phis and Charleston railroad from Corinth to Iuka. The effective total of this force was slightly over forty thousand men.*

It was determined with this force, which justified the offensive, to strike a sudden blow at the enemy, in position under Gen. Grant, on the west bank of the Tennessee River, at Pittsburg, and in the direction of Savannah, before he was reinforced by the army under Gen. Buell, then known to be advancing for that purpose, by rapid marches from Nashville. The great object was to anticipate the junction of the enemy's armies, then near at hand; and on the night of the 2d of April, it was decided that the attack should be attempted at once, incomplete and imperfect as were the preparations of the Confederates for such a grave and momentous adventure. The army had been brought suddenly together, and there had been many difficulties in the way of an effective organization.

The enemy was in position about a mile in advance of Shiloh churcha rude, log chapel, from which the battle that was to ensue took its name -with the right resting on Owl Creek and his left on Lick Creek. The army collected here was composed of the flower of the Federal troops, being principally Western men, from the States of Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Iowa.

It was expected by Gen. Beauregard that he would be able to reach the enemy's lines in time to attack him on the 5th of April. The men, however, for the most part, were unused to marching, the roads narrow, and traversing a densely-wooded country, which became almost impassable after a severe rain storm on the 4th, which drenched the troops in bivouac; hence the Confederate forces did not reach the intersection of the road from Pittsburg and Hamburg, in the immediate vicinity of the enemy, until late in the evening of the 5th; and it was then decided that the attack should be made on the next morning, at the earliest hour practicable.

The

The Confederate plan of battle was in three lines-the first and second extending from Owl Creek on the left to Lick Creek on the right, a distance of about three miles, supported by the third and the reserve. first line, under Major-Gen. Hardee, was constituted of his corps, augmented on his right by Gladden's brigade, of Major-Gen. Bragg's corps. The second line, composed of the other troops of Bragg's corps, followed

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the first at the distance of five hundred yards, in the same order as the first. The army corps under Gen. Polk followed the second line at the distance of about eight hundred yards, in lines of brigades, deployed with their batteries in rear of each brigade, moving by the Pittsburg road, the left wing supported by cavalry. The reserve, under Brig.-Gen. Breckinridge, following closely on the third line, in the same order, its right wing supported by cavalry.

In the early dawn of Sunday, the 6th of April, the magnificent array was moving forward for deadly conflict, passing easily through the thin ranks of the tall forest trees, which afforded open views on every side. But the enemy scarcely gave time to discuss the question of attack, for soon after dawn he commenced a rapid musketry fire on the Confederate pickets. The order was immediately given by the commanding General, and the Confederate lines advanced. Such was the ardour of the second line of troops, that it was with great difficulty they could be restrained from closing up and mingling with the first line. Within less than a mile, the enemy was encountered in force at the encampments of his advanced positions, but the first line of Confederates brushed him away, leaving the rear nothing to do but to press on in pursuit. In about one mile more, he was encountered in strong force along almost the entire line. His batteries were posted on eminences, with strong infantry supports. Finding the first line was now unequal to the work before it, being weakened by extension, and necessarily broken by the nature of the ground, Gen. Bragg ordered his whole force to move up steadily and promptly to its support.

From this time the battle raged with but little intermission. By halfpast ten o'clock the Confederates had already captured three large encampments, and three batteries of artillery. Their right flank, according to the order of battle, had pressed forward ardently, under the immediate direction of Gen. Johnston, and swept all before it. Batteries, encampments, storehouses, munitions in rich profusion, were captured; and the enemy was falling back rapidly at every point. His left, however, was his strongest ground and position, and was disputed with obstinacy.

Mile after mile the Confederates rushed on, sweeping the camps of the enemy before them. Gen. Johnston was in advance, before the troops of Breckinridge and Bowen. He had addressed them in a few brief words, and given the order to "Charge!" when, at two o'clock, a minie-ball pierced the calf of his right leg. He supposed it to be a flesh wound, and paid no attention to it; but the fact was that the ball had cut an artery, and as the doomed commander rode onward to victory, he was bleeding to death. Becoming faint from loss of blood, he turned to Gov. Harris, one of his volunteer aides, and remarked, "I fear I am mortally wounded." The next moment he reeled in his saddle and fainted. Gov. Harris received the falling commander in his arms, and bore him a short

distance from the field, into a ravine. Stimulants were speedily administered, but in vain. One of his staff, in a passion of grief, threw his arms around the beloved commander, and called aloud, to see if he would respond. But no sign or reply came, and in a moment or two more, he breathed his last.

Information of the fall of Gen. Johnston was not communicated to the army. It was still pressing on in its career of victory; and but little doubt remained of the fortunes of the day. As the descending sun warned. the Confederates to press their advantage, the command ran along the line, "Forward! let every order be forward!" Fairly in motion, they now swept all before them. Neither battery nor battalion could withstand their onslaught. Passing through camp after camp, rich in military spoils of every kind, the enemy was driven headlong from every position, and thrown in confused masses upon the river bank, behind his heavy artillery, and under cover of his gunboats at the landing. He was crowded in unorganized masses on the river bank, vainly striving to cross.

And now it might be supposed that a victory was to be accomplished such as had not before illustrated the fortunes of the Confederacy. The reserve line of the Federals was entirely gone. Their whole army was crowded into a circuit of half to two-thirds of a mile around the landing. They had been falling back all day. The next repulse would have put them into the river, and there were not transports enough to cross a single division before the Confederates would be upon them.

It is true that the broken fragments of Grant's army were covered by a battery of heavy guns well served, and two gunboats, which poured a heavy fire upon the supposed position of the Confederates, for they were entirely hid by the forest. But this fire, though terrific in sound, and producing some consternation at first, did no damage, as the shells all passed over, and exploded far beyond the Confederate position.

