They Met at Shiloh (9 page)

“Ready! Aim! Fire!”

The command barely reached his ears before Robert and the others discharged their weapons simultaneously. The bravado they had voiced upon the first such accomplishment was absent, and they scarcely noticed its perfection. Pre-occupied with survival, each man did his best to suppress the urge to turn and run. To run and seek shelter when the body was still whole and healthy was to abandon one’s pards to the enemy.

The moments passed with excruciating slowness, counted only by the rapidity of the loading and firing of weapons. Robert thrust his hand into his cartridge pouch only to discover that the top tins were empty. Now came the awkward attempt to retrieve the wrapped package of ten paper cartridges and caps from his lower tin while balancing his weapon between his legs, a difficult maneuver in the close confines of the formation. Ripping open the package sent the paper cartridges fumbling about in his shaky hands, with a few dropping to the ground out of sight.

“Ten paces, backward march!”

Startled by the command, Robert chanced to look up. The enemy was steadily marching toward them. He felt a tug on his belt that drew him backward, and he quickly grabbed his weapon and tried to hold on to the loose cartridges, tin, and package of caps in his other hand. Hurrying to put the cartridges into the open top tin and empty the caps into his cap pouch, Robert heard something that made his heart freeze. They were deep into the trees once again when he looked up. The brightening skyline from the split rail fence they just vacated suddenly became dark as the enemy stopped extending far to the right and left.

“Fire!”

The fence, the enemy, and the light of the morning were engulfed in smoke and the booming of the volley. Robert didn’t know how close they were. The thickets, and his attempts to replenish his cartridge tin, had occupied his attention until that moment. On the heels of the volley, he heard the sound of minié balls striking trees and bodies. As if the ground had suddenly been pulled out from underneath them, men who had been standing erect the moment before were now tumbling to the ground. Stunned, Robert suddenly found himself in the open and alone. The comfort of pards to the right, left, and rear was absent. At his feet lay the crumpled and writhing bodies of the men. A banshee-like yelling emanated from the enemy at the destruction wrought by their volley.

“To the rear, march, to the rear, march!”

Robert stood motionless and watched his remaining comrades turn and move farther into the woods. A few of the men who had been felled by the volley began to stagger to their feet and move to the rear.

“Hilf mich! Kameraden! Hilf mich!”

In the tangle of arms, legs, and torsos prostrate before him, Robert recognized Huebner and Gustavson. Huebner was struggling to crawl from underneath the body of someone Robert didn’t recognize in the dark, and Gustavson was cradling his arm and watching the others move away. Robert grabbed Huebner’s outstretched hand and yanked him to his feet.

“Grab Gustavson and run!” Robert shouted into Huebner’s ear and then turned to help another soldier to his feet. The enemy was climbing the fence and reforming on the other side.

“Go!” he shouted and tripped over the pile of bodies in his way. The rest of the company was rapidly disappearing from view. The fear of being separated and captured pushed him and his comrades to make haste in their departure. The sounds of musketry ceased, replaced by the sounds of thousands of footfalls heralding the approach of something large and horrible.

Breathless and fatigued, the small party rejoined their company and fell in as the battalion continued the march. The intervening trees between the foes provided a small amount of protection, and the fear of being shot in the back abated. The enormity of what they had witnessed and what it meant for the whole army began to dawn on each one. They had been caught unawares. Had it not been for the early morning foray, the outcome might have been worse. Worry and doubt creased the face of each silently marching man. Even while casting furtive glances to the rear, they maintained a brisk pace.

Dawn finally brightened the eastern horizon and revealed the casualties as familiar faces went missing. The company felt smaller. The reassurance of pards was gone, their places taken by strangers. The wood was no place to fight, and Robert longed to be free of its presence. Reaching their own picket line, the battalion shook itself out, absorbed the picket companies they met, and continued the march back from whence they had come.  

