Seymour D. Thompson

“ Within an hour's march of us the enemy was taking his positions for battle. What a whirlwind was preparing for the morrow!
We have reached a day when history pauses and hesitates. It began in astonishment and cloud and mystery. It developed into a tempest. It ended in disaster and wreck. Officers and men alike it blinded. It is doubtful whether the commanding general, once on the field, succeeded in comprehending it. The soldier that fights in a battle neither sees, hears nor understands it. ”

“ Before night, we found ourselves in a mighty transport fleet, numbering from eighty to ninety vessels, loaded to the water's edge with infantry, cavalry and artillery, and crowding up the river at full steam. Sometimes several boats would ride abreast and try their speed in the strong current, while the applause of thousands of voices would rend the woods. We will live long without seeing such a sight again. A grand army, equipped in splendor and exulting in success, moving far into the enemy's country with the speed of steam. A grand army of sixty thousand men, moving upon the waters. ”

“ They had come to assist strangers against a common enemy. Their homes and possessions appealed to them. Their dear helpless ones stretched their arms imploringly, and seemed to say to them, "We trust in you; save us: be men." They had come to fight without pay, and if necessary, to board themselves. They reported to Colonel Scott, and obeyed his orders without murmuring or hesitation. The strong motives which impelled them to take up arms, and the knowledge that discipline is the strength of an army, made them willing, if not skillful soldiers. ”

“ It was a glorious, an all-cheering sight, battalion after battalion moving on in splendid order, stemming the tide of these broken masses; not a man straggling; regiments seeming to be animated by one soul. These were the troops of the Fourth Division, and this was the splendid manner in which their general led them against the enemy.
While in this position, where the First Brigade formed its first line at half past eight in the morning, the enemy advanced his batteries and began to shell us vigorously. Before us was a gentle ridge covered with dense woods and brush. The enemy fired at random. ”

“ The drums woke us at four o'clock, and though our short sleep had illy sufficed to refresh us, the admonitions of our officers, that we were soon to march, forbade any further attempt at repose. At daylight, the 3d Iowa leading the Division, we marched through the principal street of the city, with our files neatly dressed, to the sound of martial music. Vain parade! There were no citizens to witness it—none to admire it. If we had a terror for our enemy, we had inspired it in the confusion of battle, not by keeping step on review to sounds of fife and drum. ”

“ But he did not have to look twice at that city of white tents in the solemn forest to be impressed with the grandeur of the sight. As far as the eye could reach the hills were covered with them. By day the roads were choked with baggage wagons coming and going; the woods teemed with armed men; the air was full of martial sounds. The noise of artillery firing on drill with blank cartridges, joined to that of soldiers discharging their pieces in the woods, at times almost counterfeited a battle. ”

“ And now their field officers waved their hats. A shout arose, and that column, splendidly aligned, took the double quick and moved on magnificently. We could not repress exclamations of admiration. There is a grandeur in heroism, even when connected with a bad cause. We could not hate those men. Were they committing a crime? They had been educated to love what we hated. They could not advance so splendidly upon death itself, and imagine it was for aught but a noble cause. ”

“ Brave men! with what a tread they march forward to slaughter and defeat! But they are enemies, and it must be so."
I can imagine, too, the feelings of Colonel Scott, as he rode at the head of these devoted men. I believe he recognized in the coming hour not only duty but glory. There are moments in men's lives when a vigorous blow seems to revolutionize their destiny. The man who watches for these moments, who hails them in the distance, who recognizes them when they arrive, and who then strikes, may almost be said to be master of his fortune. ”

“ And when at last our victorious flag shall float over the national domain, reconquered and united, and the weary soldier shall forget his toils in the endearments of home, around your firesides and among your children and neighbors, you shall recite as a part of your glorious history, how you swept the rebel hosts, with every advantage of position, across the Hatchie, and around the opposing hill, with a wall of fire and steel that repelled the chosen troops of Van Dorn and Price. ”

“ But they are not dead—we can not call them dead; for they live, and will live in affectionate remembrance as long as lives a member of the 3d Iowa. And of those who suffer from wounds received or diseases contracted while serving with us, let no one say that he has found one who, for relief from those sufferings, would be willing to give up the grand memories of the past, and the consciousness of honor merited—though it be not recorded—by hazard, hardship and gallant service in a glorious cause. ”

“ Thus, until the final surrender, with frequent artillery duels and sharp engagements of the infantry; laboring and watching night and day; exposed constantly to an alternation of burning sun and chilling dew; amid a succession of scenes the most unreal; where romance itself palled on the sense and became monotonous; amid hardships which, under ordinary circumstances, few would have endured, they forced their steady progress toward the enemy. ”

