 section 23 of Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jim Clevenger. Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant by Ulysses S. Grant, chapter 23. Promoted Major General of Volunteers, Unoccupied Territory, Advance Upon Nashville, Situation of the Troops, Confederate Retreat, Relieved of the Command, Restored to the Command, General Smiths. The news of the fall of Fort Donaldson caused great delight all over the North. At the South, particularly in Richmond, the effect was correspondingly depressing. I was promptly promoted to the grade of Major General of Volunteers and confirmed by the Senate. All three of my division commanders were promoted to the same grade and generals who commanded brigades were made brigadier generals in the volunteer service. My chief, who was in St. Louis, telegraphed his congratulations to General Hunter in Kansas for the services he had rendered in securing the fall of Fort Donaldson by sending reinforcements so rapidly. To Washington, he telegraphed that the victory was due to General C. F. Smith, promote him, he said, and the whole country will applaud. On the nineteenth, there was, published at St. Louis, a formal order, thanking Flag Officer Foote and myself and the forces under our command for the victories on the Tennessee and the Cumberland. I received no other recognition from General Halleck, but General Cullum, his chief of staff, who was at Cairo, wrote me a warm congratulatory letter on his own behalf. I approved of General Smith's promotion highly as I did all the promotions that were made. My opinion was, and still is, that immediately after the fall of Fort Donaldson, the way was opened to the national forces all over the Southwest without much resistance. If one general, who would have taken the responsibility had been in command of all the troops west of the Alleghenies, he could have marched to Chattanooga, Corinth, Memphis, and Vicksburg with the troops we then had and, as volunteering was going on rapidly over the north, there would soon have been force enough at all these centers to operate offensively against any body of the enemy that might be found near them. Rapid movements and the acquisition of rebellious territory would have prompted volunteering so that reinforcements could have been had as fast as transportation could have been obtained to carry them to their destination. On the other hand, there were tens of thousands of strong, able-bodied young men still at their homes in the southwestern states who had not gone into the Confederate army in February 1862 and who had no particular desire to go. If our lines had been extended to protect their homes, many of them never would have gone. Providence ruled differently. Time was given the enemy to collect armies and fortify his new positions, and twice afterwards he came near forcing his northwestern front up to the Ohio River. I promptly informed the department commander of our success at Fort Donaldson and that the way was open now to Clarksville and Nashville, and that unless I received orders to the contrary, I should take Clarksville on the 21st and Nashville about the 1st of March. Both these places are on the Cumberland River above Fort Donaldson. As I heard nothing from headquarters on the subject, General C. F. Smith was sent to Clarksville at the time designated and found the place he evacuated. The capture of Fort's Henry and Donaldson had broken the line the enemy had taken from Columbus to Bowling Green, and it was known that he was falling back from the eastern point of this line and that Buell was following, or at least advancing. I should have sent troops to Nashville at the time I sent to Clarksville, but my transportation was limited and there were many prisoners to be forwarded north. None of the reinforcements from Buell's army arrived until the 24th of February. Then General Nelson came up with orders to report to me with two brigades, he having sent one brigade to Cairo. I knew General Buell was advancing on Nashville from the north and I was advised by scouts that the rebels were leaving that place and trying to get out all the supplies they could. Nashville was, at that time, one of the best provisioned posts in the south. I had no use for reinforcements now and thinking Buell would like to have his troops again. I ordered Nelson to proceed to Nashville without debarking at Fort Donaldson. I sent a gunboat also as a convoy. The Cumberland River was very high at the time. The railroad bridge at Nashville had been burned and all rivercraft had been destroyed or would be before the enemy left. Nashville is on the west bank of the Cumberland and Buell was approaching from the east. I thought the steamers carrying Nelson's division would be useful in ferrying the balance of Buell's forces across. I ordered Nelson to put himself in communication with Buell as soon as possible and if he found him more than two days off from Nashville to return below the city and await orders. Buell, however, had already arrived in person at Edgefield, opposite Nashville, and Mitchell's division of his command reached there the same day. Nelson immediately took possession of the city. After Nelson had gone and before I had learned of Buell's arrival, I sent word to Department Headquarters that I should go to Nashville myself on the 28th if I received no orders to the contrary. Hearing nothing, I went as I had informed my superior officer I would do. On arriving at Clarksville I saw a fleet of steamers at the shore, the same that had taken Nelson's division, and troops going aboard. I landed and called on the commanding officer, General C. F. Smith, as soon as he saw me he showed an order he had just received from Buell in these words. Nashville, February 25, 1862, General C. F. Smith commanding U.S. Forces Clarksville, General, the landing of a portion of our troops, contrary to my intentions, on the south side of the river, has compelled me to hold this side at every hazard. If the enemy should assume the offensive, and I am assured by reliable persons that in view of my position such is his intention, my force present is altogether inadequate, consisting of only 15,000 men. I have to request you, therefore, to come forward with all the available force under your command. So important do I consider the communication that I think it necessary to give this communication all the force of orders, and I send four boats, the Diana, Woodford, John Rain, and Autocrat, to bring you up. In five or six days my force will probably be sufficient to relieve you. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, D. C. Buell, Brigadier General, commanding P. S., Steamers will leave here at twelve o'clock tonight. General Smith said this order was nonsense, but I told him it was better to obey it. The general replied, of course I must obey, and said his men were embarking as fast as they could. I went on up to Nashville and inspected the position taken by Nelson's troops. I did not see Buell during the day, and wrote him a note saying that I had been in Nashville since early morning and had hoped to meet him on my return to the boat we met. His troops were still east of the river, and the Steamers that had carried Nelson's division up were mostly at Clarksville to bring Smith's division. I said to General Buell my information was that the enemy was retreating as fast as possible. General Buell said there was fighting going on then only ten or twelve miles away. I said, quite probably. Nashville contained valuable stores of arms, ammunition, and provisions, and the enemy is probably trying to carry away all he can. The fighting is doubtless with the rear guard who are trying to protect the trains they are getting away with. Buell spoke very positively of the danger Nashville was in of an attack from the enemy. I said, in the absence of positive information, I believed my information was correct. He responded that he knew. Well, I said, I do not know, but as I came by Clarksville General Smith's troops were embarking to join you. Smith's troops were returned the same day. The enemy were trying to get away from Nashville and not to return to it. At this time General Albert Sidney Johnson commanded all the Confederate troops west of the Allegheny Mountains with the exception of those in the extreme south. On the national side the forces confronting him were divided into, at first three, then four separate departments. Johnson had greatly the advantage in having supreme command over all troops that could possibly be brought to bear upon one point, while the forces similarly situated on the national side, divided into independent commands, could not be brought into harmonious action except by orders from Washington. At the beginning of 1862, Johnson's troops east of the Mississippi occupied a line extending from Columbus on his left to Mill Springs on his right. As we have seen, Columbus, both banks of the Tennessee River, the West Bank of the Cumberland and Bowling Green, all were strongly fortified. Mill Springs was entrenched. The national troops occupied no territory south of the Ohio except three small garrisons along its bank and a force thrown out from Louisville to confront that at Bowling Green. Johnson's strength was no doubt numerically inferior to that of the national troops, but this was compensated for by the advantage of being sole commander of all the Confederate forces at the West and of operating in a country where his friends would take care of his rear without any detail of soldiers. But when General George H. Thomas moved upon the enemy at Mill Springs and totally routed him, inflicting a loss of some 300 killed and wounded, and forts Henry and Hyman fell into the hands of the national forces with their armaments and about 100 prisons, those losses seemed to disheartened the Confederate commander so much that he immediately commenced a retreat from Bowling Green on Nashville. He reached this latter place on the 14th of February while Donaldson was still besieged. Buell followed with a portion of the Army of the Ohio, but he had to march and did not reach the East Bank of the Cumberland opposite Nashville until the 24th of the month and then with only one division of his Army. The bridge at Nashville had been destroyed and all boats removed or disabled so that a small garrison could have held the place against any national troops that could have been brought against it within ten days after the arrival of the force from Bowling Green. Johnston seemed to lie quietly at Nashville to await the result at Fort Donaldson on which he had staked the possession of most of the territory embraced in the states of Kentucky and Tennessee. It is true, the