A Blaze of Glory Read online

  A Blaze of Glory is a work of historical fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to living persons, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 by Jeffrey M. Shaara

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint

  of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  BALLANTINE and colophon are registered

  trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Shaara, Jeff.

  A blaze of glory: a novel of the Battle of Shiloh / Jeff Shaara.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-345-52737-0

  1. Shiloh, Battle of, Tenn., 1862—Fiction. 2. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3569.H18B57 2012

  813′.54—dc23 2012010107

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  Jacket design: Dreu Pennington-McNeil

  Jacket art: © Robert Hunt

  v3.1_r1

  The horrible sights that I have witnessed on this field I can never describe. No blaze of glory, that flashes around the magnificent triumphs of war, can ever atone for the unwritten and unutterable horrors of the scene of carnage.

  —BRIGADIER GENERAL JAMES A. GARFIELD,

  U.S. ARMY OF THE OHIO

  (twentieth president of the United States)

  TO THE READER

  This is the first of a trilogy that explores the mostly overlooked stories of the Civil War that take place west of the Appalachian Mountains, what is usually referred to as the war in the “West.” This trilogy will focus on three pivotal events: the Battle of Shiloh, the Siege of Vicksburg, and the final chapter of the war in Georgia and the Carolinas.

  If you have read any of my books, you know that these stories are driven not by events, but by characters. For me, the points of view of the characters in this story are more appealing than the blow-by-blow facts and figures that are the necessary products of history textbooks. For that reason, I try to find those specific characters who pull me into the story, whose actions affect the history of the event, and whose own points of view will, I hope, bring that story to you in a way you find more intriguing and more personal than what you might have read in high school.

  The primary voices in this book include historical figures unique to this story, and others who will remain significant throughout this entire trilogy. Some are well known: William T. Sherman, Albert Sidney Johnston, Nathan Bedford Forrest, Ulysses Grant, among a cast that will eventually include most of the major participants in the war that engulfs the South, from the Mississippi River to the Carolinas. Other characters you will not know at all. In the Civil War trilogy begun by my father with The Killer Angels, and through my own bookends to his classic work, Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure, the voices came from the top: the generals. As my own work spread out to include World Wars I and II, I realized that generals do not always tell the best story, and certainly not the whole story. For that reason, this series will also focus on the points of view of those men we would now call “grunts.” The search for voices can be challenging (and fun) and my choice of characters will be both obvious and questionable. I receive an enormous amount of email asking why some particular person is overlooked, or ignored altogether. I certainly mean no disrespect to anyone who played a pivotal role in any of these extraordinary chapters of our history. But my goal is not to offer a complete detailed history of the event. If that’s what you seek, then by all means, read Shelby Foote or Jim McPherson.

  This book has to be described as a novel because there is dialogue, and you are often inside the thoughts of these characters. But I recognize (and accept) the risk that you might not agree with my interpretations. That’s as it should be. My research is painstaking (and voluminous), and I rely exclusively on original sources, in other words, the accounts of the people who were there. I make a strenuous effort to be historically accurate, to get the facts straight. I hope that when all is said and done, you will accept that what I am trying to offer you is a good story. Whether or not you are familiar with this history, I hope you will come to appreciate the diverse cast, whose points of view will carry you through one of the most important, dramatic, and horrific chapters of the Civil War: the Battle of Shiloh.

