NOTES OF A CONFEDERATE STAFF-OFFICER AT SHILOH. 603

This was said evidently with sincerity, and was answered in the same pleas-ant spirit, and I showed him the dispatch that had reached me on the field.He insisted, however, that it was a mistake, as we would see. Tired as wewere with the day’s work, sleep soon overtook and held us all until earlydawn, when the firing first of musketry and then of field-artillery roused us,and General Prentiss exclaimed: “Ah! didn’t I tell you so! There is Buell!”And so it proved.

VIII.

Up to half-past two o’clock on the 7th of April, or second day’s conflict,General Beauregard had his headquarters at the Shiloh Chapel, or immedi-ately at Sherman’s former headquarters. The Confederate troops, now hardly20,000 men, were all either directly in advance of that position, or, to the rightand left of it, somewhat in advance, hotly engaged, having only receded fromthe places occupied during the night sufficiently to be better massed andorganized for fighting. But our losses were swelling perilously, and the strag-gling was growing more difficult to restrain. A little after two o’clock, Gov-ernor Harris of Tennessee , who, after the death of General Johnston, hadjoined the staff of Beauregard in action, taking me aside, asked if I did notregard the day as going against us irremediably, and whether there was notdanger in tarrying so long in the field as to be unable to withdraw in goodorder. I answered that I thought it would soon be our proper course toretreat. Having an opportunity a moment later to speak to General Beaure-gard in private, I brought the subject before him in almost these words:

“ General, do you not think our troops are very much in the condition ofa lump of sugar thoroughly soaked with water, but yet preserving its orig-inal shape, though ready to dissolve? Would it not be judicious to getaway with what we have ? ”

“ I intend to withdraw in a few moments,” was his reply.

Calling upon his aides-de-camp present, he dispatched them with orders tothe several corps commanders to begin the rearward movement. He alsodirected me to collect as many of the broken organizations as I could,—bothof infantry and artillery,—post them in the best position I might find, andhold it until the whole army had passed to the rear of it. Such a position Iquickly found on an elevated ridge in full view of the chapel and the groundto the right and left of it, and also somewhat more elevated, rising abruptlytoward the enemy but receding gently toward Corinth. There I collectedand posted some two thousand infantry, making them lie down at rest. Ialso placed in battery some twelve or fifteen guns, so as to command andsweep the approach from the direction of the enemy. There also I remaineduntil after 4 o’clock, or until the entire Confederate force had retired,General Breckinridge’s troops being the last, and without seeing a singleFederal soldier within the wide range of my eyes. I then retired, carryingfrom the field the caissons loaded down with muskets and rifles picked up onthe field.