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Part Eight, Page Six
The Battle of Shiloh
22nd Alabama Infantry Regiment
(06 April 1862, Dusk to Dawn 07 April 1862)
As darkness approached, the Confederates dispersed from the line of battle and occupied the camps abandoned during the day by the retreating Federal Army. Generals Beauregard and Bragg spent the night in General Sherman's tent. Most of the Southern Army had dined Saturday evening and Sunday morning on crackers and bad coffee. They fought twelve long hours with no food and very little water. Some soldiers had found the opportunity to drink from a body of still water which would become known as the Bloody Pond. Their thirst was so acute that even the sight of a dead soldier laying in the pond could not deter them. Sunday night brought a virtual feast. In the Union camps, they found beef, ham, coffee, sugar, rice, flour, apples, candy and various sundries. In one of General Sherman's abandoned camps, they even found a bakery complete with ovens, flour and supplies. Cooks were detailed and the air was soon filled with aroma of fresh bread. 61
Food wasn't the only luxury found that night. Many men exchanged their outdated muskets for Enfield rifles. Others searched for needed equipment such as overcoats, blankets and haversacks. Still others grabbed personal items such as stationary, love letters, and other mementos. There were also reports of many men drunk on Cincinnati whiskey.62
Deas reported that he attempted to find the camp he had left before but had gotten to a different one and decided to stay there. After an inspection, he found that he had under his command, only the 22nd Alabama and the 1st Louisiana, numbering, respectively, 123 and 101 men. His men, on average, had only 15 rounds of ammunition, although both regiments had replenished during the day. 63
Conditions among the Federal soldiers were miserable. Their enemies slept in Federal tents, ate Federal food and read the love letters sent from Federal sweethearts, while they ate meager rations and slept out in the open air. Even General Grant passed a sleepless night under a tree nursing a swollen ankle. One soldier stuck his bayonet in the ground, rested his chin on the butt of his rifle and slept standing up. 64
Though conditions along the Federal lines were bleak, not all was hopeless. Lew Wallace's division had left Crump's Landing Sunday morning in route to the battlefield. Though it took over seven hours to cover the fourteen mile distance, they arrived around 7:30 Sunday evening. Ammen's brigade of General "Bull" Nelson's division arrived around 5:30 p.m. and participated in the final hour of Sunday's fighting. Even more encouraging, was the arrival throughout Sunday evening and early Monday morning of more than eighteen thousand men under the command of Major General Don Carlos Buell. 65
About 9:00 o'clock, Lieutenant Gwin of the gunboat Tyler was looking for an opportunity to be of service. His guns had been silent since 6:30 p.m. and he was getting restless, so he sent word to General Nelson for instructions. Nelson sent word back with orders to shell the enemy camps every 10 minutes. The shells weren't intended to cause any physical damage, but the noise and shock waves kept the Confederates from getting any sleep or rest the entire night. At 1:00 a.m., The Lexington relieved the Tyler and kept up the shelling until daylight. 66
That evening, the sky became overcast and a drizzling rain began about 10:30. By midnight, a severe thunderstorm had settled overhead. The storm brought torrents of rain, blinding lighting and incessant thunder. The rain poured on yank and rebel alike. There were the wounded, many too seriously to move. Throughout the night, their cries and moans could be heard above the din of the driving rain. The blinding light from the bursts of gunboat fire and flashes of lighting illuminated the ghostly figures of the dead lying in the fields. A Confederate soldier on a night patrol could hear the sound of hogs "quarreling over their carnival feast." Another Confederate described it as a night of horrors that would haunt him to his grave. 67 There were those lucky enough to have found tents for the night. However, the canvas of the Sibleys was so shredded by gunfire that some men of the 22nd Alabama complained that little, if any, rain was kept out. 68
By 9:00 o'clock Sunday evening, Nelson's division had been completely ferried across the river by small steamers. Their arrival was heralded by cheers and by the sounds of a band playing "Hail Columbia." Nelson's men extended Grants line along the Dill Branch. Heavy picket detachments were sent forward across the ravine to occupy the ridge were the men of Chalmers' and Jackson's brigades had begun their final assault on Sunday afternoon. Buell's men began arriving by steamboat at about 9:00 p.m. As the men arrived, they were placed in line of battle about three hundred yards in front of Grant's men. Here, they lay down to pass the night, waiting to receive the orders to charge the enemy. At 3:00 a.m. Monday morning, General Nelson road among his men and issued instructions to "move as soon as you can see . . . find the enemy and whip him." At 4:00 a.m. the men were aroused, formed in line of battle and began to move slowly through the forests. 69
61 Wiley Sword, Shiloh: Bloody April, page 372
62 Wiley Sword, Shiloh: Bloody April, pages 372, 373
63 Official Records, Chapter XXII pages 538
64 Wiley Sword, Shiloh: Bloody April, pages 373, 374
65 Wiley Sword, Shiloh: Bloody April, pages 380, 381
66 Wiley Sword, Shiloh: Bloody April, pages 374
67 Wiley Sword, Shiloh: Bloody April, pages 374, 375
68 Larry J. Daniel, Shiloh, The Battle That Changed the Civil War, page 263
67 Wiley Sword, Shiloh: Bloody April, pages 376, 380
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