  JEFF SHAARA

  APRIL 2012

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  TO THE READER

  LIST OF MAPS

  SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  PART ONE: MANEUVER

  Chapter One: Seeley

  Chapter Two: Johnston

  Chapter Three: Seeley

  Chapter Four: Johnston

  Chapter Five: Sherman

  Chapter Six: Bauer

  Chapter Seven: Sherman

  PART TWO: IMPATIENCE

  Chapter Eight: Bauer

  Chapter Nine: Johnston

  Chapter Ten: Johnston

  Chapter Eleven: Johnston

  Chapter Twelve: Sherman

  Chapter Thirteen: Seeley

  Chapter Fourteen: Johnston

  Chapter Fifteen: Sherman

  Chapter Sixteen: Bauer

  PART THREE: FURY

  Chapter Seventeen: Johnston

  Chapter Eighteen: Sherman

  Chapter Nineteen: Bauer

  Chapter Twenty: Sherman

  Chapter Twenty-one: Grant

  Chapter Twenty-two: Johnston

  Chapter Twenty-three: Johnston

  Chapter Twenty-four: Bauer

  Chapter Twenty-five: Johnston

  Chapter Twenty-six: Harris

  Chapter Twenty-seven: Prentiss

  Chapter Twenty-eight: Bauer

  Chapter Twenty-nine: Harris

  Chapter Thirty: Grant

  Chapter Thirty-one: Seeley

  Chapter Thirty-two: Sherman

  Chapter Thirty-three: Bauer

  PART FOUR: DESPAIR

  Chapter Thirty-four: Harris

  Chapter Thirty-five: Sherman

  Chapter Thirty-six: Seeley

  Chapter Thirty-seven: Bauer

  AFTERWORD

  Dedication

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  LIST OF MAPS

  Confederate Defensive Line, January 1861

  Johnston Abandons Kentucky; the Confederate Army Withdraws Southward to Corinth

  Corinth—Shiloh and Vicinity

  Confederate Advance out of Corinth

  Colonel Jordan’s “New Plan” of Attack

  The Confederate Attack, as Lines Spread Out

  Assault on the “Hornet’s Nest” and the Peach Orchard

  Johnston Presses His Right Flank

  Prentiss Collapses

  Grant’s Last Line of Defense

  Grant and Buell Counterattack

  SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  For the considerable assistance I have received in the telling of this story, I must offer my deepest gratitude for those who provided me with original source material, and those who offered their valuable time and resources. This list is not altogether complete, and so, for the following, and for those not mentioned: Thank you to you all!

  Stacy Allen, chief ranger, National Park Service, Shiloh National Military Park

  Sheila Amdur, West Hartford, Connecticut

  Alan Doyle, Memphis, Tennessee

  Roy Durrenber
g, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

  Patrick Falci, Rosedale, New York

  Colonel Keith Gibson, Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia

  Woody Harrell, superintendent, National Park Service, Shiloh National Military Park

  Lee Millar, Collierville, Tennessee

  Morris Miller, Tallahassee, Florida

  Keith Shaver, Murfreesboro, Tennessee

  Don Todd, Shiloh National Military Park

  The staff of the National Park Service, Shiloh National Military Park

  INTRODUCTION

  In April 1861, the American Civil War erupts with the firing of artillery by rebellious officials from the city of Charleston, South Carolina, toward the Federal military installation called Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor. For decades, the disagreements and animosity between Northern and Southern states has been escalating, but when the cannons fire, those disagreements are replaced by mortal combat.

  The first significant bloodshed occurs closest to the boundary lines separating North and South. In the East, Virginia sides with the South, while Pennsylvania goes North. Between them, Maryland remains steadfastly neutral. West of the Appalachians, the same situation becomes much more hotly contested. Between the Southern state of Tennessee and those states north of the Ohio River lies the large state of Kentucky. Much more so than Maryland, the political forces within Kentucky are angrily divided. The state legislature splits, and two separate state governments are formed, led by two governors. That competition divides the entire state, including the military. Regiments are formed that choose to fight for the North, while others go South.

  As the two sides grasp the enormity of what this war might involve, the territories west of the mountains face logistical difficulties that do not apply in the East. One is the control of the enormously important Mississippi River. Small-scale battles break out in those areas crucial to both sides, key junctions and small shipping centers, increasing tensions in supposedly neutral Kentucky. Throughout 1861, the events in the East, including the first major confrontation in Virginia, the Battle of Bull Run, are of little strategic significance to the armies struggling for control of the Mississippi River. North of the Kentucky–Tennessee border, the two armies maneuver and feel their way toward each other, uncertain generals and untested troops moving toward a conflict the magnitude of which none can truly predict. In the North, there are immediate concerns for protection of the river cities, including Cairo, Illinois, and Louisville, Kentucky. But the newly formed Southern army, under the command of Albert Sidney Johnston, pushes northward, very much aware that establishing positions in such towns as Columbus, Bowling Green, and Mill Spring, Kentucky, will provide a protective shield for the Southern states under his command, and will most certainly force a response from his Federal counterparts. Though Johnston’s army continues to grow, fed by regiments from the states to the south, in Kentucky, there is as much outrage at the presence of the invading Southern troops as there is as support for the Southern cause.

  The Federal army is slow to mobilize, but they do not suffer the difficulties the Southerners face in equipping and supplying a fledgling army. The result is a somewhat clumsy standoff, as each side seeks to organize and train for the conflict that must certainly come. Adding to Johnston’s woes, what has happened in western Virginia also occurs in eastern Tennessee. There sizable numbers of the population place their sympathies with the Union. There is little hope that the Southern cause will receive any support from the mountain regions, thus eliminating any convenient link with the Confederate forces east of the mountains. The Civil War becomes a war of separate theaters, divided by both rivers and mountains, linked together only by railroads. It is one more reason the Southern army cannot hope to hold off a strong Federal force that is organizing to drive them out of Kentucky.

  Close to the Tennessee–Kentucky border, the Southern forces create an anchor that they hope will prevent the far superior Federal navy from driving straight into the heart of the western Confederacy, which could split Johnston’s Kentucky defenses in two. Two forts are constructed at the mouth of each of the two major rivers that flow northward out of Tennessee, the Tennessee and the Cumberland. It is a geographical coincidence that at a point just south of the Kentucky line the two rivers curve toward each other, the gap between them no more than twenty miles. To Southern engineers, it is a logical place to build the forts, since either one can support the other, with either supplies or men.

