Civil War and Reconstruction
Ambrose Bierce's account - What I Saw Of Shiloh
By Ambrose Bierce
…We found a level field, a quarter of a mile in width; beyond it a gentle acclivity [a slope of a hill], cover ed with an undergrowth of young oaks… We pushed on into the open...pushing it forward at a run...
Then - I can’t describe it - the forest seemed all at once to flame up and disappear with a crash like that of a great wave upon the beach - a crash that expired in hot hissings, and the sickening "spat" of lead against flesh. A dozen of my brave fellows tumbled over like ten-pins. Some struggled to their feet, only to go down again, and yet again. Those who stood fired into the smoking brush…
We had expected to find, at most, a line of skirmishers similar to our own… What we had found was a line of battle, coolly holding its fire till it could count our teeth. There was no more to be done but get back across the open ground...
We got back, most of us, and I shall never forget the…young officer who had taken part in the affair walking up to his colonel, who had been a calm and apparently impartial spectator, and gravely reporting: "The enemy is in force just beyond this field, sir."
Ambrose Bierce Civil War Stories by Ambrose Bierce, Dover Publications, New York, NY, 1994
Civil War and Reconstruction >> Civil War >> Battles >> Shiloh
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