6th Mississippi Line of Battle

North Fraley Field, 5:50 AM April 6, 1862

S
tephen looked about uneasily. The brigade halted beyond the fence line to straighten out the formations, and the wait was insufferable. No one expected to meet any resistance so soon after stepping off. Instead of victory, he saw concern and worry on every face. At any moment, the enemy might burst into view and unleash upon them death from every quarter. The grand army entered the thickets, but his feeling of invincibility dissipated in the blindness. The enemy dead and wounded lay scattered about. In the morning’s first light, he could see the faces of the dead. They held every form of expression. He felt a twinge of guilt and pity, and he had to shake off the shivers. He was a patriot fighting a patriot’s war against the hated despots. Yet, in the presence of death, they were men and not so much his enemies.

The battalion was strung out in a ragged line where they halted after climbing over the rail fence. Officers rode up and down the formations to untangle the companies and regiments and restore order. A few feet ahead lay several blue forms. Stephen studied them curiously. They were normal men in abnormal positions of rest upon the ground. One man, in particular, lay upon his back with his body perpendicular to Stephen. He had fallen and struggled for a time with his wounds. His sack coat and trousers had been opened as if he were searching for something. His accouterments lay splayed about him. Perhaps he had been struggling to relieve himself of them. His chest and stomach were stained crimson, his hands clutching at his clothing as if still in great pain.

A few men in the formation joked and taunted the corpses, but quietly. Stephen could countenance the sight and even the morality of viewing the enemy as more monster than man, but disrespect toward the dead was more than he could fathom.

*****

Thoughts of home displaced images of the dead. In his mind, he wasn’t in a line of battle surrounded by comrades but at the dinner table surrounded by family. A battle of a different sort was being waged between his father and a scruffy, fat boarder. Stephen’s father considered that the dinner table was his place to instruct his children, the art of debate as the principal subject.

“Stephen, Esther, Sarah, Paul, my good wife, Elizabeth, honored guest in our home, let us give thanks to the Lord of Hosts for this provender.”

John Murdoch waited and watched before he bowed his head to ensure compliance from all at the table. Little Paul fidgeted in his chair until a glare from his father ensured his compliance in closing his eyes and folding his hands in prayerful fashion.

“Oh Lord, we thank Thee for Thy wonderful provision and protection over this humble deacon’s family, and we seek Thy wisdom and knowledge so as to live a pleasing life in Thy sight. Oh Lord, we thank Thee for the sacrifice of Thy Son that we might approach Thee with confidence and grace. I pray, oh Lord, for protection over our good guest, Mr. Hastings, as he continues his travels and thank Thee for allowing us the privilege of sharing in our bounty. We ask Thee, oh Lord, to protect the poor and humble patriots who face perdition’s destruction every day in Missouri against the evil and sin-filled abolitionist ruffians, those so called Kansan Jayhawkers who prey upon the innocent and shed blood without mercy. We ask, oh Lord, that Thou bring them to justice that they may receive within themselves the due penalty of their violence.”

A sudden clank of metal against ceramic stalled the prayer. Mr. Murdoch looked up to find the perpetrator. All of the children were statuesque with their eyes cast downward and closed, hands folded. Clearing his throat, Mr. Murdoch continued. “Dear Lord, use this bounty to strengthen our resolve to serve Thee with all of our hearts, souls, minds, and bodies. We ask Thee, in Thy Son’s holy Name. Amen.”

The silence was broken with the sounds of dishes moving and diners eating. Stephen sat closest to Mr. Hastings and the other siblings in order of age down the length of the table. Mr. Hastings held the seat of second honor at the table’s head and opposite Mr. Murdoch. Seats along the other side of the table were empty that night, Mr. Hastings being the only boarder. Stephen, seventeen, was not yet able to participate in the evening conversations, nineteen being the age his father deemed as necessary for such supper activity. The children ate and listened as Mr. Murdoch opened the evening’s “teaching,” as he called it, while the children and boarders were his captive congregation for that hour and a half each night. Stephen’s mother ate silently. Teaching time was the sole domain of “Pappaw” and his captive dinner guests—and of little interest to her.

“What say you, Mr. Hastings,” Mr. Murdoch began, “regarding where we ended last evening’s conversation about your views of the freedom of salvation versus the elect?”