two generals, senior and rank at Fort Donaldson, were sending him encouraging dispatches, even claiming great Confederate victories, up to the night of the 16th when they must have been preparing for their individual escape. Johnston made a fatal mistake in entrusting so important a command to Floyd, who he must have known was no soldier even if he possessed the elements of one. Pillow's presence as second was also a mistake. If these officers had been forced upon him and designated for that particular command, then he should have left Nashville with a small garrison under a trusty officer and with the remainder of his force gone to Donaldson himself if he had been captured the result could not have been worse than it was. Johnston's heart failed him upon the first advance of national troops. He wrote to Richmond on the eighth of February, I think the gunboats of the enemy will probably take Fort Donaldson without the necessity of employing their land force in cooperation. After the fall of that place he abandoned Nashville and Chattanooga without an effort to save either and fell back into northern Mississippi where six weeks later he was destined to end his career. From the time of leaving Cairo I was singularly unfortunate in not receiving dispatches from General Halleck. The order of the tenth of February directing me to fortify Fort Henry strongly particularly to the land side and saying that entrenching tools had been sent for that purpose reached me after Donaldson was invested. I received nothing direct which indicated that the department commander knew we were in possession of Donaldson. I was reporting regularly to the chief of staff who had been sent to Cairo soon after the troops left there to receive all reports from the front and to telegraph the substance to the St. Louis headquarters. Cairo was at the southern end of the telegraph wire. Another line was started at once from Cairo to Paduca and Smithland at the mouths of the Tennessee and Cumberland respectively. My dispatches were all sent to Cairo by boat but many of those addressed to me were sent to the operator at the end of the advancing wire and he failed to forward them. This operator afterwards proved to be a rebel. He deserted his post after a short time and went south taking his dispatches with him. A telegram from General McClellan to me of February 16th the day of the surrender directing me to report in full the situation was not received at my headquarters until the third of March. On the second of March I received orders dated March 1st to move my command back to Fort Henry leaving only a small garrison at Donaldson. From Fort Henry expeditions were to be sent against Eastcourt Mississippi and Paris, Tennessee. We started from Donaldson on the 4th and the same day I was back on the Tennessee River. On March 4th I also received a following dispatch from General Hallick. Major General U.S. Grant Fort Henry, you will place Major General C.F. Smith in command of expedition and remain yourself at Fort Henry. Why do you not obey my orders to report strength and positions of your command? H.W. Hallick, Major General. I was surprised. This was the first intimation I had received that General Hallick had called for information as to the strength of my command. On the 6th he wrote to me again, you're going to Nashville without authority, and when your presence with your troops was of the utmost importance was a matter of very serious complaint at Washington, so much so that I was advised to arrest you on your return. This was the first I knew of his objecting to my going to Nashville. That place was not beyond the limits of my command, which it had been expressly declared in orders were not defined. Nashville is west of the Cumberland River and I had sent troops that had reported to me for duty to occupy the place. I turned over the command as directed and then replied to General Hallick courteously, but asked to be relieved from further duty under him. Later I learned that General Hallick had been calling lustily for more troops, promising that he would do something important if he could only be sufficiently reinforced. McClellan asked him what force he then had. Hallick telegraphed me to supply the information so far as my command was concerned, but I received none of his dispatches. At last Hallick reported to Washington that he had repeatedly ordered me to give the strength of my force, but could get nothing out of me, that I had gone to Nashville beyond the limits of my command without his authority and that my army was more demoralized by victory than the army at Bull Run had been by defeat. General McClellan, on this information ordered that I should be relieved from duty and that an investigation should be made into any charges against me, he even authorized my arrest. Thus in less than two weeks after the victory at Donaldson, the two leading generals in the army were in correspondence as to what disposition should be made of me and in less than three weeks I was virtually in arrest and without a command. On the thirteenth of March I was restored to command and on the seventeenth Hallick sent me a copy of an order from the War Department which stated that accounts of my misbehavior had reached Washington and directed him to investigate and report the facts. He forwarded also a copy of a detailed dispatch from himself to Washington entirely exonerating me, but he did not inform me that it was his own reports that had created all the trouble. On the contrary he wrote to me, instead of relieving you, I wish you as soon as your new army is in the field to assume immediate command and lead it to new victories. In consequence I felt very grateful to him and supposed it was his interposition that had set me right with the government. I never knew the truth until General Badot unearthed the facts in his researches for his history of my campaigns. General Hallick unquestionably deemed General CF Smith a much fitter officer for the command of all the forces in the military district than I was and to render him available for such command desired his promotion to antidate mine and those of the other division commanders. It is probable that the general opinion was that Smith's long service in the army and distinguished deeds rendered him the more proper person for such command. Indeed I was rather inclined to this opinion myself at that time and would have served as faithfully under Smith as he had been under me. But this did not justify the dispatches with General Hallick sent to Washington or his subsequent concealment of them from me when pretending to explain the action of my superiors. On receipt of the order restoring me to command I proceeded to Savannah on the Tennessee to which point my troops had advanced. General Smith was delighted to see me and was unhesitating in his denunciation of the treatment I had received. He was on a sick bed at the time from which he never came away alive. His death was a severe loss to our western army. His personal courage was unquestioned, his judgment and professional acquirements were unsurpassed, and he had the confidence of those he commanded as well as those over him. CHAPTER XXIV The Army at Pittsburgh Landing Injured by a Fall The Confederate Attack at Shiloh The First Days' Fight at Shiloh General Sherman The Division of the Army Clothes of the First Days' Fight The Second Days' Fight Retreat and Defeat of the Confederates When I resumed command on the 17th of March I found the Army divided about half being on the East Bank of the Tennessee at Savannah while one division was at Crump's Landing on the West Bank about four miles higher up and the remainder at Pittsburgh Landing five miles above Crump's. The enemy was enforced at Corinth, the junction of the two most important railroads in the Mississippi Valley, one connecting Memphis and the Mississippi River with the East and the other leading south to all the cotton states. Still, another railroad connects Corinth with Jackson in West Tennessee. If we obtained possession of Corinth, the enemy would have no railroad for the transportation of armies or supplies until that running east from Vicksburg was reached. It was the great strategic position at the West between the Tennessee and the Mississippi Rivers and between Nashville and Vicksburg. I at once put all the troops at Savannah in motion for Pittsburgh Landing, knowing that the enemy was fortifying at Corinth and collecting an army there under Johnston. It was my expectation to march against that army as soon as Buell, who had been ordered to reinforce me with the Army of the Ohio, should arrive. And the West Bank of the river was the place to start from. Pittsburgh is only about twenty miles from Corinth and Hamburg Landing four miles further up the river is a mile or two nearer. I had not been in command long before I selected Hamburg as the place to put the Army of the Ohio when it arrived. The roads from Pittsburgh and Hamburg to Corinth converge some eight miles out. This disposition of the troops would have given additional roads to march over when the advance commenced within supporting distance of each other. Before I arrived at Savannah, Sherman, who had joined the Army of the Tennessee and been placed in command of a division, had made an expedition on steamers convoyed by gun boats to the neighborhood of Eastport, thirty miles south, for the purpose of destroying the railroad east of Corinth. The rains had been so heavy for some time before that the lowlands had become impassable swamps. Sherman debarked his troops and started out to accomplish the object of the expedition, but the river was rising so rapidly that the backwater up to small tributaries threatened to cut off the possibility of getting back to the boats, and the expedition had to return without reaching the railroad. The guns had to be hauled by hand through the water to get back to the boats. On the 17th of March, the Army on the Tennessee River consisted of five divisions commanded respectively by Generals C. F. Smith, McClendon, L. Wallace, Hurlbut, and Sherman. General W. H. L. Wallace was temporarily in command of Smith's division, General Smith, as I have said, being confined to his bed. Reinforcements were arriving daily, and as they came up they were organized first into brigades, then into a division, and the command was given to General Prentice, who had been ordered to report to me. General Buell was on his way from Nashville with 40,000 veterans. On the 19th of March he was at Columbia, Tennessee, 85 miles from Pittsburgh. When all reinforcements should have arrived, I expected to take the initiative by marching on Corinth and had no expectation of needing