From a Field Hospital
Pittsburg Landing, TN
9 Apr 1862

Dear Diary,

Didn't feel much like writing until today.  
Seems I got dinged  up a bit in the worst 
battle you could imagine. If I live to  
see the end of this War, I hope I'm never 
in another one like this.

Anyway, after our victories at Henry and 
Donelson, and the occupation of Nashville 
on the 25th of February, we started south 
again.  The Rebs have a big supply depot 
and garrison down around Corinth, TN - and 
I guess that was where we were headed. It's 
also the main station on all the railroads 
through this area. Take Corinth, and we 
could cut their moving troops and supplies 
from here to the East.

Anyway, in late March the army began to 
assemble at a place called Pittsburg Landing, 
on the Tennessee River.  Not much of a place - 
just a flat piece of landing along the banks 
of the river where steamboats used to pull up.  
Hardly a fit place to put an army of around 
45,000, especially since we were expecting 
Buell's Army of the Ohio with another 20,000 
to link up.  We had regiments oriented in all 
different directions - figuring no Johnny in 
his right mind would be any closer than Corinth, 
a good 15 or so miles to the South.  Reckon we 
were wrong.

Actually, it shouldn't have been much of a 
surprise.  There'd been some isolated 
skirmishing a picket firing all through the area 
on the 3d and 4th of April, some of it pretty 
heavy.  But nothing like what happened on Sunday, 
the 6th.

The Rebs came screaming out of the woods at dawn 
on the 6th - I didn't know they had that many!!  
It was all we could do to roll out of our tents 
and form line of battle before they were on us.  
My regiment was located near a small, white 
Baptist meeting house called Shiloh Church - and 
I thought Shiloh meant "place of peace."  Sure 
wasn't much of that.

We weren't able to hold them, and were driven 
back steadily all through the morning, finally 
taking up a position in an old sunken wagon 
track behind a rail fence.  My regiment was 
pretty much scattered.  Me, Tommy McKearnan, 
and Sgt. Lunn found ourselves with some boys 
from Prentiss' Division.  Don't rightly know 
how that happened, but in the smoke and 
confusion we just kept looking for the flag and 
some blue uniforms. That position in the sunken 
road was a good one - the Rebs kepts coming at 
us, but we kept up a steady fire, and broke 
every one of their charges.  Good thing they 
didn't come at us all at once, or we wouldn't 
have lasted more than a few minutes.

Things stayed that way all through the morning, 
and into the afternoon.  The Rebs were slowly 
pushing us into the river.  Some units just 
broke and ran, some were simply over run - 
their survivors prisoners, but we still held 
our position until we were nearly cut off.

Then, the Rebs got smart.  They kept us pinned 
down, while they brought up what must have been 
over 100 cannons.  Put them in a line, and just 
started blasting away.  We tried to slow them up 
by shooting at the horses moving the guns into 
position, but it didn't do any good.

I'd been firing as fast as I could, until a Reb 
bullet shattered the stock of my musket - small 
loss, it was an old .69 caliber smoothbore 
converted from flintlock anyway.  I managed to 
grab a new Springfield from a wounded soldier, 
and got back to work.  Wasn't more than a minute 
later, when there was a Whizzz - Bang - Flash, 
and the next thing I knew I was on my back 
staring up at the peach trees.  I tried  to get 
up, but my right leg wouldn't work right.  
McKeanan and Lunn got  me under the arms, and we 
made it as fast as we could toward the river.  
Good thing, too.  The Rebs finally surrounded 
Prentiss' Division about an half hour later, and 
they had to surrender.

We made it to the river, where they were 
collecting our wounded.  Gosh - there were 
thousands of them!  Some shot in the arm, some 
in the leg, head, through the body, all manner 
of wounds.  The doctors were working as fast as 
they could.  An arm or a leg, they'd take off 
in a matter of minutes if the bone was smashed 
- nothing else they could do.  Head wounds or 
gut shot - they just set you aside to die 
quietly.  As for me, Lunn and McKearnan dropped 
me off and headed back into the fight - saying 
they'd stop back when things let up a might.  I 
haven't seen either one yet.

Sunday night, it rained steady.  Our gunboats, 
the Lexington and Tyler, kept sending those big 
shells over our heads into the Johnnies all 
night long.  I doubt they hit anything - just 
made it impossible to sleep.  Not that anyone 
could sleep anyway, what with the screams and 
moans of all the wounded men and horses.  All 
through the night, we could here Buell's men 
coming across the river by steamboat.  At 
first light, the whole Union army 
counterattacked.  We drove the Rebs off, but at 
what a cost.  I'm willing to bet that in these 
two days, more than 20,000 men are either dead, 
wounded, or lost one way or another.  Don't 
reckon there's been any battle like this in the 
history of our Nation - and WE WON!

As for my leg, I won't go into the pain.  At 
first it didn't hurt allthat much, I reckon with 
the shock and all.  Later, it more than made up
for lost time!  Seems I was really lucky.  A bit 
of shell cut through my upper leg, about half way 
between the knee and hip.  Nice clean wound, with 
no bones broken, so the doctors say I'll probably 
keep the leg unless it gets infected - just won't 
be doing any fancing dancing for a few months.  
Looks like I'll even get sent back north to one 
of the larger hospitals.  There's really not much 
they can do here in the field anyway - no one had 
any idea that there would be this many wounded!  
I left word with one of the stretcher bearers for 
Sgt. Lunn and Tommy, incase they should come 
looking - I just hope they made it!