Mr. Hastings cleared his throat, perhaps wondering if he should have sought lodging elsewhere. “I see you are prepared with more of your great store of opinion and knowledge on this particular topic, Mr. Murdoch, judging by the ravenous glint in your eyes over the prospect of trouncing me once more,” replied of Mr. Hastings.

“Oh, come now, Mr. Hastings. You portray me in such a poor light. But I must confess to you that I have indeed been looking forward to the continuance of our debate, as you have so astutely observed. Perchance, do I appear that eager for the challenge?”

“Oh, yes, you do indeed look rather eager, and prepared, I might add, to continue our conversation that I scarce dare to think I would indeed come out on top.”

Stephen ate slowly, listening intently as Mr. Hastings and his father exchanged a few more customary pleasantries. He could tell by the flash of fire in his father’s eyes that he had indeed been preparing for this evening’s contest. He also noted the overly polite and austere language his father used. Being a plain man of simple means and simpler parentage, he spoke now in language more befitting a scholar or orator than a cobbler or a deacon in a small Presbyterian church.

“I believe,” Mr. Hastings finally said, “that you, sir, have the first point to be laid down, considering that I ended last evening’s debate.”

“Oh, you are the honored guest in my home. How could I take such an honor to myself regardless of where we ended on the evening last? You have the honor of beginning.”

“This I could not do, for the rules are very stringent on this point that you should begin with an opening statement of some sort. I would not be able to sleep tonight knowing that I had taken a continuance of the remaining points,” Mr. Hastings replied and smiled affably.

Stephen watched as his father squirmed slightly and a hard look creased the corners of his mouth. Stephen knew that his father was only prepared to rebut Mr. Hastings’s first challenge before launching into his teaching. He must have forgotten who ended last night. Now he was interested in what would happen. His father hated to be bested at anything and would be a bear to deal with the rest of the evening. Despite what the consequences might bring for him and his siblings, Stephen waited impatiently for his father to relent and try to recover his grand strategy. Seated next to him was Paul, who was two years younger than Stephen but old enough to appreciate what was happening. Paul lightly kicked Stephen in the shin and continued to eat as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Stephen grinned slightly in return and stirred the food on his plate, his appetite forgotten.

Mr. Murdoch fumbled about his plate in a veiled attempt to forestall the ruining of his grand strategy. Concern for fair play and owning up to consequences, favorite topics of instruction to his children, did not come into play at times like this. Although he would end the evening’s teaching with as much grace as he could muster, his father would have the last word.

“I’ll grant you that the Holy Writ says for it is by grace that thou hast been redeemed and this not of anything that comes from the self. I do not deny that grace plays a part in our relationship with the Father. But …”

Hastings interrupted him. “Now, Mr. Murdoch, did you not just moments before concede that you were unable to give answer to my point that if grace be not a free offering that we would be compelled to eschew the cross and make a righteousness of our own?”

“Well, yes, I did, but you see…”

“Mr. Murdoch, is this the example you would give to your progeny, that to not humbly admit to one’s own shortfalls merely refutes the same message you have most eloquently but ineffectually offered up this same evening?”

“Yes, I see and concede once again that I have no answer worthy of offering to your last statement and cannot refute it without bringing upon myself more condemnation than I already am deserving of in my words of the last few moments.”

“Come now, Mr. Murdoch, for it is not condemnation that I seek, only acknowledgement that the truth of Scripture is unassailable on this point of grace. I take neither praise nor accolades upon myself on this point, although I gladly accept your concession, as it means some small vindication of my own words. But only as they compare to the truth of the Holy Word.”

Stephen looked from Mr. Hastings to his father and back again, studying their features and trying to divine what was going on behind each countenance. It was one of the few times he saw his father admit to a defeat in debate at his own table. A week later, following retribution and tightened discipline, he hoped to never see it again.

*****

Stephen’s thoughts returned to the present, and he noted the similarity to the corpse in front of him to that of Mr. Hastings. He longed for the comforts of that innocent time with his family. He was now a man facing alone the consequences of his decisions. The death and dismemberment around him was one such consequence of the decision to go to war. Amid the continued joking, William stood in silence, unable to find a distraction from the carnage he saw.