fortifications, though the subject was taken into consideration. McPherson, my only military engineer, was directed to lay out a line to entrench. He did so, but reported that it would have to be made in rear of the line of encampment as it then ran. The new line, while it would be nearer the river, was yet too far away from the Tennessee or even from the creeks to be easily supplied with water, and in case of attack these creeks would be in the hands of the enemy. The fact is, I regarded the campaign we were engaged in as an offensive one, and had no idea that the enemy would leave strong entrenchments to take the initiative when he knew he would be attacked where he was if he remained. This view, however, did not prevent every precaution being taken and every effort made to keep advised of all movements of the enemy. Johnston's cavalry, meanwhile, had been well out towards our front, and occasional encounters occurred between it and our outposts. On the 1st of April, this cavalry became bold and approached our lines, showing that an advance of some kind was contemplated. On the 2nd, Johnston left Corinth in force to attack my army. On the 4th, his cavalry dashed down and captured a small picket guard of six or seven men stationed some five miles out from Pittsburgh on the Corinth Road. Colonel Buckland sent relief to the guard at once, and soon followed in person with an entire regiment and General Sherman followed Buckland, taking the remainder of a brigade. The pursuit was kept up for some three miles beyond the point where the picket guard had been captured, and after nightfall Sherman returned to camp and reported to me by letter what had occurred. At this time a large body of the enemy was hovering to the west of us along the line of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. My apprehension was much greater for the safety of Crump's landing than it was for Pittsburgh. I had no apprehension that the enemy could really capture either place, but I feared it was possible that he might make a rapid dash upon Crump's and destroy our transports and stores, most of which were kept at that point and then retreat before Wallace could be reinforced. Lou Wallace's position I regarded as so well chosen that he was not removed. At this time I generally spent the day at Pittsburgh and returned to Savannah in the evening. I was intending to remove my headquarters to Pittsburgh, but Buell was expected to come in daily and would come in at Savannah. I remained at this point, therefore, a few days longer than I otherwise should have done in order to meet him on his arrival. Discourmishing in our front, however, had been so continuous from about the third of April that I did not leave Pittsburgh each night until an hour when I felt there would be no further danger before the landing. On Friday the fourth, the day of Buckland's advance, I was very much injured by my horse falling with me, and on me, while I was trying to get to the front where firing had been heard. The night was one of impenetrable darkness with rain pouring down in torrents. Nothing was visible to the eye except as revealed by the frequent flashes of lightning. Under these circumstances I had to trust to the horse, without guidance, to keep the road. I had not gone far, however, when I met General W. H. L. Wallace and Colonel, afterwards General McPherson, coming from the direction of the front. They said all was quiet so far as the enemy was concerned. On the way back to the boat, my horse's feet slipped from under him and he fell with my leg under his body. The extreme softness of the ground, from the excessive rains of the few preceding days, no doubt saved me from a severe injury and protracted lameness. As it was, my ankle was very much injured, so much so that my boot had to be cut off. For two or three days after I was unable to walk except with crutches. On the fifth, General Nelson, with a division of Buell's army, arrived at Savannah and I ordered him to move up to east bank of the river to be in a position where he could be ferried over to Crump's Landing or Pittsburgh as occasion required. I had learned that General Buell himself would be at Savannah the next day and desired to meet me on his arrival. Affairs at Pittsburgh Landing had been such for several days that I did not want to be away during the day. I determined therefore to take a very early breakfast and ride out to meet Buell and thus save time. He had arrived on the evening of the fifth, but had not advised me of fact, and I was not aware of it until some time after. While I was at breakfast, however, heavy firing was heard in the direction of Pittsburgh Landing, and I hastened there, sending a hurried note to Buell informing him of the reason why I could not meet him at Savannah. On the way up the river I directed the dispatch boat to run in close to Crump's Landing so that I could communicate with General Lou Wallace. I found him waiting on a boat apparently expecting to see me, and I directed him to get his troops in line ready to execute any orders he might receive. He replied that his troops were already under arms and prepared to move. Up to that time I had felt by no means certain that Crump's Landing might not be the point of attack. On reaching the front, however, about eight a.m. I found that the attack on Pittsburgh was unmistakable and that nothing more than a small guard to protect our transports and stores was needed at Crump's. Captain Baxter, a quartermaster on my staff, was accordingly directed to go back and order General Wallace to march immediately to Pittsburgh by the road nearest the river. Captain Baxter made a memorandum of disorder. About one p.m. not hearing from Wallace and being much in need of reinforcements I sent two more of my staff, Colonel McPherson and Captain Raleigh, to bring him up with his division. They reported finding him marching towards Purdy, Bethel, or some point west from the river and further from Pittsburgh by several miles than when he started. The road from his first position to Pittsburgh Landing was direct and near the river. Between the two points a bridge had been built across Snake Creek by our troops at which Wallace's command had assisted. Expressly to enable the troops at the two places to support each other in case of need, Wallace did not arrive in time to take part in the first day's fight. General Wallace has since claimed that the order delivered to him by Captain Baxter was simply to join the right of the army and that the road over which he marched would have taken him to the road from Pittsburgh to Purdy where it crosses Owl Creek on the right of Sherman, but this is not where I had ordered him nor where I wanted him to go. I never could see and do not now see why any order was necessary further than to direct him to come to Pittsburgh Landing without specifying by what route. His was one of three veteran divisions that had been in battle and its absence was severely felt. Later in the war General Wallace would not have made the mistake that he committed on the 6th of April 1862. I presume his idea was that by taking the route he did he would be able to come around on the flank or rear of the enemy and thus perform an act of heroism that would redound to the credit of his command as well as to the benefit of his country. Some two or three miles from Pittsburgh Landing was a long meeting house called Shiloh. It stood on the ridge which divides the waters of Snake and Lick creeks, the former emptying into the Tennessee just north of Pittsburgh Landing and the latter south. This point was the key to our position and was held by Sherman. His division was at that time wholly raw, no part of it ever having been in an engagement, but I thought this deficiency was more than made up by the superiority of the commander. McLernden was on Sherman's left with troops that had been engaged at Fort Henry and Donaldson and were therefore veterans so far as Western troops had become such at that stage of the war. Next to McLernden came Prentice with a raw division and on the extreme left, Stuart, with one brigade of Sherman's division. Hurlbut was in rear of Prentice, Mass, and in reserve at the time of the onset. The division of General C. F. Smith was on the right, also in reserve. General Smith was still sick in bed at Savannah, but within hearing of our guns, his services would no doubt have been of inestimable value had his health permitted his presence. The command of his division devolved upon Brigadier General W. H. L. Wallace, a most esteemable and able officer, a veteran too for he had served a year in the Mexican War and had been with his command at Henry and Donaldson. Wallace was mortally wounded in the first day's engagement, and with the change of commanders, thus necessarily affected in the heat of battle, the efficiency of his division was much weakened. The position of our troops made a continuous line from Lick Creek on the left to Owl Creek, a branch of Snake Creek on the right, facing nearly south and possibly a little west. The water in all these streams was very high at the time and contributed to protect our flanks. The enemy was compelled, therefore, to attack directly in front. This he did with great vigor, inflicting heavy losses on the national side but suffering much heavier on his own. The Confederate assaults were made with such a disregard of losses on their own side that our line of tents soon fell into their hands. The ground on which the battle was fought was undulating, heavily timbered with scattered clearings, the woods giving some protection to the troops on both sides. There was also considerable underbrush. A number of attempts were made by the enemy to turn our right flank where Sherman was posted, but every effort was repulsed with heavy loss. But the front attack was kept up so vigorously that to prevent the success of these attempts to get on our flanks, the national troops were compelled several times to take positions to the rear near Pittsburgh Landing. When the firing ceased at night, the national line was all of a mile in rear of the position it had occupied in the morning. In one of the backward moves, on the sixth, the division commanded by General Prentice did not fall back with the others. This left his flanks exposed and enabled the enemy to capture him with about two thousand two hundred of his officers and men. General Bado gives four o'clock of the sixth as about the time this capture took place. He may be right as to the time, but my recollection is that the hour was later. General Prentice himself gave the hour as half past five. I was with him as I was with each of the division commanders that day several times, and my