NOTES OF A CONFEDERATE STAFF-OFFICER AT SHILOH.

BY THOMAS JORDAN, BRIGADIER-GENERAL (AT SHILOH, ADJUTANT-GENERAL OF THE

CONFEDERATE ARMY).

\ FTER 10 o’clock at night, on the 2d of April, 1862.

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while in my office as adjutant-general of the Con-federate army assembled at Corinth, a telegram wasbrought to me from General Cheatham, command-ing an outpost on our left flank at Bethel, on theMobile and Ohio railway, some twenty odd milesnorthward of Corinth. General Cheatham had ad-dressed it to General Polk, his corps commander,informing him that a Federal division, under Gen-eral Lew Wallace , had been manoeuvring in hisproximity during the day. General Polk had indue course sent the message to General Beauregard,from whom it came to me with his indorsement,

A CONFEDERATE PRIVATE OF THE WEST.FROM A TINTYPE.

addressed to General A. S. Johnston, in substance: “Now is the time toadvance upon Pittsburg Landing.” And below were these words, in effect,if not literally: “Colonel Jordan had better carry this in person to GeneralJohnston and explain the military situation.—G. T. B.”

At the time Colonel Jacob Thompson, formerly Secretary of the Interior ofthe United States , was in my office. I read the telegram aloud to him andimmediately thereafter proceeded to General Johnston’s quarters, nearly aquarter of a mile distant, where I found the general surrounded by his per-sonal staff, in the room which the latter habitually occupied. I handed himthe open dispatch and the indorsements, which he read without comment. Hethen asked me several questions about matters irrelevant to the dispatch orwhat might naturally grow out of it, and rose, saying that he would cross thestreet to see General Bragg. I asked if I should accompany him. “Certainly,”was his answer. We found that General Bragg had already gone to bed, but hereceived us in dishabille, General Johnston handing him the dispatch at once,without remark. Bragg, having read it, immediately expressed his agreementwith Beauregard’s advisement. General Johnston thereupon very clearlystated strongly some objections, chiefly to the effect that as yet our troops weretoo raw and incompletely equipped for an offensive enterprise, such as anattack upon the Federal army in a position of their own choosing, and also thathe did not see from what quarter a proper reserve could be assembled in time.

As General Beauregard had discussed with me repeatedly within a weekthe details of such an offensive operation in all its features, and the neces-sity for it before the Federal army was itself ready to take the offensive, Iwas able to answer satisfactorily the objections raised by General Johnston,including the supposed difficulty about a reserve—for which use I pointedout that the Confederate forces posted under General Breckinridge at severalpoints along the line of the Memphis and Charleston railroad, to the east-

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