landing three miles inland without stepping into sunlight.
If you carried an ax, that is. For the ground beneath the limbs and between the
tree trunks was thickly overgrown with briers and creepers and a man leaving
the old paths would have to hack through most of the way. We spent a rough week
clearing our camp sites, but after that was done it was not so bad.
    The Landing itself was between the mouths of two creeks that
emptied into the Tennessee about five miles apart. Looking southwest, with your
back to the river, Snake Creek was on your right and Lick Creek on your left. A
little more than a mile from the mouth of Snake Creek, another stream (called
Owl Creek) branched off obliquely toward the left, so that the farther you went
from the Landing the narrower the space between the creeks became. Roughly, the
plateau was a parallelogram, varying from five to three miles on a side, cross-hatched
with a network of wagon trails running inland from
the Landing and footpaths connecting the forty- and fifty-acre farms. It was
confusing. When we first arrived, messengers went badly astray going from one
camp to another. Guards would roam from their posts without knowing it. All
that first week you saw men asking the way to their outfits; they’d gone to the
bushes and got turned around and couldn’t find their way back. I got lost
myself every time I stopped without taking proper bearings. It was
embarrassing.
    But after we had been there a few days we became used to it
and realized what a good, strong position Sherman had chosen. He had an eye for
terrain. Those creeks, swollen now past fording, gave us complete protection on
the flanks in case the Rebels obliged us by coming up to fight on our