recollection is that the last time I was with him was about half past four when his division was standing up firmly and the general was as cool as if expecting victory. But no matter whether it was four or later, the story that he and his command were surprised and captured in their camps is without any foundation whatever. If it had been true, as currently reported at the time and yet believed by thousands of people, that Prentice and his division had been captured in their beds, there would not have been an all day struggle with the loss of thousands killed and wounded on the Confederate side. With a single exception of a few minutes after the capture of Prentice, a continuous and unbroken line was maintained all day from Snake Creek or its tributaries on the right to Lit Creek or the Tennessee on the left above Pittsburgh. There was no hour during the day when there was not heavy firing and generally hard fighting at some point on the line but seldom at all points at the same time. It was a case of southern dash against northern pluck and endurance. Three of the five divisions engaged on Sunday were entirely raw and many of them men had only received their arms on the way from their states to the field. Many of them had arrived but a day or two before and were hardly able to load their muskets according to the manual. Their officers were equally ignorant of their duties under these circumstances. It is not astonishing that many of their regiments broke at the first fire. In two cases, as I now remember, colonels led their regiments from the field on first hearing the whistle of the enemy's bullets. In these cases the colonels were constitutional cowards, unfit for any military position but not so the officers and men led out of danger by them. Better troops never went upon a battlefield than many of these officers and men, afterwards proved themselves to be, who fled panic-stricken at the first whistle of bullets and shell at Shiloh. During the whole of Sunday I was continuously engaged in passing from one part of the field to another, giving directions to division commanders. In thus moving along the line however, I never deemed it important to stay long with Sherman, although his troops were then under fire for the first time their commander, by his constant presence with him, inspired a confidence in officers and men that enabled them to render services on that bloody battlefield worthy of the best of veterans. McClendon was next to Sherman, and the hardest fighting was in front of these two divisions. McClendon told me on that day, the sixth, that he profited much by having so able a commander supporting him. A casualty to Sherman that would have taken him from the field that day would have been a sad one for the troops engaged at Shiloh. And how nearer we came to this. On the sixth Sherman was shot twice, once in the hand, once in the shoulder, the ball cutting his coat and making a slight wound, and a third ball passed through his hat. In addition to this he had several horses shot during the day. The nature of this battle was such that cavalry could not be used in front. I therefore formed hours into line in rear to stop strikers, of whom there were many. When there would be enough of them to make a show and after they had recovered from their fright they would be sent to reinforce some part of the line which needed support without regard to their company's regiments or brigades. On one occasion during the day I rode back as far as the river and met General Buell who had just arrived. I do not remember the hour, but at that time there probably were as many as four or five thousand stragglers lying under cover of the river bluff panic-stricken, most of whom would have been shot where they lay without resistance before they would have taken muskets and marched to the front to protect themselves. This meeting between General Buell and myself was on the dispatch boat used to run between the landing and Savannah. It was brief and related specially to his getting his troops over the river. As we left the boat together Buell's attention was attracted by the men lying under cover of the river bank. I saw him berating them and trying to shame them into joining their regiments. He even threatened them with shells from the gun boats nearby. But it was all to no effect. Most of these men afterward proved themselves as gallant as any of those who saved the battle from which they had deserted. I have no doubt that this sight impressed General Buell with the idea that a line of retreat would be a good thing just then. If he had come in by the front instead of through the stragglers in the rear he would have thought and felt differently. Could he have come through the Confederate rear he would have witnessed there a scene similar to that at our own. The distant rear of an army engaged in battle is not the best place from which to judge correctly what is going on in front. Later in the war, while occupying the country between the Tennessee and the Mississippi, I learned that the panic in the Confederate lines had not differed much from that within our own. Some of the country people estimated the stragglers from Johnston's army as high as twenty thousand. Of course this was an exaggeration. The situation at the close of Sunday was as follows. Along the top of the bluff just south of the log house which stood at Pittsburgh Landing, Colonel J. D. Webster of my staff had arranged twenty or more pieces of artillery facing south or up the river. This line of artillery was on the crest of a hill overlooking a deep ravine opening into the Tennessee. Hurlbut, with his division intact, was on the right of this artillery extending west and possibly a little north. McLernden came next in the general line looking more to the west. His division was complete in its organization and ready for any duty. Sherman came next, his right extending to Snake Creek. His command, like the other two, was complete in its organization and ready like its chief for any service it might be called upon to render. All three divisions were, as a matter of course, more or less shattered and depleted in numbers from the terrible battle of the day. The division of W. H. L. Wallace, as much from the disorder arising from changes of division and brigade commanders under heavy fire, as from any other cause, had lost its organization and did not occupy a place in the line as a division. Prentice's command was gone as a division, many of its members having been killed, wounded, or captured, but it had rendered valiant services before its final dispersal and had contributed a good share to the defense of Shiloh. The right of my line rested near the bank of Snake Creek, a short distance above the bridge which had been built by the troops for the purpose of connecting Crump's Landing and Pittsburgh Landing. Sherman had posted some troops in a log house and outbuildings which overlooked both the bridge over which Wallace was expected and the creek above that point. In this last position, Sherman was frequently attacked before night, but held the point until he voluntarily abandoned it to advance in order to make room for Lou Wallace, who came up after dark. There was, as I have said, a deep ravine in front of our left. The Tennessee River was very high and there was water to a considerable depth in the ravine. Here the enemy made a last desperate effort to turn our flank, but was repelled. The gunboats, Tyler and Lexington, Gwen and Sherk commanding, with the artillery under Webster, aided the army and effectually checked their further progress. Before any of Buell's troops had reached the west bank of the Tennessee, firing had almost entirely ceased. Anything like an attempt on the part of the enemy to advance had absolutely ceased. There was some artillery firing from an unseen enemy, some of his shells passing beyond us, but I do not remember that there was the whistle of a single musket ball heard. As his troops arrived in the dusk, General Buell marched several of his regiments partway down the face of the hill where they fired briskly for some minutes, but I do not think a single man engaged in this firing received an injury. The attack had spent its force. General Lou Wallace, with five thousand effective men, arrived after firing had ceased for the day and was placed on the right. Thus night came. Wallace came, and the advance of Nelson's division came, but none, and less night, in time to be of material service to the gallant men who saved Shiloh on that first day against large odds. Buell's loss on the 6th of April was two men killed and one wounded, all members of the 36th Indiana Infantry. The army of the Tennessee lost on that day at least seven thousand men. The presence of two or three regiments of Buell's army on the west bank before firing ceased had not the slightest effect in preventing the capture of Pittsburgh landing. So confident was I before firing had ceased on the 6th that the next day would bring victory to our arms if we could only take the initiative that I visited each division commander in person before any reinforcements had reached the field. I directed them to throw out heavy lines of skirmishers in the morning as soon as they could see and push them forward until they found the enemy, following with their entire divisions in supporting distance and to engage the enemy as soon as found. To Sherman I told a story of the assault at Fort Donaldson and said that the same tactics would win at Shiloh. Victory was assured when Wallace arrived even if there had been no other support. I was glad, however, to see the reinforcements of Buell and credit them with doing all there was for them to do. During the night of the 6th, the remainder of Nelson's division, Buell's army crossed the river and were ready to advance in the morning forming the left wing. Two other divisions, Quintendon's and McCook's, came up the river from Savannah in the transports and were on the West Bank early on the 7th. Buell commanded them in person. My command was thus nearly doubled in numbers and efficiency. During the night rain fell and torrents and our troops were exposed to the storm without shelter. I made my headquarters under a tree a few hundred yards back from the river bank. My ankle was so much swollen from the fall of my horse the Friday night preceding and the bruise was so painful that I could get no rest. The drenching rain would have precluded the possibility of sleep without this additional cause. Sometime after midnight, growing resty under the storm and the continuous rain, I moved back to the log house under the bank. This had been taken as a hospital and all night wounded men were being brought