Shiloh, 1862 by Winston Groom Read Free Book Online

at Corinth and points east. I have scarcely the faintest idea of an attack (general one) being made upon us, but will be prepared should such a thing take place.” As he wrote those lines, the advance regiments of a 40,000-man Rebel army were not a mile away from the Union encampment at Pittsburg Landing.
    All that Saturday, April 5, there was a growing “uneasiness” among the officers and men in the southernmost camps—the men of Sherman’s and Prentiss’s divisions—for it was they who had either seen for themselves or heard animated reports and rumors that the Rebels were in great strength in the woods to their front.They were accustomed to seeing Confederate cavalry watching them at discreet distances from the fringes of the forest, but lately the news was more menacing.
    That afternoon Prentiss, a dour-faced Virginia-born, Missouribred ropemaker, failed Republican politician, Mexican War veteran, and direct
Mayflower
descendant with dazzling blue eyes and an Amish-style beard, held a review of his division in Spain Field, during which Maj. James. E. Powell, an experienced soldier of the 25th Missouri, spotted a large body of enemy cavalry hovering on the edges of the woods, taking in the proceedings. He notified Prentiss, who decided to investigate with a reconnaissance at 4 p.m. of five companies, commanded by Col. David Moore. This patrol marched about a mile to the southwest where, in Seay Field, they came upon several black slaves who said they had seen about 200 Confederate cavalry a while earlier. By then it was nearly twilight and the men “could hear the enemy moving in every direction,” according to one of the soldiers; that was enough for Moore, and he withdrew the patrol and reported seeing no Rebels.
    After dark, Capt. Gilbert D. Johnson, a company commander in the 12th Michigan who had been sent to reinforce the regiment’s picket lines, reported there was definitely suspicious movement in the woods to his front. He took his story to General Prentiss, who, like Sherman before him, replied, in effect, that there was nothing to worry about.
    No one in high command, it seemed, wanted to upset the applecart and suggest that the Union encampment was in danger, but that did not satisfy Captain Johnson, who, along with thehabitually suspicious Major Powell, went to see General Prentiss’s First Brigade commander, Col. Everett Peabody, a six-foot-one, 240-pound bear of a man, with a disposition to match. Peabody was a Massachusetts-born, Harvard-educated engineer who had moved to St. Joseph 11 years earlier and became one of the most prominent rail builders in the West. With his wary New England upbringing and engineer’s practicality Peabody was just skeptical enough to risk the wrath of his superiors. After hearing out Johnson and Powell, Peabody ordered them to muster five companies—some 400 men—from Powell’s 25th Missouri and Johnson’s 12th Michigan and find out just what in hell was going on in the misty dews and damps beyond their encampment.
    It was well past the midnight hour on Sunday, April 6, when Major Powell’s patrol filed out toward the forbidding line of trees to the south. He marched them again toward Seay Field, where earlier they had encountered the slaves. Cautiously feeling their way in the darkness, with the sickle moon just a pale sliver hanging low in the western sky, they reached another clearing.
    Suddenly shots rang out, then the sound of horses’ hooves: Rebel cavalry. Powell ordered the patrol to form a skirmish line and pressed forward. If he had known what he was headed for, he would have been horrified—as any sane man would—for he was marching nearly straight into the 10,000-man corps of the Rebel general William J. Hardee, who in the Old Army had written the standard West Point textbook
Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics
and was now waiting patiently for daylight to launch his attack.
    Joseph Ruff was a 20-year-old German immigrant who had hiredhimself out to