Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 May 1881 — “We’re Whipped.” [ARTICLE]

“We’re Whipped.”

PbUul,lulii. I imw ■_ Nelson was never debonair while on duty. The geene at the landing (which has never been adequately described. and perhaps never will be) was well fitted to excite the scorn and indignation of such a combative nature as his. Yet it may well be doubted whether, if he were alive today, he would not wish to expunge from his official report the harsh statement that he finally "asked permission to fire upon the knaves.” “Get out of the way, you blanked cowards!” he exclaimed, furiously, as the frantic throng pi eased toward a boat whence one of his favorite regigments was disembarking. “Get out of the way! If you don’t fight yourselves, let these men off that will. Men, follow me!” “I shall never forget,” says Dr. Bradford again, “the forming line and bluff at Pittsburg Landing. I doubt whether on any other battlefield of the war any sei of men ever formed under Just such circumstances. Most of our batteries gone, a thousand wagons gone, nearly all our tents gone; our entire force seemingly driven into twelve or fifteen teres of ground; the enemy pressing on with batteries and musketry in front and a cross-fire of cannon from above, and 10.000 panic stricken men out of the fight crying: ‘We are whipped!’ ‘The battle is lost!’ ‘lt’s no use to form!’ ‘They’redriving us into the river,* etc. In this terrible extremity the command fell quickly and orderly into line, and at the word moved gallantly forward. I could not. resist the temptation of riding my iron gray horse elose up to the line and crying out: 'Bully for the sixth Ohio.’ ”

"As we landed,” wrote Colonel Gross, with pardonable enthusiasm, to his wife, immediately after the battle, "there were at least fifteen thousand of Grant’s panic-stricken troops, who had thrown away their arms and were pressing to get on board that boat, and as my regiment marehed up the hill we would hear the cowards say to my men: “You will come back!” ‘You will see!’ and many other such expressions, yet our men went bravely up and formed in line of battle, Generals Bull and Nelson both with me. While forming, the heavy fire of the enemy was passing thick and fast around us. Poor White was struck by a canister shot and his le s were torn off, and about the same time a staff officer, ten feet in front of the line on horses, between General Nelson and myself, bad his head shot off by a cannon ball, and fell a ghastly spectacle before my regiment, at seeing which a few of our men nearest the scene fell back a few steps, but as soon as I commanded

them to dress up the line they did so promptly, and obeyed the command to “forward, march,” in line of battle. We moved off about one hundred yards to support one of our retreating batteries, ana there we opened up a severe Are on the approaching enemy, which, I think, was the first evidence the rebels had that the advance of Buell *s army was arriving. The fire of our regiment checked the enemy for the night, and. as everybody here says, turned the tide of the battle and saved Grant's army. Every survivor of the Tenth brigade will recall how the shocking death of Gen. Grant’s aid, as mentioned by Col. Gross, was talked about for weeks afterward, and the more because the same, or a nearly simultaneous discharee, shot away the saddle from under Lieut. Graves, a volunteer aid of i Gen. Nelson, and then went plunging , over the bluff, producing the wildest consternation among the fugitive ' thousands there herded. It cannot 1 but strike one as singular, therefore, i

to know how completely this ghastly incident was ignored by the eontemporaneous accounts of Shiloh. Byron s fomous satire on military glory defined it as being killed in battle and having one’s name misspelled in the official gazette. But what shall we say of this ease, where a brave man met the moot tragic of deaths, and his name—nay, even his fate—was not so much as hinted?