in, their wounds dressed, a leg or an arm amputated as the case might require, and everything being done to save life or alleviate suffering. The sight was more unendurable than encountering the enemy's fire and I returned to my tree in the rain. The advance on the morning of the seventh developed the enemy in the camps occupied by our troops before the battle began, more than a mile back from the most advanced position of the Confederates on the day before. It is known now that they had not yet learned of the arrival of Buell's command, possibly they fell back so far to get the shelter of our tents during the rain and also to get away from the shells that were dropped upon them by the gunboats every fifteen minutes during the night. The position of the Union troops on the morning of the seventh was as follows. General Lou Wallace on the right, Sherman on his left, then McLernden and then Hurlbut. Nelson of Buell's army was on our extreme left next to the river. Crittenden was next in line after Nelson and on his right, McCook followed and formed the extreme right of Buell's command. My old command thus formed the right wing, while the troops directly under Buell constituted the left wing of the army. These relative positions were retained during the entire day or until the enemy was driven from the field. In a very short time the battle became general all along the line. This day everything was favorable to the Union side. We had now become the attacking party. The enemy was driven back all day as we had been the day before, until finally he beat a precipitous retreat. The last point held by him was near the road leading from the landing to Corinth on the left of Sherman and right of McLernden, about three o'clock. Being near that point and seeing that the enemy was giving way everywhere else, I gathered up a couple of regiments or parts of regiments from troops nearby, formed them in line of battle and marched them forward, going in front myself to prevent premature or long range firing. At this point there was a clearing between us and the enemy, favorable for charging, although exposed. I knew the enemy were ready to break and only wanted a little encouragement from us to go quickly and join their friends who had started earlier. After marching to within musket range I stopped and let the troops pass. The command charge was given and was executed with loud cheers and with a run when the last of the enemy broke. CHAPTER XXV STRUCK BY A BULLET PRECIPITATE RETREAT OF THE CONFEDERATES ENTRINCHMENT SET SHILO GENERAL BUEL GENERAL JOHNSTON REMARKS ON SHILO During this second day of the battle I had been moving from right to left and back to see for myself the progress made. In the early part of the afternoon while riding with Colonel McPherson and Major Hawkins, then my Chief Commissary, we got beyond the left of our troops. We were moving along the northern edge of a clearing very leisurely toward the river above the landing. There did not appear to be an enemy to our right until suddenly a battery with musketry opened upon us from the edge of the woods on the other side of the clearing. The shells and balls whistled about our ears very fast for about a minute. I do not think it took us longer than that to get out of range and out of sight. In the sudden start we made Major Hawkins lost his hat. He did not stop to pick it up. When we arrived at a perfectly safe position we halted to take an account of damages. McPherson's horse was panting as if ready to drop. On examination it was found that a ball had struck him forward of the flank just back of the saddle and had gone entirely through. In a few minutes the poor beast dropped dead. He had given no sign of injury until we came to a stop. A ball had struck the metal scabbard of my sword just below the hilt and broken it nearly off. Before the battle was over it had broken off entirely. There were three of us, one had lost a horse, killed, one a hat, and one a sword scabbard. All were thankful that it was no worse. After the rain of the night before and the frequent and heavy rains for some days previous the roads were almost impassable. The enemy carrying his artillery and supply trains over them in his retreat made them still worse for troops following. I wanted to pursue, but had not the heart to order the men who had fought desperately for two days, lying in the mud and rain whenever not fighting, and I did not feel disposed to positively order Buell or any part of his command to pursue. Although the senior in rank at the time I had been so only a few weeks Buell was and had been for some time passed a department commander while I commanded only a district. I did not meet Buell in person until too late to get troops ready and pursue with effect. But had I seen him at the moment of the last charge I should have at least requested him to follow. I rode forward several miles the day after the battle and found that the enemy had dropped much if not all of their provisions, some ammunition, and the extra wheels of their caissons lightening their loads to enable them to get off their guns. About five miles out we found their field hospital abandoned and immediate pursuit must have resulted in the capture of a considerable number of prisoners and probably some guns. Shiloh was the severest battle fought at the West during the war and but few in the East equalled it for hard determined fighting. I saw an open field in our position on the second day over which the Confederates had made repeated charges the day before so covered with dead that it would have been possible to walk across the clearing in any direction stepping on dead bodies without a foot touching the ground. On our side national and Confederate troops were mingled together in about equal proportions but on the remainder of the field nearly all were Confederates. On one part which had evidently not been plowed for several years probably because the land was poor, bushes had grown up some to the height of eight or ten feet. There was not one of these left standing unpierced by bullets. The smaller ones were all cut down. Contrary to all my experience up to that time and to the experience of the army I was then commanding we were on the defensive. We were without entrenchments or defensive advantages of any sort and more than half the army engaged the first day was without experience or even drill as soldiers. The officers with them accepted division commanders and possibly two or three of the brigade commanders were equally inexperienced in war. The result was a Union victory that gave the men who achieved it great confidence in themselves ever after. The enemy fought bravely but they had started out to defeat and destroy an army and capture a position. They failed in both with very heavy loss and killed and wounded and must have gone back discouraged and convinced that the Yankee was not an enemy to be despised. After the battle I gave verbal instructions to division commanders to let the regiment send out parties to bury their own dead and to detail parties under commissioned officers from each division to bury the Confederate dead in their respective fronts and to report the number so buried. The latter part of these instructions was not carried out by all, but they were by those sent from Sherman's division and by some of the parties sent out by McClendon. The heaviest loss sustained by the enemy was in front of these two divisions. The criticism has often been conveyed that the Union troops should have been entrenched at Shiloh. Up to that time the pick and spade had been but little resorted to at the west. I had, however, taken the subject under consideration soon after re-assuming command in the field and, as already stated, my only military engineer reported unfavorably. Besides this, the troops with me, officers and men, needed discipline and drill more than they did experience with the pick, shovel, and axe. Reinforcements were arriving almost daily, composed of troops that had been hastily thrown together into companies and regiments, fragments of incomplete organizations, the men and officers, strangers to each other. Under all these circumstances I concluded that drill and discipline were worth more to our men than fortifications. General Bewell was a brave, intelligent officer, with as much professional pride and ambition of a commendable sort as I ever knew. I had been two years at West Point with him and had served with him afterwards in Garrison and in the Mexican War several years more. He was not given in early life or in mature years to forming intimate acquaintances. He was studious by habit and commanded the confidence and respect of all who knew him. He was a strict disciplinarian and perhaps did not distinguish sufficiently between the volunteer who enlisted for the war and the soldier who serves in time of peace. One system embraced men who risked life for a principle and often men of social standing, competence or wealth and independence of character. The other includes as a rule only men who could not do as well in any other occupation. General Bewell became an object of harsh criticism later, some going so far as to challenge his loyalty. No one who knew him ever believed him capable of a dishonorable act and nothing could be more dishonorable than to accept high rank and command in war and again betray the trust. When I came into command of the Army in 1864 I requested the Secretary of War to restore General Bewell to duty. After the war, during the summer of 1865 I traveled considerably through the North and was everywhere met by large numbers of people. Everyone had his opinion about the manner in which the war had been conducted, who among the generals had failed, how and why. Correspondents of the press were ever on hand to hear every word dropped and were not always disposed to report correctly what did not confirm their preconceived notions either about the conduct of the war or the individuals concerned in it. The opportunity frequently occurred for me to defend General Bewell against what I believed to be most unjust charges. On one occasion a correspondence put in my mouth the very charge I had so often refuted of disloyalty. This brought from General Bewell a very severe retort which I saw in the New York world some time before I received a letter itself. I could very well understand his grievance at seeing untrue and disgraceful charges apparently sustained by an officer who, at the time, was at the head of the Army. I replied to him but not through the press. I kept no copy of my letter, nor did I ever see it in print, neither did I receive an answer. General Albert Sidney Johnston, who commanded the Confederate forces at the