Johnston's Death
Major Leslie Wickham was assigned to General Albert Sidney Johnston prior to the Battle of Shiloh and was a witness to the death of the Confederate commander. I have not read Wickham’s account before and was impressed that he was so close to Johnston before during and after he received the fatal wound.
Regards
David
“It is not my intention to enter into any minute account of the entire battle, but simply to relate in few words the history of the death of Gen. Johnston, the great and gallant soldier who planned the battle, put the troops in motion, fought it, and just as he was about to witness a complete victory fell, mortally wounded by a spent Minie ball. When he fell, the victory fell with him. On that day I was acting as aide-de-camp to Gen. Johnston. It was on the crest of a hill, with a ravine in front filled with Federal troops, as was also the ascent to a parallel ridge and the ridge itself, all of which was heavily wooded, that Gen. Johnston appeared in front of an Arkansas regiment, holding something in his hand which I took to be a tin cup. As he rode down the line, with his face flushed with the excitement of the coming charge, with superb and commanding person, he looked every inch the great soldier that he was. With the cup he beckoned to the men to raise their muskets, ordering them at the same time not to fire, but to charge and give the enemy tire bayonet. "I will lead you," he said, together with other words of encouragement which I could not hear, but which were responded to by a most peculiar characteristic yell that left you with the inevitable feeling that your hair had turned into porcupine quills. Onward these brave troops rushed into the ravine and up the ridge, giving a mighty yell, which, mingled with the roar of the muskets, made such a noise as I can not undertake to describe. In the midst of the confusion I became for a short time separated from Gen. Johnston, but I soon pushed to the front with a lot of stragglers whom I had collected, who were making their way to the rear. The valley and hillside through which I passed were filled with the dead and wounded, and just as I reached the top of the ridge, from which the Federals had been driven, in search of Gen. Johnston, I dis- covered him giving an order to Gov. Isham G. Harris, of Tennessee, one of the bravest and most indefatigable of his staff-officers on that day. As Gov. Harris was leaving I joined Gen. Johnston, and we rode on for about an eighth of a mile on the level of this ridge, ex- posed all the while to a heavy fire from the retreating enemy, for the Minie balls were cutting off the branches of the trees and striking the ground all around us. I was riding so near to Gen. Johnston that the nose of my horse touched his saddle-blanket. I heard a ball strike his horse, as I thought, but, on looking, I saw no flesh wound upon his horse, but discovered the blood dripping from the heel of the General's left boot, the side on which I rode. Had I known at that moment that the femoral artery had been severed just below the knee, which was the fact. I might have immortalized myself — as our surgeon, Dr. Yandell, after- ward told me — by making a tourniquet with my hand- kerchief, which would have prevented his bleeding to death, as subsequently proved to be the case. Then I neither knew the extent of the wound, nor the remedy to apply. When I noticed the blood dripping, I said: "General, you are wounded, and we had better go down under the hill, Where we will not be exposed to the bullets."
He turned, and with a very positive and emphatic manner said: "No; we will go where Hardee is. The fighting is heaviest there."
He turned his horse, and just at that moment Col. O'Hara, of his staff (and a more gallant officer never lived), rode up to him, and said: "General, your horse is wounded."
He replied: "Yes, and his master too."
Col. O'Hara said, "I will go for a surgeon," and, instantly turning his horse, dashed off at full speed through a shower of bullets.
A moment after, Gov. Harris rode up, and said to Gen. Johnston that his order to silence or capture a battery bad been executed. Then, discovering the wound, he said, "General, you are wounded;" to which Gen. Johnston responded, "Yes; and badly, I fear."
I was then supporting him on his horse, on his left side, when Gov. Harris came up and supported him on his right. I said to Gov. Harris, who took me for Col. Albert J. Smith, chief quartermaster of the army, that we had better take the General down into the ravine, as the enemy might capture us if we remained where we were, to which he assented. As we rode along Gen. Johnston fainted, and the bridle-reins fell from his hands. A short distance more and we stopped, took him from his horse, and laid him upon the ground, over which but a few moments before he had driven the enemy at the point of the bayonet."
Confederate Veteran
Volume VI, July 1898, Number 7
Major Watkins Leigh Wickham
https://archive.org/details/confederateveter06conf/page/314/mode/2up
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