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Standing to It: Everett Peabody, Part I

© Perry Cuskey

If any thoughts for his own safety flashed through the mind of Everett Peabody during those last, frantic moments, the Union colonel chose not to act on them. Perhaps he felt it was simply too late.

Or perhaps something more important than even life demanded attention just then.

"Stand to it yet!" he implored as his men began to waver under the pressing attack. "Remember Lexington!"

The effort was certainly there, and had been all during that short, incredibly long morning. But the ability was just about gone. Hammered for more than an hour by a larger enemy force, Peabody's courageous but overmatched brigade was now fighting for its very life.

Here and there, perhaps inevitably, men not already killed or captured began to break for the rear. Peabody was beside himself. "The 25th Missouri is disgraced!" the hard-pressed commander yelled at one of his regiments. The situation had become desperate.

Worst of all perhaps, he had seen this coming. Only the night before, the Massachusetts native had tried to warn his division commander of the danger to the army. Had tried to convince him with evidence that, to Peabody, clearly showed what was about to happen. All to no effect.

But it was too late for that now. The attack that Peabody had predicted was no longer mere speculation, easily brushed aside. It was here, in full, frightening force. Caught almost entirely off-guard, the Army of West Tennessee was in desperate need of time. Time to organize. Time to think. Time to catch its astonished breath.

Already bleeding from four separate wounds, Peabody tried desperately to buy as much of that time as possible. Stand to it yet he had commanded his men. It was an order he intended to obey himself, to the very end.

As Peabody dashed about on his horse in a last-ditch effort to rally his men, somewhere in the swirling chaos a southern soldier came to a halt, gazed along the barrel of his gun at the six foot one inch colonel, and squeezed the trigger.

One final heartbeat later, the terrible battle of Shiloh claimed its latest victim.

Unhonored and Unsung

At first blush, there is nothing especially remarkable about Tour Stop Ten in the far reaches of Shiloh National Military Park. A small narrative plaque sits beside the road, near a path leading to a monument at the edge of the tree line. Looking around, there is little else here to catch the eye. For many, the site warrants nothing more than a brief pause in their trip around this hauntingly beautiful park.