beginning of the battle, was disabled by a wound on the afternoon of the first day. This wound, as I understood afterwards, was not necessarily fatal or even dangerous. But he was a man who would not abandon what he deemed an important trust in the face of danger and consequently continued in the saddle commanding until so exhausted by the loss of blood that he had to be taken from his horse and soon after died. The news was not long in reaching our side and I suppose was quite an encouragement to the national soldiers. I had known Johnston slightly in the Mexican War and later as an officer in the regular army. He was a man of high character and ability. His contemporaries at West Point and officers generally who came to know him personally later and who remained on our side expected him to prove the most formidable man to meet that the Confederacy would produce. I once wrote that nothing occurred in his brief command of an army to prove or disprove the high estimate that had been placed upon his military ability. But after studying the orders and dispatches of Johnston, I am compelled to materially modify my views of that officer's qualifications as a soldier. My judgment now is that he was vacillating and undecided in his actions. All the disasters in Kentucky and Tennessee were so discouraging to the authorities in Richmond that Jefferson Davis wrote an unofficial letter to Johnston expressing his own anxiety and that of the public and saying that he had made such defense as was dictated by long friendship but that in the absence of a report he needed facts. The letter was not a reprimand in direct terms, but it was evidently as much felt as though it had been one. General Johnston raised another army as rapidly as he could and fortified or strongly entrenched at Corinth. He knew the national troops were preparing to attack him in his chosen position, but he had evidently became so disturbed at the results of his operations that he resolved to strike out in an offensive campaign which would restore all that was lost and, if successful, accomplish still more. We have the authority of his son and biographer for saying that his plan was to attack the forces at Shiloh and crush them, then to cross the Tennessee and destroy the army of Bewell and push the war across the Ohio River. The design was a bold one, but we have the same authority for saying that in the execution Johnston showed vacillation and indecision. He left Corinth on the 2nd of April and was not ready to attack until the 6th. The distance his army had to march was less than twenty miles. Beauregard, his second-in-command, was opposed to the attack for two reasons. First, he thought if left alone the national troops would attack the Confederates in their entrenchments. Second, we were in ground of our own choosing and wouldn't necessarily be entrenched. Johnston not only listened to the objection of Beauregard to an attack, but held a council of war on the subject on the morning of the 5th. On the evening of the same day he was in consultation with some of his generals on the same subject and still again on the morning of the 6th. During this last consultation and before a decision had been reached the battle began by the national troops opening fire on the enemy. This seemed to settle the question as to whether there was to be any battle of Shiloh. It also seems to me to settle the question as to whether there was a surprise. I do not question the personal courage of General Johnston or his ability, but he did not win the distinction predicted for him by many of his friends. He did prove that as a general he was overestimated. General Beauregard was next in rank to Johnston and succeeded to the command which he retained to the close of the battle and during the subsequent retreat on Corinth as well as in the siege of that place. His tactics have been severely criticized by Confederate writers, but I do not believe his fallen chief could have done any better under the circumstances. Some of these critics claim that Shiloh was one when Johnston fell and that if he had not fallen the army under me would have been annihilated or captured. Ifs defeated the Confederates at Shiloh. There is little doubt that we would have been disgracefully beaten if all the shells and bullets fired by us had passed harmlessly over the enemy and if all of theirs had taken effect. Commanding generals are liable to be killed during engagements and the fact that when he was shot Johnston was leading a brigade to induce it to make a charge which had been repeatedly ordered is evidence that there was neither the universal demoralization on our side nor the unbounded confidence on theirs which has been claimed. There was, in fact, no hour during the day when I doubted the eventual defeat of the enemy although I was disappointed that reinforcement so near at hand did not arrive at an earlier hour. The description of the Battle of Shiloh given by Colonel William Preston Johnston is very graphic and well told. The reader will imagine that he can see each blow struck, a demoralized and broken mob of Union soldiers each blow sending the enemy more demoralized than ever towards the Tennessee River, which was a little more than two miles away at the beginning of the onset. If the reader does not stop to inquire why, with such confederate successes for more than twelve hours of hard fighting, the national troops were not all killed, captured or driven into the river. He will regard the pin picture as perfect. But I witnessed the fight from the national side from eight o'clock in the morning until night closed the contest. I see but little in the description that I can recognize. The confederate troops fought well and deserved commendation enough for their bravery and endurance on the sixth of April without detracting from their antagonists or claiming anything more than their just dues. The reports of the enemy show that their condition at the end of the first day was deplorable. Their losses in killed and wounded had been very heavy, and their stragglers had been quite as numerous as on the national side with the difference that those of the enemy left the field entirely and were not brought back to their respective commands for many days. On the Union side, but few of the stragglers fell back further than the landing on the river, and many of these were in line for duty on the second day. The admissions of the highest confederate officers engaged at Shiloh make the claim of a victory for them absurd. The victory was not to either party until the battle was over. It was then a Union victory in which the armies of the Tennessee and the Ohio both participated. But the army of the Tennessee fought the entire rebel army on the sixth and held it at bay until near night, and night alone closed the conflict and not the three regiments of Nelson's division. The confederates fought with courage at Shiloh. But the particular skill claimed I could not and still cannot see, though there is nothing to criticize except the claims put forward for it since. But the confederate claimants for superiority in strategy, superiority in general ship and superiority in dash and prowess are not so unjust to the Union troops engaged at Shiloh as are many northern riders. The troops on both sides were American, and united they need not fear any foreign foe. It is possible that the southern man started in with a little more dash than his northern brother, but he was correspondingly less enduring. The endeavor of the enemy on the first day was simply to hurl their men against ours, first at one point, then at another, sometimes at several points at once. This they did with daring and energy until at night the rebel troops were worn out. Our effort during the same time was to be prepared to resist assaults wherever made. The object of the confederates on the second day was to get away with as much of their army and material as possible. Our is then was to drive them from our front and to capture or destroy as great a part as possible of their men and material. We were successful in driving them back, but not so successful in captures as if further pursuit could have been made. As it was, we captured or recaptured on the second day about as much artillery as we lost on the first, and leaving out the one great capture apprentice we took more prisoners on Monday than the enemy gained from us on Sunday. On the sixth Sherman lost seven pieces of artillery, McLernden six, Prentice eight, and Hurlbut two batteries. On the seventh Sherman captured seven guns, McLernden three, and the army of the Ohio twenty. At Shiloh the effective strength of the Union forces on the morning of the sixth was thirty-three thousand men. Lou Wallace brought five thousand more after nightfall. Beauregard reported the enemy's strength at forty thousand nine hundred and fifty-five. According to the custom of enumeration in the south this number probably excluded every man enlisted as musician or detailed as guard or nurse and all commissioned officers, everybody who did not carry a musket or survey cannon. With us everybody in the field receiving pay from the government is counted. Excluding the troops who fled, panic stricken before they had fired a shot, there was not a time during the sixth when we had more than twenty-five thousand men in line. On the seventh Beauregard brought twenty thousand more. Of his remaining two divisions, Thomas's did not reach the field during the engagement. Woods arrived before firing at cease but not in time to be of much service. Our loss in the two days fight was one thousand seven hundred fifty-four killed, eight thousand four hundred eight wounded, and two thousand eight hundred eighty-five missing. Of these two thousand one hundred three were in the army of the Ohio. Beauregard reported a total loss of ten thousand six hundred ninety-nine of whom one thousand seven hundred twenty-eight were killed, eight thousand twelve wounded, and nine hundred and fifty-seven missing. This estimate must be incorrect. We buried, by actual count, more of the enemies dead in front of the divisions of McLernden and Sherman alone than here reported, and four thousand was the estimate of the burial parties of the whole field. Beauregard reports the Confederate force on the sixth at over forty thousand, and their total loss during the two days at ten thousand six hundred ninety-nine and at the same time declares that he could put only twenty thousand men in battle on the morning of the seventh. The Navy gave a hearty support to the army at Shiloh, as indeed it always did both before and subsequently when I was in command. The nature of the ground was such, however, that on this