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GRANT'S ARMY AT PITTSBURG LANDING.

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contempt for the power or the prowess | pickets were scarcely a musket-shot

of their enemy; since our regiments, as they arrived, were mainly debarked at Pittsburg Landing, on the side of the Tennessee nearest to and within easy striking distance of the Rebel headquarters at Corinth. One of the six divisions, under Gen. Lew. Wallace, was encamped nearly opposite Savannah; the other five were thrown out in a semicircle southward of Pittsburg Landing, with a front like a Methodist camp-meeting, straggling from Lick creek on the south or left, to Snake creek on the north or right, a distance of some three or four miles. Gen. Prentiss's division was encamped across the direct road to Corinth, with Gen. McClernand's behind his right, and Gen. Sherman's still further to the right, with Shiloh church in his front, on a road leading also, but more circuitously, to Corinth. Gen. Hurlbut's division lay in the rear of Gen. Prentiss. Gen. Smith's division, commanded, because of Smith's sickness, by Gen. W. H. L. Wallace, was on the left of and behind McClernand, with its right near Pittsburg Landing and its front somewhat protected by the ravines of two rivulets running into Snake creek.

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from the tents of our foremost regiments; some of which, it was asserted, had not even been provided with ammunition, though it was known that the woods, scarcely a mile away, had suddenly been found swarming with Rebel scouts and sharp-shooters in such strength as to forbid observation on our part.55 Low but ominous whispers and meaning glances of exultation among the Rebel civilians in our rear had already given indications that a blow was about to be struck; and alarmed Unionists had sought the tents of our Generals with monitions of danger, which were received with sneering intimations that every one should stick to his trade. Gen. Grant was at Savannah, superintending the reception of supplies. Such was the condition of our forces on Saturday evening, April 5th.

Albert Sidney Johnston was probably the ablest commander at any time engaged in the Rebel service. He had braved unpopularity and reproach from the herd of chimneycorner critics who supposed it the duty of a General to run his head against every stone-wall within reach, by refusing to fight losing battles for Bowling Green and Nashville, and had thus brought off his army intact and undemoralized; retreating across the Tennessee and into a region at once undevastated and unappalled by war, full of resources, wherein devotion to the Union had been utterly suppressed, if not eradicated, and whence, by a net-work of railroads and tele

out throwing up a single breastwork or preparing a single protection for a battery, and with the brigades of one division [Sherman's} stretched from extreme right to extreme left of our line, while four other divisions had been crowded in between, as they arrived.”

graphs, he communicated easily with Richmond, and with every portion of the Cotton States. The recent evacuation of Columbus by Polk was probably ordered by him, in obedience to his policy of concentrating around Corinth the greatest possible force, with intent to rush upon and overwhelm the Union army, so carelessly encamped just before him on the hither bank of the Tennessee. Having a spy in nearly every dwelling in southern Tennessee, he was doubtless aware that the command of that army had just been turned over by Gen. C. F. Smith, an experienced and capable soldier, to Gen. Grant, so recently from civil life; and he had no doubt of his ability to accomplish its destruction. Calling urgently upon the Governors of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana, for all the troops they could spare or raise, and being strongly rëenforced by Gen. Braxton Bragg, with a drilled corps from Mobile and Pensacola," he had, by the 1st of April, collected an army of about 50,000." Moving silently out from Corinth, in light marching order and without tents, at 3 A. M., on the 3d, the advance of his infantry preceded and

56 About this time abandoned by the Rebels. 57 Beauregard, in his field return of the 'Army of the Mississippi,' before and after the battle of Shiloh, makes his effective total, before battle, 40,355 men, of whom 4,382 were cavalry, which he says was useless and could not operate at all, the battle-field being so thickly wooded.

But this return includes none of his troops left to guard his base at Corinth, or his trains in the rear of the battle-field, and conceals the fact that his cavalry were usefully employed in guarding, on their way to Corinth, his prisoners as well as his wounded. Beside, when he comes to sum up his losses, he states the loss of his cavalry at 301—rather inexplicable, if that cavalry was useless and unemployed.

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masked by cavalry, he confidently expected to attack in full force on the morning of the 5th; but a heavy rain on the 4th so deepened the mire of the narrow, wretched roads, that his army was by that time but fairly concentrated at Monterey, thence moving with the utmost caution until within three and a half miles of our pickets, where, unable to advance farther without braving discovery, he halted for the night. Here, with double guards along his front, instructed to shoot any man who, upon whatever pretext, should attempt to pass, a council of war was held at 8 P. M., and every preparation made for a stealthy and desperate assault at daybreak; while the soldiers, forbidden to make fires, sank on the cold, damp ground, under the open sky, and shivered through a part of the night. Each Colonel had orders to have his regiment under arms and ready to move by 3 A. M.

At early dawn, the advance was resumed in line of battle: Maj.-Gen. Hardee, with the 3d corps, in front, with the 2d, and strongest, under Gen. Bragg, 500 yards behind him; the 1st, under Gen. Polk, half a mile in the rear of this, with the reserve,

58 "An Impressed New-Yorker," who was then serving on Beauregard's staff, in his "Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army," says:

"While it is no part of my duty, in this narrative, to criticise military movements, and especially those of the Union forces, I may state that the total absence of cavalry pickets from Gen. Grant's army was a matter of perfect amazement to the Rebel officers. There were absolutely division was meeting him; so that we were able none on Grant's left, where Gen. Breckinridge's to come up within hearing of their drums entirely unperceived. The Southern Generals always kept cavalry pickets out for miles, even when no enemy was supposed to be within a Grant's forces were not above three-fourths of a day's march of them. The infantry pickets of mile from his advance camps, and they were too few to make any resistance."

