THE BATTLE OF SHILOH. 241 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. 9 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 cach, 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 Department 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 DEATH OF GEN. A. S. JOHNSTON. 243 recent manifestation of His power in the overthrow of the rebels and traitors." But whatever may be the correct estimation of the battle of Shiloh, there was one event of it which was a most serious loss to the Confederacy, and an occasion of popular sorrow in every part of it. This was the death of Gen. Albert Sydney Johnston, the man especially trusted with the Confederate fortunes in the West, esteemed by his Government as the military genius of his country, and so gifted by nature with dignity, and with power over men, that it was said he was born to command. This illustrious commander had already figured in many historical scenes, and up to the period of his death had led one of the most eventful and romantic military lives on the continent. He had served in the Black Hawk war. In the Texan war of independence, he entered her army as a private soldier Subsequently he was made senior brigadier-general of the Texan army and was appointed to succeed Gen. Felix Houston in the chief command. This led to a duel between them, in which Johnston was wounded. In 1838, he was chosen Secretary of War of the new Republic under President Lamar; and the following year he organized an expedition against the Cherokee Indians. He subsequently settled on a plantation in Texas, and for several years remained there, leading the quiet life of a planter. When the Mexican war broke out, he, once more, in 1846, and at the request of Gen. Taylor, resumed his profession of arms, and sought the battle-field. He arrived in Mexico shortly after the battles of Resaca and Palo-Alto, and was elected colonel of the first Texas regiment. After that regiment was discharged, he was appointed aide and inspector-general to Gen. Butler; and in that capacity he was at the famous battle of Monterey, and, during the fight, his horse was three times shot under him. After the Mexican war, he obtained the appointment of paymaster of the regular army, with the rank of major. When the army was increased by four new regiments, Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, gave him command of the Second Cavalry, with his headquarters at San Antonio, Texas. In the latter part of 1857, he was appointed by President Buchanan to the command of the Utah expedition, sent to quell the Mormons. In. the spring of 1858, he crossed the plains, and arrived at Salt Lake City, where, in consequence of his services, he was brevetted brigadier-general, and full commander of the military district of Utah. He was subsequently sent to California, and assumed command of the Department of the Pacific. There the commencement of the war found him; and on learning of the secession of his adopted State, Texas, he resigned his position in the United States army, and at once prepared to remove South, to espouse the cause of the Confederacy. The Federal authorities had to intercept his passage by sea. taken measures to arrest him, or, at least, But he eluded their vigilance by taking the overland route. With three or four companions, increased afterwards to one hundred, on mules, he proceeded by way of Arizona, passed through Texas, and arrived at New Orleans in safety. This was in August, 1861, and, immediately proceeding to Richmond, he was assigned to the command of the Department of the Mississippi. In the early part of the western campaign, Gen. Johnston had fallen under the censure of the newspapers. It has been said that this censure preyed upon his mind; but if it did, he thought very nobly of it, for in a private letter, dated after the retreat from Bowling Green, and the fall of Fort Donelson, he wrote: "The test of merit, in my profession, with the people, is success. It is a hard rule, but I think it right." But a few days before the battle in which he fell, he expressed a resolution to redeem his losses at no distant day. No more beautiful tribute could have been paid to the memory of the departed hero, than that made by Jefferson Davis himself; and no more choice and touching language ever came from the polished pen of the Confederate President, than on this occasion. He announced the death in a special message to Congress. He said: "Without doing injustice to the living, it may safely be said that our loss is irreparable. Among the shining hosts of the great and good who now cluster around the banner of our country, there exists no purer spirit, no more heroic soul, than that of the illustrious man whose death I join you in lamenting. In his death he has illustrated the character for which, through life, he was conspicuousthat of singleness of purpose and devotion to duty with his whole energies. Bent on obtaining the victory which he deemed essential to his country's cause, he rode on to the accomplishment of his object, forgetful of self, while his very life-blood was fast ebbing away. His last breath cheered his comrades on to victory. The last sound he heard was their shout of victory. His last thought was his country, and long and deeply will his country mourn his loss." The remains were carried to New Orleans. They were laid in state in the mayor's parlour, and the public admitted. The evidences of the public sorrow were most touching. Flowers, the testimonies of tender affection, encircled his coffin simply, but beautifully. And, attended by all the marks of unaffected grief, with gentle hands and weeping eyes moving softly around him, the great commander, with his sheathed sword still by his side, was borne to his final and eternal rest. CHAPTER XV. THE MILITARY SITUATION OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI.-THE FALL OF NEW ORLEANS.—A LONG TION OF THE DEFENCES OF NEW ORLEANS IN APRIL, 1862.-THE RIVER OBSTRUCTED BY A CRUELTY. 99 66 THE Confederate public had been disposed to find some consolation for the disaster at Island No. 10 in the brilliant, though unfruitful story of Shiloh. It was considered, too, that the river below Fort Pillow was safe; and that while the army at Corinth covered Memphis, and held the enemy in check on land, the rich and productive valley of the Lower Mississippi was yet secure to the Confederacy. But in the midst of these pleasing calculations and comparative re-assurance, a great disaster was to occur where it was least expected, which was |