Another decisive battle in Civil War, The Battle of Shiloh which occurred on April 7, 1962 stands among the supreme. Union forces led by General Grant defeated the Confederate troops, but however show mercy. Lieut. Col. William Cam, recalled a dying Johnnie Reb hunched over, Cam dismounted his horse, lay the man over, and gave him a drink from his canteen before he past.
His story of the Battle of Shiloh - Part III Lieut. Col. William Cam, 14th Illinois Infantry Vols. April 7th, 1862 dawned on some weary, hungry yet hopeful soldiers. Veatch took me to the 15th Illinois and put me in command for the day. It's ranks had been sadly thinned and it had lost not only it's field officers, Ellis and Goddard, but so many of its line officers that sergeants were in command of two or three companies. I began to recruit at once with stray or straggling men. As the sun rose the roar of the second day's battle began and a few minutes after the first gun, the din became continuous. In less than an hour we could hear the cheers over the thunder that told which way the tide was turning. We were held in reserve in the second line and missiles of all kinds fell about us. I warned the men to take advantage of all the cover the ground afforded. Finding a rebel paper I was soon absorbed in it after dismounting and getting a seat on a log in front of the regiment, so as to become almost oblivious to the shots that threw dirt and bark about. After waiting for some time I was ordered to push forward to a certain point and knowing the short route by an old road, I led the regiment by the flank, the double files filling it. We soon met a wounded "Buckeye" using a stout stick he had picked up in the woods for a crutch. He looked like an over grown lad of eighteen, but he held one leg bent at the knee while the foot dangled about and blood dripped from his toes. Hobbling out of our way he leaned against a sapling, shifted a bloody sock to his left hand and with his red hand gave me the military salute. It touched me as no courtesy had ever done and I returned it with my saber as though I was passing in the presence of a reviewing officer. "Throw that bloody sock away comrade, the Surgeon will take that foot off and you won't need but one sock", I said. "Why Colonel", he replied in a cheery tone, "It will fit the other foot". "Don't it hurt you" I asked. "Not any more than it aught to Colonel" he replied in a still more cheerful response. The men gave him a folly of jocular complements as they passed. When we came to the open woods I received an order to advance at double quick, so I threw the regiment front into the line, which though it gave a greater exposure, it rendered a raking shot less dangerous. My horse had stumbled over a headless dead body in gray and fell with one knee in the upturned scull covering the leg with brains. Noticing a pond, or sink hole full of water and down timber in front of two companies, I gave the orders for avoiding obstacles. Capt. Clark and Lieut. Kenyon made the movement as if on the drill ground and not on loaded land and under fire. Before getting to the front we were halted once more. I found that the 14th was to my left, though hardly to be seen through the woods. Again I warned the men and officers to get all of the shelter from the shot that they could. One of the captains had a handkerchief tied around his wrist and I noticed a particular expression on his face. Upon examining his wounds which he had received 24 hours before, I found that a shot had passed through the wrist joint. He had served in the British Army in India and he asked to be allowed to stay till the battle was over, but I told him we could not afford to loose a good soldier by neglecting his wounds and ordered him to the rear, but with leave to return with the Surgeon's permission after his wounds had been dressed. He saluted and turned reluctantly to the rear. Later, he never returned. I was told that gangrene set in after three amputations and he died. The front line is a cheerful place in battle compared with the second, where exposed to all of that comes through the first as it did here. The shell all bursted, if it bursted at all, before it got to us, but the pieces dropped every where. I dismounted once and noticed the brains on my horse's leg and was wiping them off with a handful of dead and wet leaves, when I also noticed that human hair had caught in the nails of my shoes. It must have been near noon when an order came to advance in quick time, then double quick and finally, the run. Seeing something unusual ahead I galloped forward and found under a tree ten or a dozen grey haired, gray bearded Confederates, dead and laid in a circle with their feet towards the trunk. As the line swept up I gave the order for avoiding obstacles again and left the bodies untrodden. Before we reached the Purdy Road, the pace was slackened to quick time and direction changed to half left. As we passed through the woods between the road and review ground, a man on a grey horse and wearing citizens