Never
did Fortune, who brought this, her favorite, from the depths, bring him
again in her play so near to the verge of destruction. When he came
upon the field, the battle seemed wholly lost, and the whole world would
have cried that he was to blame.
But the bulldog in Grant was never of stauncher breed than on that day.
His face turned white, and he grew sick at the sight of the awful
slaughter. A bullet broke the small sword at his side, but he did not
flinch. Preserving the stern calm that always marked him on the field
he began to form his lines anew and strengthen the weaker points.
Yet the condition of his army would have appalled a weaker will.
It had been driven back three miles. His whole camp had been taken.
His second line also had been driven in. Many thousands of men had
fallen and other thousands had been taken. Thirty of his cannon were in
the hands of the enemy, and although noon had now come and gone there
was no sound to betoken the coming of the troops led by Wallace or
Nelson. Well might Grant's own stout heart have shrunk appalled from
the task before him.
Wallace was held back by confused orders, pardonable at such a time.
The eager Nelson was detained at Savannah by Buell, who thought that
the sounds of the engagement they heard in the Shiloh woods was a minor
affair, and who wanted Nelson to wait for boats to take him there.
It seemed sometimes to Dick long afterward, when the whole of the great
Shiloh battle became clear, that Fortune was merely playing a game of
chess, with the earth as a board, and the armies as pawns.
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