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as practicable, and to occupy for the night the captured encampments of theenemy. This, however, had been done in chief part by the officers in immediatecommand of the troops before the order was generally distributed.” For this lastallegation, or that the army was exhausted, there is not the slightest warrant.When Beauregard’s staff-officer gave Bragg this order he said: “ Have youpromulgated this order to the command! ” The officer replied: “ 1 have.” Gen-eral Bragg then said: “ If you had not I would not obey it. The battle is lost.”
The concurrent testimony of the generals and soldiers at the front is at oneon all essential points. General Beauregard at Shiloh, two miles in the rear,with the debris of the army surging back upon him, the shells burstingaround him, sick with his two months’ previous malady, pictured in hisimagination a wreck at the front, totally different from the actual conditionthere. Had this officer been with Bragg, and not greatly prostrated andsuffering from severe sickness, I firmly believe his order would have been toadvance, not to retire. And this in spite of his theory of his plan of battle,which he sums up as follows, and which is so different from General John-ston ’s : “ By a rapid and vigorous attack on General Grant, it was expectedhe would be beaten back into his transports and the river, or captured intime to enable us to profit by the victory, and remove to the rear all thestores and munitions that would fall into our hands in such an event beforethe arrival of General Buell’s army on the scene. It was never contemplated,however, to retain the position thus gained and abandon Corinth , the strategicpoint of the campaign .” Why, then, did General Beauregard stop short in hiscareer! Sunday evening it was not a question of retaining, but of gaining,Pittsburg Landing. Complete victory was in his grasp, and he threw it away.General Gibson says: “ General Johnston ’s death was a tremendous catas-trophe. There are no words adequate to express my own conception of theimmensity of the loss to our country. Sometimes the hopes of millions ofpeople depend upon one head and one arm. The West perished with AlbertSidney Johnston , and the Southern country followed.”
Monday was General Beauregard’s battle, and it was well fought. But inrecalling his troops from the heights which commanded the enemy’s landing,he gave away a position which during the night was occupied by Buell’stwenty thousand fresh troops, who thus regained the high grounds that hadbeen won at such a cost. Lew Wallace , too, had come up 6500 strong. A More-over, the orders had been conveyed by Beauregard’s staff to brigades andeven regiments to withdraw, and the troops wandered back over the field,without coherence, direction, or purpose, and encamped where chance pro-vided for them. All array was lost, and, in the morning, they met the attackof nearly thirty thousand fresh and organized troops, with no hope of suc-cess except from their native valor and the resolute purpose roused by thetriumph of Sunday. Their fortitude, their courage, and the free offering oftheir lives were equal to the day before. But it was a retreat, not an assault.They retired slowly and sullenly, shattered, but not overthrown, to Corinth,the strategic point of General Beauregard’s campaign.
•fe General Wallace , in his report to General Halleck, says that his whole command “did not exceed5000 men of all arms.”— Editors.