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fighting blood confronted one the other around Shiloh church.
It was the men of the South brought face to face against the men of the West, both with heat of fire and nerves of steel.
The first attack was—made upon Sherman's division, with Prentiss to the left.
Although surprised, the two divisions fought resolutely, making our brilliant advance costly in killed and wounded.
For hours, until the sun had scaled high the sky, the fight wavered on their front.
About 2 p. m. Ruggles, whose division was mainly Louisianians, ordered his command to support Hodgson's Washington artillery (Fifth company).1 As they were passing Shiloh church, the Crescents saw Beauregard standing on a log by the side of the road.
Seeing them, Beauregard, with ringing tone, cried out: ‘Louisianians, drive them into the Tennessee.’
Spurred by the war-like order, the regiment soon became engaged, a little way ahead, in a determined attack of the Confederate left on Wallace's division, which formed the enemy's right.
In this movement, the Washington artillery did brilliant service in keeping a Federal battery from pouring too close a fire into Gibson's Louisiana brigade, then engaged in a rear part of the field.
Gibson, unsupported by artillery, had been fighting desperately against masses posted on a ridge, under cover of a battery.
This was a critical position, in which Mouton's Eighteenth Louisiana made a brilliant but ineffective charge up the hill.
The
1 Slocomb, when the Fifth company of Washington artillery was organized, joined as a private and was elected lieutenant. After the battle of Shiloh, where he was wounded, he was promoted to the captaincy of the battery. Hodgson, who had gallantly commanded during Slocomb's absence, resigned on account of failing health.
‘When a full history of the battles of Shiloh shall have been written, the heroic deeds of the Washington artillery will illustrate one of its brightest pages; and the names of Slocomb and Hodgson will be held in grateful remembrance by a free people, long after the sod has grown green upon the bloody hills of Shiloh.’—Report of Brig.-Gen. Patton Anderson, April 17, 1862.
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