“ To our right and rear as far as the eye could reach, through the woods and over the fields—at least a mile, our line of battle in full retreat,—infantry, artillery, wagons, ambulances, all rushing to the rear—a scene of confusion and dismay—an army degenerating into a rout. In front of us, partly obscured in smoke, the enemy's assailing infantry, while to our left and rear his multitudes were pouring through the camp of the 41st Illinois, and hurrying to cut off our retreat. ”

“ Our divisions were the first to disembark at Pittsburg Landing, in the early part of March, and through storm and sunshine, adverse and prosperous times, we have been side by side. Not only have social ties arisen between us, but the habit of acting together has made us one command; and I feel in parting with you as though my own division was divided. ”

“ Our remaining guns were well nigh disabled, and much of our infantry was hors de combat. And yet we saw that our only resource was our own strength and courage. Everything seemed now at stake and depending upon us,—life, honor, the salvation of the army and perhaps the success of our cause. We looked the crisis in the face, and every soldier seemed to resolve to meet it like a man. Most of the 1st Brigade had been moved to the left to support the expected point of attack. General Hurlbut was there to command the men in person, and to inspire them by his brave example as he had already done. ”

“ West Point clique at Leavenworth refused him supplies, the enemy had to furnish them. He would make the war support itself. The traitors who were responsible for the contest must pay for it. Every thing must be done which would paralyze the enemy and strengthen the government. Whatever opposed the restoration of our Union must fall, and those who did not like it must stand from under. True to his friends, his country and Liberty; hating bitterly and scourging without remorse, his friends', his country's and Liberty's foes; such was Jim Lane. ”

“ The army of the Tennessee, from its highest officers to its meanest soldiers, felt the slight most keenly, and resolved to equal at Corinth, with their decimated battalions, all that Buell could do with his full ones. The army of the Tennessee, having suffered reverses and finally triumphed in two great battles, had learned well the character of its foes, and that nothing could be achieved over them except by steady and persistent bravery. They knew their enemy, and how to fight him. They had already become veterans. The same may be said to a certain extent of the army of the Ohio. ”

“ The sanitary condition of the army was anything but flattering. Of our own regiment which, so far as we could hear, was a type of all the rest, very few were even in tolerable health. Fevers and camp diarrhœa filled the hospitals to overflowing; the sick lists increased rapidly; and the great extent to which the army was weakened in numbers by sickness, became a just source of alarm. It became painfully evident, too, that its morale was being greatly impaired by the same cause. For disease weakens the mind as well as the body; lingering, obtuse pains bring on a state of settled melancholy ”

“ We had lost a decisive victory by tardiness and excess of caution. If Pope had only been in command, or if Halleck had allowed him to press on as rapidly as he desired, how different, said we, would have been the result! And why had we not pressed the retreat of the enemy, while his soldiers were discouraged by being forced from so strong a position? Had we no generals capable of following up a victory? These feelings were subsequently in a measure relieved by the reports that Buell and Pope were pressing the main column of the enemy with splendid results. ”

“ The evening before the battle, I observed a captain talking with one of his men as they viewed from an eminence near the Landing the camps of the army. Their observations on the danger of our situation were very similar to those I have just made. Their words were almost prophetic. For in twenty-four hours that army whose camps they saw extending so widely and so beautifully, was rolled back a broken mass upon the bluff, half of its artillery and most of its material in the hands of the enemy, and with two hours more of such disaster, would have been utterly destroyed or captured. ”

“ Hurlbut, Lauman and Veatch, three generals, under whom we had served through Shiloh, Corinth and Matamora, were there, and [378] there also, under the tattered banners they had borne through those storms, were the troops they had commanded so bravely and so well; generals and men between whom existed the strongest ties that can bind men together, recollections of mutual peril and the possession of a common glory. Here we again met the generals who had been so proud to command us, and whom we had been so happy and proud to follow. ”

“ A soldier admires open enemies if they are brave. There is nothing that he despises as he despises such enemies as these. "Hang them if they act as spies or bridge-burners. Subsist our armies upon them. Confiscate their property and put it to the use of war. A war waged against such traitors ought to support itself. Give us such a leader as Jim Lane. Nothing short of his policy would do. We never would end the war until we showed traitors that we considered treason a crime." ”

“ It is with heartfelt gratitude that the General commanding congratulates the armies of the West for another great victory won by them on the 3d, 4th, and 5th instant over the combined forces of Van Dorn and Lovell.
The enemy chose his own time and place of making the attack, and knowing the troops of the West as he does, never would have made the attack, except with a superior force, numerically. But for the undaunted bravery of officers and soldiers, who have yet to learn defeat, the efforts of the enemy would have been successful. ”