A General Who Will Fight: The Leadership of Ulysses S. Grant

3. Shiloh

3 Shiloh Lick ’em tomorrow. —Ulysses S. Grant Just days before his ill-advised relief of General Grant on March 4, 1862, Henry Halleck had outlined strategic objectives for the coming campaign, including the destruction of a railroad bridge near Eastport, Mississippi, followed by strikes against the rail centers of Corinth and Jackson. Now back in command and happy to have rejoined his army, Grant was intent on going “with the expedition to Corinth in person,” but chastened after his run-in with Halleck he vowed to “take no risk . . . under the instructions I now have.” While he planned to exercise greater caution with his superiors, his commitment to keeping pressure on the Confederates remained firm. Gen. Charles F. Smith had taken the army to Pittsburg Landing, about twenty miles northeast of Corinth on the Tennessee River, where Iowa and Indiana farm boys drilled in preparation for the anticipated move against the Rebels. Confirmed now in his thinking that relentless pursuit of the enemy, never giving them an opportunity to regroup or seize the initiative, was the best way to gain the most at the least cost, Grant notified Smith that he intended to attack Corinth sooner rather than later. “I am clearly of the opinion,” he told his former West Point commandant, “that the enemy are gathering strength at Corinth quite as rapidly as we are here, and the sooner we attack, the easier will be the task of taking the place.”1 The Confederates, under Albert Sidney Johnston, were indeed gathering at Corinth, but the Federals had reinforcements on the 42 a GeneraL WHo WiLL FiGHt march as well. Halleck had ordered Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio to advance southwest from Nashville, link up with Grant, and with the combined armies strike a deathblow at Corinth. As March gave way to April, Grant’s Yankees at Pittsburg Landing continued to train while awaiting Buell’s arrival. Word among the locals hinted that the Confederates might be coiling for a preemptive attack of their own from the west, and, although Grant put his division commanders on alert, he remained confident that he held the initiative and that two months of retreat had sapped the southerners’ offensive spirit. “I have scarsely [sic] the faintest idea of an attack, (general one,) being made upon us but will be prepared should such a thing take place,” he telegraphed Halleck on April 5. The following morning, Johnston’s men, who were supposedly too defeated and demoralized to contemplate anything but a half-hearted defense of Corinth, came roaring out of the dawn mist in Fraley’s field just south of Shiloh Church. They caught the bluecoats by surprise and drove them north, interrupting Grant’s morning coffee nine miles away in Savannah.2 After what must have seemed an interminable ride to Pittsburg Landing on the Tigress, Grant made his way up to the battlefield on horseback. Riding amid the chaos as he sought out his division commanders , he showed no “evidence of excitement or trepidation” even when a spent bullet struck and bent his scabbard. He sent word to Buell’s men, who were near Savannah, to press forward with all possible speed: “The appearance of fresh troops on the field now would have a powerful effect both by inspiring our men and disheartining [sic] the enemy.” After directing Benjamin Prentiss to hold the center of the line “at all hazards,” he returned to the landing, where he supervised frantic efforts to cobble together a defensive line of sufficient strength to hold against the last exhausted wave of Confederates. As dusk cooled the fighting into desultory musket fire, Grant sat stoically on his horse, watching the southern tide recede. A beleaguered Federal soldier overheard the general mutter, “Not beaten yet by a damn sight.” When pressed by a newspaper reporter to comment on the desperate situation, Grant replied, “They can’t break our lines Shiloh 43 tonight—it is too late. Tomorrow we shall attack them with fresh troops and drive them, of course.”3 Few shared his optimism. Col. James B. McPherson, a promising officer destined to command the Seventeenth Corps at Vicksburg and later the Army of the Tennessee, raised the issue of withdrawal: “General Grant, under this condition of affairs, what do you propose to do, sir? Shall I make preparations for retreat?” Again Grant Cham b e r ' s C r e e...