River. Detached conflicts with the enemy had been fought by the small forces under Generals Price and McCulloch, but no definite result had followed. General Earl Van Dorn had been subsequently assigned to the command, and assumed it on January 29, 1862. General Curtis was then in command of the enemy's forces, numbering about twelve thousand men. He had harassed General Price on his retreat to Fayetteville, Arkansas, and then had fallen back to Sugar Creek, where he proposed to make a stand. Van Dorn, immediately on his arrival at the Confederate camps on Boston Mountain, prepared to attack Curtis. His first movement, however, was to intercept General Sigel, then at Bentonville with sixteen thousand men. The want of coöperation in Van Dorn's forces enabled Sigel to escape. Curtis thus concentrated his forces at Sugar Creek, and, instead of taking him in detail, Van Dorn was obliged to meet his entire army. By a circuitous route, he led Price's army against the enemy's rear, moving McCulloch against the right flank; but his progress was so slow and embarrassed, that the enemy heard of it in season to make his dispositions accordingly.

The battle of Elkhorn, or Pea Ridge, was fought on the morning of March 5th. Van Dorn reported his force to be fourteen thousand men, and Curtis puts his force at about ten thousand. Van Dorn, with Price's division, encountered Carr's division which had already advanced, but was driven back steadily and with heavy loss. Meanwhile, McCulloch's command met a division under Osterhaus, and, after a sharp, quick struggle, swept it away. Pushing forward through the shrub-oak, his wide-extended line met Sigel's, Asboth's, and Davis's divisions. Here on the rugged spurs of the hills ensued a fearful combat. In the crisis of the struggle, McCulloch, dashing forward to reconnoiter, fell a victim to a sharpshooter. Almost at the same moment, McIntosh, his second in command, fell while charging a battery of the enemy with a regiment of Texas cavalry. Without direction or leader, the shattered lines of our forces left the field to rally, after a wide circuit, on Price's division. When Van Dorn heard of this misfortune, he urged his attack, pressing back the enemy until night closed the bloody

1862]

THE ENEMY WAS BADLY CRIPPLED.

51

combat. Van Dorn's headquarters were then at Elkhorn Tavern, where the enemy's headquarters had been in the morning. Each army was now on its opponent's line of communication. Van Dorn found his troops much disorganized and exhausted, short of ammunition, and without food, and made his arrangements to retreat. The wagon-trains and all the men not effective for the coming battle were started by a circuitous route for Van Buren. The effectives remained to cover the retreat. The battle was renewed at 7 A. M., and raged until 10 A. M. The gallant General Henry Little had the covering line with his own and Rives's Missouri brigades; this stout rear-guard holding off the whole army of the enemy. The trains, artillery, and most of the army were by that time well on the road. The order was given to the Missourians to withdraw, and "the gallant fellows faced about with cheers" retired steadily, and encamped ten miles from the battle-field at three o'clock. There was no real pursuit. The attack had failed. Van Dorn put his loss at six hundred killed and wounded, and two hundred prisoners. Curtis reported his loss at two hundred and three killed, nine hundred and seventy-two wounded, and a hundred and seventy-six missing-total, thirteen hundred and fifty-one.*

The object of Van Dorn had been to effect a diversion in behalf of General Johnston. This failed; but the enemy was badly crippled, and soon fell back to Missouri, of which he still retained possession.

General Van Dorn was now ordered to join General Johnston by the quickest route. Yet only one of his regiments arrived in time to be present at the battle of Shiloh. As has been already stated, General Beauregard left Nashville on February 14th to take charge in West Tennessee, and made his headquarters at Jackson, Tennessee, on February 17th. He was somewhat prostrated by sickness, which partially disabled him through the campaign. The two grand divisions of his army were commanded by the able Generals Bragg and Polk. On March 26th he permanently removed to Corinth. Under his orders the evacuation of Columbus by General Polk, and the establishment of a new line resting on New Madrid, Island No. 10,

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* "The Life of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston," by his son.

and Humboldt, was completed. On March 2d Brigadier-General J. P. McCown, an "old army" officer, was assigned to the command of Island No. 10, forty miles below Columbus, whither he removed his division. A. P. Stewart's brigade was sent to New Madrid. At these points some seven thousand troops were assembled, and the remainder marched under General Cheatham to Union City. General Polk says:

"In five days we moved the accumulations of six months, taking with us all our commissary and quartermaster's stores-an amount sufficient to supply my whole command for eight months -all our powder and other ammunition and ordnance stores, excepting a few shot, and gun-carriages, and every heavy gun in the fort, except two thirty-two pounders and three carronades in a remote outwork, which had been rendered useless."