THE REBEL ATTACK AT PITTSBURG LANDING.

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under Gen. John C. Breckinridge, | still alive, when we recovered those closely following. This order, how- tents next evening. ever, was soon sacrificed to the exigencies of the contest.

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Rumors of a Rebel advance, and the capture of some of our officers thereby, had reached our camps on Friday; and an Ohio brigade had been sent out to reconnoiter, which had a brush with a smaller Rebel force, and pushed it back to a battery which was found in position near our lines. Gen. Lew. Wallace's division was thereupon ordered out, and advanced to Adamsville, on the road to Purdy; but, meeting no opponent, after passing a night in drenching rain, it returned to its camp. On Saturday, there was firing along our front, which ought to have incited inquiry, if not alarm, but did not.

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As day broke, our pickets in Prentiss's front came rushing into camp, barely in advance of the pursuing Rebels, whose shells were tearing through our tents a moment afterward.

Thus was Prentiss's division routed before it had time to form in line of battle; and Hildebrand's brigade, on Sherman's right, was demolished with equal expedition, in spite of Sherman's best exertions. His ef forts and influence, backed by the most reckless self-exposure, held his remaining brigades, under Buckland and McDowell, steady for a time; but these were soon compelled to fall back behind the next ravine, leaving their camps, with all their tents and tent equipage, to the enemy.

McClernand's division, comprising 10 regiments and 4 batteries, had been astonished with the rest, but not yet directly assailed. Moving up, at 7 a. M., to the support of Sherman, it found his division mostly gone or going; its best officers killed or wounded, its batteries either captured or badly cut up. Buckland's brigade, which had gone after HildeSome of our men were dress- brand's, forming our extreme right ing; others washing or cooking; a on the front, had fallen back to avoid few eating their breakfasts; many, certain destruction. To all practical especially officers, had not yet risen. intents, and in spite of its leader's The next instant, magnificent lines desperate and untiring exertions, of battle poured out of the woods in Sherman's division was out of the front of our camps, and at double- fight by 8 o'clock that ominous mornquick rushed in upon our bewildered, ing. It seemed a miracle that their half-dressed, and not yet half-formed commander, always in the hottest of men, firing deadly volleys at close the Rebel fire, escaped with a single range, then springing upon the help-musket-ball through his hand. less, coatless, musketless mob with the bayonet. Some fell as they ran; others as they emerged from their tents, or as they strove to buckle on their accouterments; some tried to surrender; but the Rebels could not stop then to take prisoners. Some of these were found, though disabled, of a dense scrub-oak thicket in our

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Prentiss formed his division as quickly as possible, and not far in the rear of their camps, where his men faced to the front and fought stubbornly for a time; but they had been strangely drawn up in an open field, leaving to the enemy the cover

60 On Sunday, April 6.

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PRENTISS CAPTURED-McCLERNAND WORSTED.

McClernand for a while stood firm; but the defection of Sherman's division on one side, and Prentiss's on the other, left the Rebels free to hurl themselves against him in tremendous force. Two green regiments, the 15th and 16th Iowa, which he now brought to the front under a heavy fire, gave way at once in disorder. Changing his front to meet the Rebel onset, he faced along the Corinth road and planted his batteries to command it; so that the Rebels were for a time foiled in their efforts to advance; and an effort to come in on his rear, over ground abandoned by Sherman's division, was handsomely repulsed, with heavy mutual loss, by Dresser's rifled battery.

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hurried to the Rebel rear as prisoners, | grape, and the next rushed across the and soon started on the road to creek and began pouring in sharp volCorinth. leys of musketry, while the Rebel batteries, firing over the heads of their infantry, soon made our position untenable. Stuart fell back to the next ridge; and, finding the Rebels who had followed Prentiss beginning to come in on his right, sent to Gen. W. H. L.Wallace for assistance. Gen. McArthur's brigade was promptly dispatched to Stuart's support; but, bearing too much to the right, was soon sharply engaged with the pursuers of Prentiss. Falling back to a good position, he held it, though wounded, until Wallace came to his aid; but Stuart, receiving no direct support, was driven back from one ridge to another, until by noon, himself wounded, several of his officers fallen, and his command sadly shattered, he fell in behind McArthur to reorganize. And thus, of our six divisions, three had been thoroughly routed before mid-day.

But one division could not sustain the weight of more than half the Rebel army, admirably handled, and constantly advancing fresh regiments to replace those already blown or too badly cut up. After repulsing several determined attacks, sometimes advancing a little, but generally giving ground, and losing three Colonels of the line and three officers of his staff, with at least half the effective force of his batteries, McClernand, by 11 A. M., found himself pushed back, with Hurlbut's fresh division on his left, and the débris of Sherman's on his right.

Meantime, a brigade of Sherman's division, under Col. David Stuart, which had been oddly posted on our extreme left, holding what was known as the Hamburg road, had been suddenly shelled from the opposite bluffs of Lick creek, by a force which the next instant peppered them with

Gen. Grant had arrived on the battle-field about 8 A. M.; but, early as was the hour, his army was already beaten. As this, however, is a circumstance of which he is not easily convinced, it did not seem to make as vivid an impression on him as on others. Sending word to Lew. Wallace to hasten up with his division on our right, he devoted his personal attention to reforming his shattered brigades, rëestablishing his silenced batteries, and forming new lines of defense to replace those so suddenly demolished. Hurlbut's and W. H. L. Wallace's divisions were still intact; while of the others the better but not the larger part of those not already disabled fell into line on their flanks, or just behind them.

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