At last, the order was given to move forward at all points, and sweep the enemy from the field. The sun was about disappearing, so that little time was left to finish the glorious work of the day. The movement commenced with every prospect of success. But just at this time the astounding order was received from Gen. Beauregard to withdraw the forces beyond the enemy's fire! The action ceased.* The different commands, mixed and scattered, bivouacked at points most convenient to their posi

Of this abrupt termination to the business of the day, and the condition of the enemy at the time, a Confederate officer writes:

"From some cause I could never ascertain, a halt was sounded, and when the remnants of the enemy's divisions had stacked arms on the river's edge, preparatory to their surrender, no one stirred to finish the business by a coup de main. It was evidently drown or surrender' with them, and they had prepared for the latter, until, seeing our inactivity, their gunboats opened furiously, and, save a short cannonade, all subsided into quietness along our lines."

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tions, and beyond the range of the enemy's guns. All firing, except a half-hour shot from the gunboats, ceased, and the night was passed in quiet.

Of this extraordinary abandonment of a great victory-for it can scarcely be put in milder phrase-Gen. Beauregard gives, in his official report of the action, only this explanation: "Darkness was close at hand; officers and men were exhausted by a combat of over twelve hours without food, and jaded by the march of the preceding day through mud and water." But the true explanation is, that Gen. Beauregard was persuaded that delays had been encountered by Gen. Buell in his march from Columbia, and that his main force, therefore, could not reach the field of battle in time to save Gen. Grant's shattered fugitive forces from capture or destruction on the following day.

But in this calculation he made the great errour of his military life. When pursuit was called off, Buell's advance was already on the other side of the Tennessee. A body of cavalry was on its banks; it was the advance of the long-expected Federal reinforcements; an army of twenty-five thousand men was rapidly advancing to the opposite banks of the river to restore Grant's fortune, and to make him, next day, master of the situation. Alas! the story of Shiloh was to be that not only of another lost opportunity for the South, but one of a reversion of fortune, in which a splendid victory changed into something very like a defeat!

As night fell, a new misfortune was to overtake Gen. Beauregard. His forces exhibited a want of discipline and a disorder which he seems to have been unable to control; and with the exception of a few thousand disciplined troops held firmly in hand by Gen. Bragg, the whole army degenerated into bands of roving plunderers, intoxicated with victory, and scattered in a shameful hunt for the rich spoils of the battle-field. All during the night thousands were out in quest of plunder; hundreds were intoxicated with wines and liquors found; and while scenes of disorder and shouts of revelry arose around the large fires which had been kindled, and mingled with the groans of the wounded, Buell's forces were steadily crossing the river, and forming line of battle for the morrow.

About an hour after sunrise the action again commenced, and soon the battle raged with fury. The shattered regiments and brigades collected by Grant gave ground before our men, and for a moment it was thought that victory would crown our efforts a second time. On the left, however, and nearest to the point of arrival of his reinforcements, the enemy drove forward line after line of his fresh troops. In some places the Confederates repulsed them by unexampled feats of valor; but sheer exhaustion was hourly telling upon the men, and it soon became evident that numbers and strength would ultimately prevail. By noon Gen. Beauregard had necessarily disposed of the last of his reserves, and shortly thereafter

he determined to withdraw from the unequal conflict, securing such of the results of the victory of the day before as was then practicable.

As evidence of the condition of Beauregard's army, he had not been able to bring into the action of the second day more than twenty thousand men. In the first day's battle the Confederates engaged the divisions of Gen. Prentiss, Sherman, Hurlburt, McClernand and Smith, of 9,000 men each, or at least 45,000 men. This force was reinforced during the night by the divisions of Gens. Nelson, McCook, Crittenden, and Thomas, of Buell's army, some 25,000 strong, including all arms; also Gen. L. Wallace's division of Gen. Grant's army, making at least 33,000 fresh troops, which, added to the remnant of Gen. Grant's forces, amounting to 20,000, made an aggregate force of at least 53,000 men arrayed against the Confederates on the second day.

Against such an overwhelming force it was vain to contend. At 1 P. M. Gen. Beauregard ordered a retreat. Gen. Breckinridge was left with his command as a rear guard, to hold the ground the Confederates had occupied the night preceding the first battle, just in front of the intersection of the Pittsburg and Hamburg roads, about four miles from the former place, while the rest of the army passed in the rear, in excellent order. The fact that the enemy attempted no pursuit indicated his condition. He had been too sorely chastised to pursue; and Gen. Beauregard was left at leisure to retire to Corinth, in pursuance of his original design to make that the strategic point of his campaign.

The battle of Shiloh, properly extending through eighteen hours, was memorable for an extent of carnage up to this time unparalleled in the war. The Confederate loss, in the two days, in the killed outright, was 1,728, wounded 8,012, missing 957; making an aggregate of casualties 10,699. Of the loss of the enemy, Gen. Beauregard wrote: "Their casualties cannot have fallen many short of twenty thousand in killed, wounded, prisoners, and missing."

Gen. Beauregard was unwilling to admit that the experience of the second day had eclipsed the brilliant victory which he so unfortunately left unfinished on the banks of the Tennessee. He declared that he had left the field on the second day "only after eight hours' successive battle with a superiour army of fresh troops, whom he had repulsed in every attack upon his lines, so repulsed and crippled, indeed, as to leave it unable to take the field for the campaign for which it was collected and equipped at such enormous expense, and with such profusion of all the appliances of war." On the other hand, the North inscribed Shiloh as its most brilliant victory. An order of the War Departinent at Washington required that at meridian of the Sunday following the battle, at the head of every regiment in the armies of the United States there should be offered by its chaplain a prayer, giving "thanks to the Lord of Hosts for the