My first battle! What a strange sensation it was when I knew that I must soon engage in the deadly strife! The thoughts came thick and fast—thoughts of home, friends, and loved ones crowded upon me with a vividness and distinctness I had never known before. My past life came up in review, and the anxiety to know the result of the next few hours was painful. Should I fall on my first field, or should I escape? Should I share the joy of victory, or experience the sadness of defeat? be a prisoner in the hands of the foe, or, wounded,[22] lie helpless among the slain and dying? make myself a name, or fill a nameless grave, were questions that would force themselves upon my attention. Fearful I was not, but excited, as every one doubtless is when about to enter for the first time the field of carnage and blood. I can imagine a young soldier gradually becoming accustomed to warfare by engaging at first in slight skirmishes at long range, then in closer encounters, till he is, in a measure, prepared for a general engagement; but my first battle was none of those, but one of the great conflicts of the war, in which thousands went in tyros in the art of war, and came out heroes, ever after confident and bold—it was the bloody field of Shiloh. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to describe a battle; one pair of eyes can see but little of a conflict ranging over miles of territory; but there is something common to all battles which every brave man sees and hears, such[23] as the shrieking of the shells, the blaze which accompanies the explosion, the whistling of minie balls, the clash and clang of steel, the roar of the artillery, the rattle of musketry, comrades falling, riderless steeds dashing hither and thither, the shout of officers, the hurrah of the charging line, the ghastly forms of the dead, the piteous cries of the wounded, the clouds of smoke pierced by the quick flashes of flame—with all these every true soldier is familiar. Our regiment was not in the battle the first day, but came up the following night, and found Gen. Grant, who had been hard pressed the preceding day, in grim silence awaiting the coming light to renew the contest. Early in the morning we were engaged, and the battle raged with great fury till the middle of the afternoon, when the enemy, after a stubborn resistance, were routed, and a shout of triumph went up from the victors who had changed threatened disaster into glorious success. [24]