clothing was trying to hide behind a large tree, from the rebs in sight beyond the field. He claimed to be the correspondent of the N.Y. Herold, but I made him get out of the way of my men. As we came out on the open ground, Grant and his staff crossed our front, the General shouting something to me that I did not catch, but Gen. Webster riding to my side pointed over the field and shouted, "Forward, Forward". I could see grey uniforms and brass cannon. My men were warm and still breathing hard, but I felt that the quicker we reached those guns, the fewer men I should loose, so I quickened the pace. Still the enemy did not fire. Glancing to the left I saw the 14th Illinois a little behind, but some distance away racing for the guns. Grant was just entering the timber behind the left of the 14th. We were now more than half way down the field and I felt sure the officer in charge of the guns in front knew his business, that he had loaded with canister, perhaps double shotted, intended to fire, ricochet and... the great puffs of smoke hid the guns, the ground was torn in our front and the air for an instant seemed filled with whizzing shot. The men were lifted back and my horse seemed to be lifted off the ground, but luckily for us, the guns had been pointed a little too low. The shot struck the ground too soon and most of it went over the infantry and I was the only mounted man with the regiment and did not get touched. We were lucky indeed. The men answered the wave of my saber with a loud hurrah and rushed forward faster than before and I thought for once we should see what bayonets were made for, but the caissons had already been turned, the guns were hooked up and off they went while we were twenty yards away. But instantly we halted and I ordered the file fire and our bullets got to them if our bayonets could not. During the dash at the guns I felt that elation that lifts men above the fear of wounds or death, but I wondered if, when the shock came would they follow or would my men leave me to ride on to the guns alone? They followed, all but the poor fellows who were struck and I felt as if I should like to bring them all now. I had some trouble to stop the firing when only the scattered wounded jonnies were in sight. I got in front of them, but they were hot and excited in the charge. They fired in front of my horse and behind him, when I got before them and shook my saber in their faces and even struck at the back of their bayonets, but a young lieut. of the 28th Illinois who was commanding one of the companies, spread our his arms pushing their guns aside crying, "Cease firing, cease firing" and so stopped them. The 14th came and while we were letting the men breath and cool off, a soldier pulled a tall, frightened Confederate from under a log bridge and while he lay on the ground begging for his life (he had been told that we killed our prisoners), a soldier with a canteen full of water mixed with gin, to give to the wounded stepped astride of the prostrate man exclaiming, "Now, damn you, I am going to shoot you in the neck", forced the mouth of the canteen between the poor fellows lips and made him take a drink. There was a wonderful revelation of feeling. The jonnie sprang to his feet, praised his captors and there was some hearty hand shaking done amid roars of laughter. Some distance in front among the dead and wounded lay what looked like a dead bear. Curiosity prompted me to ride to it and see and I found a poor wounded man on his face with his knees doubled under him. His back humped up, shivering and moaning. Dismounting, I seized one shoulder and pulled him over. He too begged me to spare his life, though it seemed to me that his sands were nearly run down. When I knelt, raising his head and giving him a drink, he gave a steady look as though a grateful light had dawned on his dying brain. The son of Surgeon McEthson, a boy of 15 or 16 who had been following us all day with bandages and medicine came up. He examined the wound, poured a white powder from a small vile, gave me a significant look and at my nod put the powder on the man's tongue and washed it down by giving him another swallow of water from my canteen. His clothing was open and there was a bullet hole near his navel. We pulled his clothing together, his eyes closed and I laid him down and left him. (Note) This man recovered. He noticed my rank and letters on my cap and after the war tried to find me in Jacksonville, Illinois. No orders came to us. Hall and I counseled and then he moved south while I moved southwest, as we could hear troops in both directions, but whither friends or foes we did not know. I soon came to a hollow through which a creek ran and across it in my left front was a field and some log buildings. From one of these, shots began to come. I halted, ordered guides on the line and dressed up, while a couple of sharpshooters in a stable loft tried to hit me till I sent a couple of rifle men up the creek to dislodge them. It was only a few minutes work, though I thought