occasion it could do nothing in aid of the troops until sundown on the first day. The country was broken and heavily timbered, cutting off all view of the battle from the river, so that friends would be as much in danger from fire from the gun boats as the foe. But about sundown when the national troops were back in their last position, the right of the enemy was near the river and exposed to the fire of the two gun boats, which was delivered with vigor and effect. After nightfall when firing had entirely ceased on land, the commander of the fleet informed himself approximately of the position of our troops and suggested the idea of dropping a shell within the lines of the enemy every fifteen minutes during the night. This was done with effect, as is proved by the Confederate reports. Up to the battle of Shiloh I, as well as thousands of other citizens believed that the rebellion against the government would collapse suddenly and soon if a decisive victory could be gained over any of its armies. Donaldson and Henry were such victories. An army of more than twenty-one thousand men was captured or destroyed. Bowling Green, Columbus and Hickman, Kentucky, fell in consequence in Clarksville and Nashville, Tennessee, the last two with an immense amount of stores also fell into our hands. The Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers from their mouths to the head of navigation were secured. But when Confederate armies were collected, which only attempted to hold a line further south from Memphis to Chattanooga, Knoxville and on to the Atlantic, but assumed the offensive and made such a gallant effort to regain what had been lost, then indeed I gave up all idea of saving the Union except by complete conquest. Up to that time it had been the policy of our army, certainly of that portion commanded by me, to protect the property of the citizens whose territory was invaded without regard to their sentiments for their Union or cessation. After this, however, I regarded it as humane to both sides to protect the persons of those found at their homes but to consume everything that could be used to support or supply armies. Protection was still continued over such supplies as were within lines held by us in which we expected to continue to hold. But such supplies within the reach of Confederate armies are regarded as much contraband as arms or ordnance stores. Their destruction was accomplished without bloodshed and tended to the same result as the destruction of armies. I continued this policy to the close of the war. Promiscuous pillage, however, was discouraged and punished. Instructions were always given to take provisions and forage under the direction of commissioned officers who should give receipts to owners if at home and turn the property over to officers of the quartermaster or commissary departments to be issued as if furnished from our northern depots. But much was destroyed without receipts to owners when it could not be brought within our lines and would otherwise have gone to the support of cessation and rebellion. This policy, I believe, exercised a material influence in hastening the end. The Battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburgh Landing, has been perhaps less understood or to state the case more accurately, more persistently misunderstood in any other engagement between national and Confederate troops during the entire rebellion. Correct reports of the battle have been published, notably by Sherman, Badot, and in a speech before a meeting of veterans by General Prentice. But all of these appeared long subsequent to the close of the rebellion and after public opinion had been most erroneously formed. I myself made no report to General Halleck further than was contained in a letter written immediately after the battle informing him that an engagement had been fought and announcing the result. A few days afterwards General Halleck moved his headquarters to Pittsburgh Landing and assumed command of the troops in the field. Although next to him in rank and nominally in command of my old district and army, I was ignored as much as if I had been at the most distant point of territory within my jurisdiction, and although I was in command of all the troops engaged at Shiloh, I was not permitted to see one of the reports of General Bewell or his subordinates in that battle until they were published by the War Department long after the event. For this reason I never made a full official report of this engagement. Recording by Jim Clevenger, Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant by Ulysses S. Grant, Chapter 26, Halleck assumes command in the field, the advance upon Corinth, occupation of Corinth, the army separated. General Halleck arrived at Pittsburgh Landing on the 11th of April and immediately assumed command in the field. On the 21st General Pope arrived with an army of 30,000 strong, fresh from the capture of island number 10 in the Mississippi River. He went into camp at Hamburg Landing five miles above Pittsburgh. Halleck had now three armies, the Army of the Ohio, Bewell commanding, the Army of the Mississippi Pope commanding and the Army of the Tennessee. His orders divided the combined force into the right wing, reserve, center and left wing. Major General George H. Thomas, who had been in Bewell's army, was transferred with his division to the Army of the Tennessee and given command of the right wing composed of all of that army except McClendon's and Lou Wallace's divisions. McClendon was assigned to the command of the reserve, composed of his own and Lou Wallace's divisions. Bewell commanded the center, the Army of the Ohio, and Pope the left wing, the Army of the Mississippi. I was named second in command of the whole and was also supposed to be in command of the right wing and reserve. Orders were given to all the commanders engaged at Shiloh to send in their reports without delay to department headquarters. Those from officers of the Army of the Tennessee were sent through me, but from the Army of the Ohio they were sent by General Bewell without passing through my hands. General Halleck ordered me, verbally, to send in my report, but I positively declined on the ground that he had received the reports of a part of the Army engaged at Shiloh without their coming through me. He admitted that my refusal was justifiable under the circumstances, but explained that he had wanted to get the reports off before moving the command, and as fast as a report had come to him he had forwarded it to Washington. Preparations were at once made upon the arrival of the new commander for an advance on Corinth. Al Creek, on our right, was bridged and expeditions were sent to the northwest and west to ascertain if our position was being threatened from those commanders. The roads towards Corinth were corduroyed and new ones made. Lateral roads were also constructed so that in case of necessity, troops marching by different routes could reinforce each other. All commanders were cautioned against bringing on an engagement and informed in so many words that it would be better to retreat than to fight. By the 30th of April all preparations were complete. The country west to the Mobile and Ohio Railroad had been reconnoitered as well as the road to Corinth as far as Monterey, 12 miles from Pittsburgh, everywhere small bodies of the enemy had been encountered, but they were observers and not in force to fight battles. Corinth, Mississippi lies in a southwestern direction from Pittsburgh landing and about 19 miles away as the bird would fly, but probably 22 by the nearest wagon road. It is about four miles south of the line dividing the states of Tennessee and Mississippi and at the junction of the Mississippi and Chattanooga Railroad with the Mobile and Ohio Road which runs from Columbus to Mobile. From Pittsburgh to Corinth the land is rolling, but at no point reaching an elevation that makes high hills to pass over. In 1862 the greater part of the country was covered with forest with intervening clarrings and houses. Underbrush was dense in the low grounds, along the creeks and ravines, but generally not so thick on the high land as to prevent men passing through with ease. There are two small creeks running from north of the town and connecting some four miles south where they form Bridge Creek which empties into the Tuscumbia River. Corinth is on the ridge between these streams and is a naturally strong defensive position. The creeks are insignificant in volume of water, but the stream to the east widens out in front of the town into a swamp impassable in the presence of an enemy. On the crest of the west bank of this stream the enemy was strongly entrenched. Corinth was a valuable strategic point for the enemy to hold and consequently a valuable one for us to possess ourselves of. We ought to have seized it immediately after the fall of Donaldson and Nashville when it could have been taken without a battle, but failing then it should have been taken without delay on the concentration of troops at Pittsburgh Landing after the Battle of Shiloh. In fact the arrival of Pope should not have been awaited. There was no time from the Battle of Shiloh up to the evacuation of Corinth when the enemy would not have left if pushed the demoralization among the Confederates from their defeats at Henry and Donaldson, their long marches from Bolingreen, Columbus and Nashville and their failure at Shiloh. In fact from having been driven out of Kentucky and Tennessee was so great that a stand for the time would have been impossible. Beauregard made strenuous efforts to reinforce himself and partially succeeded. He appealed to the people of the southwest for new regiments and received a few. A.S. Johnston had made efforts to reinforce in the same quarter before the Battle of Shiloh, but in a different way. He had Negroes sent out to him to take the place of teamsters, company cooks and laborers in every capacity so as to put all his white men into the ranks. The people, while willing to send their sons to the field, were not willing to part with their Negroes. It is only fair to state that they probably wanted their blacks to raise supplies for the army and for the families left at home. Beauregard however was reinforced by Van Dorn immediately after Shiloh with 17,000 men. Interior points, less exposed, were also depleted to add to the strength at Corinth. With these reinforcements and the new regiments Beauregard had, during the month of May 1862, a large force on paper, but probably not much over 50,000 effective men. We estimated his strength at 70,000. Our own was, in round numbers, 120,000. The defensible nature of the ground at Corinth and