A drenching rain set in during the night, in the midst of which the troops of General Buell arrived. He had reached Savannah on the evening of the 5th, General Nelson leading the advance. On the morning of the 6th, the firing in the direction of Pittsburg was heard, and Buell sent orders for the division in the rear to leave the trains and hurry forward. Nelson was ordered at half-past one o'clock to leave his guns to be carried in steamboats, the roads being impracticable for artillery, and to march the men opposite Pittsburg Landing, where General Buell himself arrived late on the 6th.

During the night of the 6th the division of Nelson crossed the river, and took position on the Union left. It was followed by the divisions of Generals T. L. Crittenden and McCook, which were posted on the left centre and centre, while the troops which had participated in the battle of the 6th occupied the right centre and right. The extreme right was held by General Lewis Wallace's Division, which also arrived on the night of the 6th. The last-named general opened the action at an early hour on the 7th, by shelling some rebel batteries in his immediate front, and under cover of his fire the whole right wing advanced some distance. The fighting was by no means so severe as on the preceding day, but the enemy, nevertheless, made some desperate efforts on either wing to maintain the ground they had gained. At one time Wallace was so hard pressed that he was obliged to send to Sherman for aid. Finally, however, the rebels on this part of the line were pushed back beyond the position they had held on the night of the 5th, and retreated from the hard-fought field. On the left the contest was more severe. Nelson's Division was first engaged, and advanced so rapidly as to expose its right flank, which forced him to retire until re-enforced by Boyle's Brigade, of Crittenden's Division, when he again moved forward, and drove back the enemy, capturing some of their guns, and occupying the rising ground in the front. On the right of Nelson came up Crittenden. Between eight and nine o'clock, while keeping Smith's Brigade on his left up even with Nelson's flank, and joining Boyle's Brigade to McCook on the right, in the grand advance, Crittenden came upon the enemy with a battery in position, and well supported. Smith dashed his brigade forward, and for a short time there was close work with musketry, until the rebels fled, leaving us three pieces-a twelvepound howitzer and two brass six-pounders. For half an hour the storm raged around these captured guns. Then came the returning rebel wave that had hurled Nelson back. Crittenden, too, caught its full force. The rebels swept up to the battery, and down after our retreating column. But the two brigades, like those of Nelson to their left, took a fresh position, faced the foe, and held their ground. Mendenhall's and Bartlett's Batteries now began shelling the rebel infantry, which paused, and finally fell back. A gallant charge secured the contested battery, while the rebels retreated towards the left. Smith and Boyle holding the infantry well in hand, Mendenhall again got their range, and poured in shell on the new position. The enemy's line now commenced a retrograde movement, which both Nelson and Crittenden vigorously pushed. The brigade of

Wood arrived soon after, and joined in the pursuit, and the left was safe.

Meantime, McCook, in the centre, after a fierce fight with the opposing foe, had driven him to the woods. As Buell's fresh troops successively arrived upon the left and centre, the enemy, whose reserves were exhausted, commenced, about two o'clock, a general retreat. At a distance of eight hundred yards he made a stand and opened with his artillery, but, being pushed by Crittenden, retired with the loss of a battery. The rear-guard of the enemy, under Breckinridge, held, on the night of the 7th, during a severe rain, the ground occupied by him on the night of the 5th. On the 8th, General Sherman started in pursuit, and succeeded in routing a body of rebel cavalry, whose camp he captured, with a quantity of ammunition. The line of retreat was found to be strewn with small-arms, clothing, and accoutrements. The constant rains had made the roads nearly impassable, and the pursuit, in consequence, soon terminated. The official report of General Beauregard placed his loss at one thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight killed, eight thousand and twelve wounded, and nine hundred and fifty-nine missing; total, ten thousand six hundred and ninety-nine. His forces did not retain any of the material captured on Sunday, except that the men who were badly armed exchanged their weapons for the superior rifles found on the battle-field. The Union loss of cannon on the 6th was about balanced by their captures on the 7th. The Union loss in the two days' fighting was reported as follows:

On the 9th, General Beauregard sent a flag to General Grant for permission to bury the dead on the camp-ground captured on Sunday. General Grant replied that he had already caused the dead of both parties to be buried. The number so buried was about three thousand, out of three thousand three hundred and forty-two reported killed on both sides.

Much hostile criticism has been expended on General Grant by illinformed or unfriendly persons, for his management of the battle of April 6th. Without going into any inquiry of the facts of the case, it may be sufficient here to say, that General W. T. Sherman, who bore so distinguished a part in the contest, voluntarily published, two years after the battle, a statement vindicating General Grant from all charges of negligence, incompetency, and other improper conduct. From this it appears that the latter, far from admitting that he had been defeated, had actually made preparations to renew the attack on the 7th, before intelligence reached him of the arrival of Buell's advance. On the other hand, Generals Grant and Halleck speak in the strongest terms of the services rendered by General Sherman on the 6th, the former stating that it was to his individual efforts he was indebted for the success of that battle.

*

While these events were taking place on the Tennessee River, General Mitchel had occupied Shelbyville, Tennessee, and moved upon the line of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad with great rapidity and success. Colonel Turchin's brigade of infantry, with Kennett's cavalry, marched twenty-five miles over a broken road in fourteen hours, and entered Huntsville on the night of the 11th, capturing many locomotives, and two siege-guns. Huntsville is an important point on the line of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, and one of the most beautiful cities of Alabama. Among the papers captured by Mitchel at this place was the following from Beauregard:

"General SAMUEL COOPER, Richmond, Virginia:

“CORINTH, April 9.

"All present probabilities are that whenever the enemy moves on this position, he will do so with an overwhelming force of not less than eighty-five thousand men. We can now muster only about thirty-five thousand effective men; Van Dorn may possibly join us in a few days with fifteen thousand more. Can we not be re-enforced from Pemberton's army? If defeated here, we lose the Mississippi Valley, and probably our cause; whereas we could even afford to lose for a while Charleston and Savannah, for the purpose of defeating Buell's army, which would not only insure us the Valley of the Mississippi, but our independence. P. G. BEAUREGARD."

Two expeditions were dispatched soon afterwards from Huntsville, one of which, under Colonel Sill, of the Thirty-second Ohio, went east to Stevenson, Alabama, the junction of the Chattanooga with the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, where he captured two thousand of the enemy without firing a shot. Colonel Sill also captured five locomotives and a large amount of rolling stock. The other expedition, under Colonel Turchin, went west, and arrived at Decatur in time to save

Ormsby McKnight Mitchel was a native of Kentucky, and graduated at West Point in 1829. On the 30th day of August, 1829, he was appointed assistant professor of mathematics at the Military Academy, which position he retained until the 28th of August, 1831. He resigned his military rank on the 30th day of September, 1832, and practised law in Cincinnati, from 1882 to 1834. He next became a professor of mathematics, philosophy, and astronomy, at the Cincinnati College, in Ohio, which position he held from 1884 to 1844. He became the founder and director of the observatory in Cincinnati in 1845, and edited and published a noted astronomical journal entitled the

Sidereal Messenger. From 1847 to 1948 he was adjutant-general of the State of Ohio, and in 1848 was appointed the chief engineer of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad. He was for some years connected with the Dudley Observatory at Albany as director, which position he held when, on the 9th of August, 1861, he was commissioned a brigadiergeneral of volunteers. He was then ordered to report to the commander of the new Department of the Ohio, which embraced his native State. His exploits at Huntsville procured for him, April 15th, the commission of major-general; and subsequently, he succeeded General Hunter in command at Port Royal, where he died of yellow fever.