only one of them got away. While wondering what to do next there came from a spur behind the hill and square on my right flank at close range, a regiment of Confederates, in line. "Right turn and charge", a bugle on the hill close to the Confederates sounded the quick, sharp notes of, "Commence firing". The glance I got showed a line of red britches, Witlich's 22nd Indiana Zouaves, I am told, but the smoke covered them from sight. The rebs, worse surprised than I was, broke in confusion and ran without firing. Just then a battery opened behind my left and not far away and I knew the 14th was in that direction. I faced to the left and hurried east up a side hollow. The battery was in the open in a field just east of some thick timber and brush and were firing north, but at what I could not see. The smoke drifted towards us and hid us. Here Hall joined me and as I was scolding the men for dodging like a lot of geese, when you shake a stick at them, as the shot passed so close over their heads. Hall and myself were passing a bush covered with vines, when a naughty shot cut through the bush and passed close to our heads. We both bent to our saddle bows, while some of the men yelled "Don't dodge". Hall exclaimed, pettily, "I can't help it". So I told the men to dodge till they got used to it. At the moment I saw we were just in the right position, so I gave the order. "By the right flank and Charge". Hall rode off and I threw myself in front of the men and started for the guns. They seemed to only just have seen us and ceased firing at once, but left me only three guns and one or two caissons. I reached the guns before the men did, but wet red clay had been rammed in them and a rat tail had been driven into the vent of one, but the others were spiked with the rammers of old U.S. horse pistols which had been sawed off at the jaws. At the foot of the hill beyond the guns, a Confederate was walking and though he had a very bright musket on his shoulder, he made no attempt to use it or get away. I ran down the hill and when ordered to throw down his piece, he landed it on the ground as though he was glad to get rid of it. "What regiment do you belong to?", I asked, "Seventh Arkansas" he replied. "Where is your regiment?" I asked, "Up there in the breaks and it will give you hell in about a minute". Just then a staff officer rode up and said I was going too far and that Gen. Wood ordered me to go back. I replied that Gen. Wood was not my commander and that I would receive an order through the proper channel only. I told him to take my prisoner, so he made "Arkansas" get up behind him. My regiment got to us at that moment, but I pushed them into the brush and halted till I could find the 7th Arkansas. I could not see it, but had hardly looked over that low spur in front till a couple of field pieces saluted me with canister. Ordering the men to lie down, I saw the guns were on a bluff bank beyond a stream, not more than two hundred yards away. Their fire was well directed and the spiteful shot found several of my men as they hugged the ground. Lieut. Allen, a sturdy young Englishman asked me to turn him loose upon the guns and receiving my consent, he and his men sprang forward deploying as skirmishers as they went and from the timber in the narrow bottom, I could hear Allen's gruff voice, "When a white rag flies out of one of them damned brass candle sticks, jump for a tree". The gunners seemed to have exhausted their canister and began to fire short fuse shells. Allen 's men had gotten almost to the stream and were thinning out the brave gunners piteously, when I got a peremptory order to fall back at once. I had to ride after Allen to get him back and in returning one of his men was passing me, a tall young fellow who was putting a long tailed cavalry overcoat on, when a shell struck a dead tree just over our heads, bursting as it struck. The fellows heels flew up and he fell flat on his face besides my horse, but he raised himself on all fours. "Are you hit?" I asked, "No by God, Colonel and not agoing to be if I can help it", he screamed as he darted towards the battalion, his long coat tail streaming out behind him. Allen came in grumbling because he was not allowed to get the guns. We were soon over the hill, but the jonnies were like the old woman, they got in the last word. It seemed to me a great mistake was made here, for tho many of our men had missed four meals and one nights rest, they were so elated they would have pushed the enemy into a complete route had they been allowed to press them. Slowly we came back to camp through scenes of wreck and slaughter that I could not describe. Something rose in my throat when we got to the camp of the 15th and I tried to complement the men on their behavior. I gave them the order, "Right face, arms port, break ranks". Then the men cheering wildly, rushed around me, but I could not speak and spurring through them I galloped away to my quarters. End of Col. Camm's story.
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