the fortifications made 50,000 then enough to maintain their position against double that number for an indefinite time, but for the demoralization spoken of. On the 30th of April, the Grand Army commenced its advance from Shiloh upon Corinth. The movement was a siege from the start to the close. The national troops were always behind entrenchments, except of course the small reconnoitering parties sent to the front to clear the way for an advance. Even the commanders of these parties were cautioned, not to bring on an engagement. It is better to retreat than to fight. The enemy were constantly watching our advance, but as they were simply observers there were but few engagements that even threatened to become battles. All the engagements thought ought to have served to encourage the enemy. Roads were again made in our front and again corduroyed. A line was entrenched and the troops were advanced to the new position. Crossroads were constructed to these new positions to enable the troops to concentrate in case of attack. The national armies were thoroughly entrenched all the way from the Tennessee River to Corinth. For myself, I was little more than an observer. Orders were sent direct to the right wing or reserve, ignoring me, and advances were made from one line of entrenchments to another without notifying me. My position was so embarrassing, in fact, that I made several applications during the siege to be relieved. General Halleck kept his headquarters generally, if not all the time, with the right wing. Pope, being on the extreme left, did not see so much of his chief and consequently got loose, as it were, at times. On the 3rd of May he was at Seven Mile Creek with the main body of his command, but threw forward a division to Farmington within four miles of Corinth. His troops had quite a little engagement at Farmington on that day, but carried the place with considerable loss to the enemy. There would, then, have been no difficulty in advancing the center and right so as to form a new line well up to the enemy. But Pope was ordered back to conform with the general line. On the 8th of May he moved again, taking his whole force to Farmington, and pushed out two divisions close to the rebel line. Again he was ordered back. By the 4th of May the center and right wing reached Monterey twelve miles out. Their advance was slow from there, for they entrenched with every forward movement. The left wing moved up again on the 25th of May and entrenched itself close to the enemy. The creek with the marsh before described separated the two lines, skirmishers thirty feet apart could have maintained either line at this point. Our center and right were, at this time, extended so that the right of the right wing was probably five miles from Corinth and four from the works in their front. The creek, which was a formidable obstacle for either side to pass on our left, became a very slight obstacle on our right. Here the enemy occupied two positions. One of them, as much as two miles out from the main line, was on a commanding elevation and defended by an entrenched battery with infantry supports. A heavy wood intervened between this work and the national forces. In rear of the south there was a clearing extending a mile or more and south of this clearing a log house which had been loop-hold and was occupied by infantry. Sherman's division carried these two positions with some loss to himself but was probably greater to the enemy on the twenty-eighth of May and on that day the investment of Corinth was complete or as complete as it was ever made. Thomas's right now rested west of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. Pope's left commanded the Memphis and Charleston Railroad east of Corinth. Some days before I had suggested to the commanding-general that I thought if he would move the army of the Mississippi at night by the rear of the center and right ready to advance at daylight Pope would find no natural obstacle in his front and, I believe, no serious artificial one. The ground or works occupied by our left could be held by a thin picket line owing to the stream and swamp in front. To the right the troops would have a dry ridge to march over. I was silent so quickly that I felt that possibly I had suggested an unmilitary movement. Later, probably on the twenty-eighth of May, General Logan, whose command was then on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad said to me that the enemy had been evacuating for several days and that if allowed he could go into Corinth with his brigade. Trains of cars were heard coming in and going out of Corinth constantly. Some of the men who had been engaged in various capacities on railroads before the war claimed that they could tell by putting their ears to the rail not only which way the trains were moving but which trains were loaded and which were empty. They said loaded trains had been going out for several days and empty ones coming in. Subsequent events proved the correctness of their judgment. Beauregard published his orders for the evacuation of Corinth on the twenty-sixth of May and fixed the twenty-ninth for the departure of his troops. And on the thirtieth of May General Hallick had his whole army drawn up, prepared for battle and announced in orders that there was every indication that our left was to be attacked that morning. Corinth had already been evacuated and the national troops marched on and took possession without opposition. Everything had been destroyed or carried away. The Confederate commander had instructed his soldiers to cheer on the arrival of every train to create the impression among the Yankees that reinforcements were arriving. There was not a sick or wounded man left by the Confederates nor stores of any kind. Some ammunition had been blown up, not removed. But the trophies of war were a few Quaker guns, logs of about the diameter of ordinary cannon, mounted on wheels of wagons and pointed in the most threatening manner towards us. The possession of Corinth by the national troops was of strategic importance, but the victory was barren in every other particular. It was nearly bloodless. It is a question whether the morale of the Confederate troops engaged at Corinth was not improved by the immunity with which they were permitted to remove all public property and then withdraw themselves. On our side I know officers and men of the Army of the Tennessee and I presume the same is true of those of the other commands were disappointed at the result. They could not see how the mere occupation of places was to close the war while large and effective rebel armies existed. They believed that a well-directed attack would at least have partially destroyed the Army defending Corinth. For myself I am satisfied. That Corinth could have been captured in a two days' campaign commenced promptly on the arrival of reinforcements after the Battle of Shiloh. General Hallick at once commenced erecting fortifications around Corinth on a scale to indicate that this one point must be held if it took the whole national army to do it. All commanding points two or three miles to the south, southeast, and southwest were strongly fortified. It was expected, in case of necessity, to connect these forts by rifle pits. They were laid out on a scale that would have required one hundred thousand men to fully man them. It was probably thought that a final battle of the war would be fought at that point. These fortifications were never used. Immediately after the occupation of Corinth by the national troops General Pope was sent in pursuit of the retreating garrison and General Buell soon followed. Buell was the senior of the two generals and commanded the entire column. The pursuit was kept up for some thirty miles but did not result in the capture of any material of war or prisoners, unless a few stragglers who had fallen behind and were willing captives. On the tenth of June the pursuing column was all back at Corinth. The army of the Tennessee was not engaged in any of these movements. The Confederates were now driven out of West Tennessee and on the sixth of June after a well contested naval battle the national forces took possession of Memphis and held the Mississippi River from its source to that point. The railroad from Columbus to Corinth was at once put in good condition and held by us. We had garrisons at Donelson, Clarksville and Nashville on the Cumberland River and held the Tennessee River from its mouth to Eastport. New Orleans and Baton Rouge had fallen into the possession of the national forces so that now the Confederates at the West were narrowed down for all communication with Richmond to the single line of road running east from Vicksburg to dispossess them of this, therefore, became a matter of the first importance. The possession of the Mississippi by us from Memphis to Baton Rouge was also a most important object. It would be equal to the amputation of a limb in its weakening effects upon the enemy. After the capture of Corinth, a movable force of eighty thousand men, besides enough to hold all the territory acquired, could have been set in motion for the accomplishment of any great campaign for the suppression of the rebellion. In addition to this, fresh troops were being raised to swell the effective force. But the work of depletion commenced. Buell, with the Army of the Ohio, was sent east, following the line of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. This he was ordered to repair as he advanced, only to have it destroyed by small guerrilla bands or other troops as soon as he was out of the way. If he had been sent directly to Chattanooga as rapidly as he could march leaving two or three divisions along the line of the railroad from Nashville forward, he could have arrived with but little fighting and would have saved much of the loss of life which was afterwards incurred in gaining Chattanooga. Bragg would then not have had time to raise an army to contest the possession of Middle and East Tennessee and Kentucky. The battles of Stone River and Chickamauga would not necessarily have been fought. Burnside would not have been besieged in Knoxville without the power of helping himself or escaping. The battle of Chattanooga would not have been fought. These are the negative advantages if the term negative is applicable which would probably have resulted from prompt movements after Corinth fell into the possession of the national forces. The positive results might have been a bloodless advance to Atlanta, to Vicksburg, or to any other desired point south of Corinth in the interior of Mississippi. End of Section 26. Recording by Jim Clevenger, Little Rock, Arkansas. Jim at JOCCLEV.COM