SHILOH REVIEWED.

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General McClernand , it will have been observed, ascribes the breaking upof his seventh position to a panic among the troops, but the other reportsshow a different reason. Colonel Veatch on McClernand ’s left says:

“ Our men were mucli encouraged by the strength of our position, and our fire was telling withterrible effect. Our forces were eager to advance and charge him [the enemy], when we weresurprised by his driving back the whole left wing of our army, and advancing close to our rearnear General Hurlbut’s headquarters. A dense mass of baggage wagons and artillery crowdedupon our ranks, while we were exposed to a heavy fire of the enemy both in front and rear.”

General Hurlbut thus describes the crisis at that stage of the battle:

“ I had hoped to make a stand on the line of my camp, but masses of the enemy were press-ing rapidly on each flank, while their light artillery was closing rapidly in the rear. On reach-ing the 24-pounder siege-guns in battery near the river, I again succeeded in forming line ofbattle in rear of the guns.”

We see here that there was a stern cause for the falling back. It was thetide of defeat and pursuit from the left wing of the army, and was compul-sory in the strictest sense. How fortunate that it did not set in an hourearlier, and strike in flank the disorganized material of the right wing as itstruggled across the ravines of Tillman’s Creek! How more than fortunatethat the onward current of the victor was obstructed still an hour longer bythe unyielding tenacity of the remaining regiments of Wallace and Prentiss!Prom the self-assuring interview in which, according to one of GeneralSherman’s reminiscences, it was “ agreed that the enemy had expended thefuror of his attack” at 4 o’clock, and General Grant told the “anecdote ofhis Donelson battle,” that officer was aroused by the renewal of the din ofthe strife, and made his way to the river through the disorganized throngof his retreating army. While those mutual felicitations were in progress,the enemy, a mile to the left, was disarming and marching six capturedregiments to the rear. Thus disembarrassed, his furor revived, and mani-fested itself at last at the very landing. What worse state of affairs thanthis could have existed when at noon General Grant wrote: “ If you will getupon the field, leaving all your baggage on the east bank of the river, it willbe a move to our advantage, and possibly save the day to us”?

Under the circumstances here described, General Grant and General Sher-man have said that reenforcements other than Lew Wallace ’s division werein nowise necessary at the close of the first day, and that, without referenceto them, General Grant would have assumed the offensive and defeated theConfederate army next morning. Those who study the subject attentivelywill find no ground to accept that declaration as regards either the purposeor the result. The former indeed presents an intangible question which itwould seem to be useless to discuss. At the time it is alleged to have beenentertained, the reenforcements were actually at hand, and their presencegives to the announcement the semblance of a vain boast, which could neverhave been put to the test of reality. That with the reenforcements from myarmy, General Grant confidently expected that the enemy would be defeatedthe following day, it is impossible to doubt; but it was not known, Sundaynight, that the enemy had withdrawn from our immediate front, and the evi-