The movement of the enemy up the Tennessee River commenced on March 10th. General C. F. Smith led the advance, with a new division under General Sherman. On the 13th Smith assembled four divisions at Savannah, on the west bank of the Tennessee, at the Great Bend. The ultimate design was to mass the forces of Grant and Buell against our army at Corinth. Buell was still in the occupation of Nashville. On the 16th Sherman disembarked at Pittsburg Landing, and made a reconnaissance to Monterey, nearly half-way to Corinth. On the next day General Grant took command. Two more divisions were added, and he assembled his army near Pittsburg Landing, which was the most advantageous base for a movement against Corinth. Here it lay inactive until the battle of Shiloh.

The Tennessee flows northwest for some distance, until, a little west of Hamburg, it takes its final bend to the north. Here two small streams, Owl and Lick Creeks, flowing nearly parallel, somewhat north of east, from three to five miles apart, empty into the Tennessee. Owl Creek forms the northern limit of the ridge, which Lick Creek bounds on the south. These streams, rising some ten or twelve miles back, toward Corinth, were bordered near their mouths by swamps filled with backwater from the Tennessee, and impassable except where the roads crossed them.

The inclosed space is a rolling table-land, about one hundred feet above the river-level, with its water-shed lying near Lick Creek, and either slope broken by deep and frequent ravines draining into the two streams. The acclivities were covered with forests, and often thick set with undergrowth. Pittsburg Landing, containing three or four log-cabins, was situated about midway between the mouths of the creeks, in the narrow morass that borders the Tennessee. It was three or four miles below Hamburg, six or seven above Savannah, the depot of the enemy on the right bank, and twenty-two miles from Corinth. Thus the position of the enemy was naturally strong. With few and difficult approaches, guarded on either flank by impassable streams and morasses, protected by a succession of ravines and acclivities, commanded by eminences to the rear, it seemed safe against attack, and easy to defend. No defensive works were

constructed.

CHAPTER XVIII.

General Buell's March.-Object of General Johnston.-His Force.-Advance from Corinth.-Line of Battle.-Telegram.-The Time of the Battle of Shiloh.-Results of the First Day's Battle.-One Encampment not taken.-Effects.-Reports on this Failure.-Death of General Johnston.-Remarks.

GENERAL BUELL, who was to make a junction with General Grant, deemed it best that his army should march through by land, as it would facilitate the occupation of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad through north Alabama, where General Mitchell had been assigned. Accordingly, Buell commenced his march from Nashville on March 15th, with a rapid movement of cavalry, followed by a division of infantry, to seize the bridges. The bridge over Duck River being destroyed, it was the 31st before his army crossed. His advance arrived at Savannah on Saturday, April 5th, and our attack on Grant at Pittsburg Landing was made on the next day, the 6th of April. The advance of General Buell anticipated his orders by two days, and likewise the calculations of our commanders.

It had been the object of General Johnston, since falling back from Nashville, to concentrate his army at Corinth, and fight the enemy in detail-Grant first, and Buell afterward. The army of General Polk had been drawn back from Columbus. The War Department ordered General Bragg from Pensacola, with his well-disciplined army, to the aid of Johnston. A brigade was sent by General Lovell from Louisiana, and Chalmers and Walker were already on the line of the Memphis and Charleston road with considerable commands. These forces collected at Corinth, and to them were added such new levies as the Governors had in rendezvous, and a few regiments raised in response to General Beauregard's call. General Bragg, in a sketch of the battle of Shiloh, thus speaks of General Johnston's army:

"In a period of four weeks, fragments of commands from Bowling Green, Kentucky, under Hardee; Columbus, Kentucky, under Polk; and Pensacola, Mobile, and New Orleans, under