  The two forts are named Henry and Donelson, and great care is taken to design them primarily to defend against Federal gunboats. But Fort Henry, on the Tennessee River, and not yet completed, is constructed on low ground, prone to flooding, and offers no real barrier to an assault. On February 6, 1862, the fort is attacked. Federal general Ulysses Grant, with a force of fifteen thousand men, aided by a flotilla of gunboats commanded by Flag Officer Andrew Foote, confronts a Confederate defense that consists of seventeen guns, all of which are inferior to the heavy cannon on Foote’s ironclad boats. After a brutally effective bombardment, the Confederate commander, Lloyd Tilghman, recognizes the futility of trying to hold the fort. Tilghman removes most of his troops to Fort Donelson, and surrenders Fort Henry and a handful of artillerymen to Grant. But Grant knows that Donelson is the greater prize. The navy gunboats make the short journey back to the mouth of the Tennessee River, steam up the Ohio to the Cumberland, and surge upstream once more. Expecting another easy victory, both Grant and Foote approach Donelson to find that this time the Confederate engineers have the benefit of much higher and much stronger ground. On February 12, 1862, Grant’s infantry and Foote’s gunboats make their assault. But Johnston understands the value of sealing off the Cumberland to Federal troops. The river flows directly out of the key supply depot and rail hub of Nashville, Tennessee, just forty miles to the south. Johnston reinforces the fort significantly. When Foote’s gunboats begin their attack, they are surprised by the superior placement and accuracy of the Confederate artillery, which badly damages most of the fleet and gives Foote a serious wound. Forced to withdraw the boats, Grant’s infantry is left on its own. Then Mother Nature turns against Grant as well, and a blizzard blows across the Federal troops, who have little protection from the elements. But Grant’s superior numbers and the ability to maneuver give him the upper hand. With the fort virtually surrounded, the commanding general, John Floyd, after consulting with his two subordinates, Simon Bolivar Buckner and Gideon Pillow, decides to drive a hard thrust directly through and around Grant’s position. But Floyd vacillates, allowing Grant the time he needs to strengthen his hold. The only sizable number of troops who make good their escape toward Nashville is the cavalry of Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest finds a clear path around the Federal flank and hundreds of his cavalrymen slip away through dense woods and a swampy morass without sighting a single enemy along the route, a route that Forrest knows could have afforded much of Floyd’s army the same avenue of escape. Those few infantry who choose to follow Forrest’s horsemen find the same clear path, making their way through the rugged countryside that eventually takes them to Nashville.

  Though Generals Pillow and Floyd also slip away from the fort, most of their troops are left behind. On February 16, Buckner surrenders the fort to Grant, along with nearly eight thousand Confederate soldiers.

  The fall of Forts Henry and Donelson opens a clear pathway for the Federal army, and at his headquarters in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Johnston knows he has no choice but to withdraw completely out of the state.

  To the south, the city of Nashville receives a grotesquely premature message from Fort Donelson that Grant’s army had been thoroughly defeated, the bluecoats driven back into the Cumberland River. The message sets off a wave of jubilation in the city. But on February 16, the messages change. The truth flows southward along with the retreat of Forrest’s cavalry, and the celebration in Nashville turns to a flood of black despair. The citizens of Nashville realize they have been misled by their generals, who are
nowhere to be seen and who have made their escape by abandoning their own men. Word follows that what began as a glorious fight had been decided not by strength and honor, but by surrender, that thousands of Confederate troops have simply been handed over to the victorious Yankees.

  With Union troops now massing within forty miles of Nashville, the city is thrown into chaos. Already, refugees choke the roads southward, entire families on the move, salvaging anything they can carry, to avoid what nearly everyone believes will be the brutality and savagery of the Yankees. Those few soldiers who escape capture and those who occupy outposts south of Donelson quickly make their way to the great city, some seeking food and ammunition, some running from the ghosts in their own minds. The panic of the soldiers spreads panic to the city, and the army makes efforts to secure the vast mountains of supplies held in the storage depots. The first senior commander who arrives in Nashville is John Floyd, who attempts to take control of the city. But Floyd carries very little weight now since his inglorious surrender of so much of his army at Fort Donelson. Many of the civilians understand what the soldiers already know, that a man who scampers away from his own defeat, saving himself by sacrificing his army, is not a man who inspires respect at all. Floyd wisely leaves Nashville, continuing his journey southward to Murfreesboro, where General Albert Sidney Johnston now awaits, fresh from his own retreat out of Kentucky.

  CONFEDERATE DEFENSIVE LINE, JANUARY 1862

  With the defeats at Forts Henry and Donelson, the broad defensive lines that Johnston had spread across southern Kentucky and into northeastern Tennessee can no longer be maintained. Both rivers that drive deeply into the Confederate center are now in Federal hands. Johnston knows that Nashville, sitting squarely on the Cumberland River, is simply indefensible. The single alternative to withdrawing from the city is to make a stand there, turning the capital of Tennessee into a bloody battlefield. It is not a viable alternative. Johnston’s most urgent priority is to gather what remains of the Confederate troops throughout Tennessee and Kentucky and to position those troops where they can best defend against the inevitable Federal invasion.