THE BATTLE OF SHILOH.

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effort was repulsed with heavy loss. But the front attack was kept up sovigorously that, to prevent the success of these attempts to get on our flanks,the National troops were compelled several times to take positions to the rear,nearer Pittsburg Landing. When the firing ceased at night, the National linewas all of a mile in rear of the position it had occupied in the morning.

In one of the backward moves, on the 6th, the division commanded byGeneral Prentiss did not fall back with the others. This left his flanks exposed,and enabled the enemy to capture him, with about 2200 of his officers andmen. General Badeau gives 4 o’clock of the 6th as about the time this cap-ture took place. He may be right as to the time, but my recollection is thatthe hour was later. General Prentiss himself gave the hour as half-past five.I was with him, as I was with each of the division commanders that day,several times, and my recollection is that the last time I was with him wasabout half-past four, when his division was standing up firmly, and the gen-eral was as cool as if expecting victory. But no matter whether it was four orlater, the story that he and his command were surprised and captured in theircamps is without any foundation whatever. If it had been true, as currentlyreported at the time, and yet believed by thousands of people, that Prentissand his division had been captured in their beds, there would not have beenan all-day struggle with the loss of thousands killed and wounded on theConfederate side.

With the single exception of a few minutes after the capture of Prentiss,a continuous and unbroken line was maintained all day from Snake Creek orits tributaries on the right to Lick Creek or the Tennessee on the left, abovePittsburg. There was no hour during the day when there was not heavyfiring and generally hard fighting at some point on the line, but seldom at allpoints at the same time. It was a case of Southern dash against Northernpluck and endurance.

Three of the five divisions engaged on Sunday were entirely raw, andmany of the men had only received their arms on the way from their Statesto the field. Many of them had arrived but a day or two before, and werehardly able to load their muskets according to the manual. Their officerswere equally ignorant of their duties. Under these circumstances, it is notastonishing that many of the regiments broke at the first fire. In two cases,as I now remember, colonels led their regiments from the field on firsthearing the whistle of the enemy’s bullets. In these cases the colonels wereconstitutional cowai*ds, unfit for any military position. But not so the officersand men led out of danger by them. Better troops never went upon a battle-field than many of these officers and men afterward proved themselves to bewho fled panic-stricken at the first whistle of bullets and shell at Shiloh.

During the whole of Sunday I was continuously engaged in passing fromone part of the field to another, giving directions to division commanders.In thus moving along the line, however, I never deemed it important to staylong with Sherman. Although his troops were then under fire for the firsttime, their commander, by his constant presence with them, inspired a confi-dence in officers and men that enabled them to render services on that bloody