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THE MARCH OF LEJV WALLACE'S DIVISION TO SHILOH.
III. — Letter from General "Wallace to GeneralGrant, in 1884, referring to the whole controversy.The omissions are made by the editors, for lack ofspace :
“ Cra wfordsville, Ind., September 16th, 1884. BearGeneral: The Century Co. people inform me thatthey have engaged you to write a paper for them onPittsburg Landing. Such a contribution from your handwill be important as well as most interesting. ProbablyI ought not to trouble you touching the subject; still, Itrust you will appreciate the anxieties natural to onewho has been so bitterly and continuously criticised inthe connection, and pardon me a few lines of request.
“ The letter of exoneration you gave me some years agois not permitted to be printed in the volume of reportspublished by the Government, though I earnestly soughtthe favor of the Secretary of War. The terrible reflec-tions in your indorsement on my official report of thebattle, and elsewhere, go to the world wholly unquali-fied. It is not possible to exaggerate the misfortune thusentailed upon me. But now you have it m power to makecorrection, in a paper which will be read far more gen-erally than the compilation of the department. May Ihope you will do it ?
“Since my return from Europe I have for the first timeread the reports of Generals Rawlins and McPherson, andMajor Rowley, touching my march the first day of thebattle. I shall regret all my remaining days not pre-viously knowing their tenor; for I think I could haveexplained to the satisfaction of those gentlemen everymystery of my conduct during their ride with me theafternoon of the 6th April. They did not understandthat there was a mistake in your order as it was deliv-ered to me, and while with them I supposed they knewwhy I was where they found me. Consequently, 210 ex.planation took place between us. I see now, they reallysupposed me lost, and wandering aimlessly about. Hadthe correctness of the order been mooted, no doubt theorder itself could have been produced. I would not haverested until my adjutant-general had produced it. Isit to be supposed for an instant that, knowing theirthoughts of me during the hours of that ride, I couldhave been indifferent to them ? As it is, you will observethat neither of them preteuds to explain my behavior.Neither makes allusion to a theory of explanation. Thetruth is, I all the time supposed the necessity for thechange of direction in my movement was simply due tothe bad turn of the battle after the order was dispatchedto me. The whole time I was in their company I thoughtmyself entitled to credit for the promptness with whichI was obeying your orders. It never occurred to me thatthere was anything to explain, and I was wholly givenup to the movement of the division, which was urgentbusiness in hand
“With reference to Major Rowley’s statement, that Ihad no knowledge of any other road than that by the oldmill, and his other statement, that I retained him as aguide, the explanation is that I was speaking of a cross-road to the River Road. I had no knowledge of such aroad. I 11 hopes of finding one, I countermarched insteadof facing column to the rear. One of my captains of artil-lery has since gone over the entire route we took, fromStony Lonesome, the place at which I received yourorder to march, to Pittsburg Landing, and he finds memistaken in saying we countermarched back nearly tothe initial point of movement. He not only found thecross-road taken, but measured the whole march, chainin hand, making it a little more than fifteen miles. . . .
“ As to my requiring a written order from you, I repeatmy absolute denial of the statement. The order I actedupon was unsigned, and it is susceptible of proof thatwhen the young Illinois cavalryman overtook me I wasalready on the inarch.
“ As to the slowness referred to by McPherson, Raw-lins and Rowley, please try that point by compari -
eons.From 11: 30 o’clock till just dusk my
march was quite fifteen miles. I refer the argument toyour calm judgment. I do not wonder my movement
seemed slow to your officers. With their anxieties quick-ened by what they had seeD on the field, it must haveseemed intolerable to them. They describe me correctlyas at the head of the column, and I did several times dis-mount, but only to wait the closing up of the division andreports of my own staff-officers, who were kept urgingthe column through the mud and mire.
“There is another point your officers seem not to haveunderstood, and that was my determination not to sendthe division piecemeal into the battle. The whole di-vision was what I supposed you wanted, and I was re-solved to bring you the whole division. I paid noattention to contrary suggestions from anybody. Ithink you will justify this pertinacity of purpose bythe fact that it was impossible to tell the moment Imight be attacked en route. The chances of such anoccurrence grew sharper as I drew nearer PittsburgLanding. For yoii must remember, general, that fromthe moment Major Rowley overtook me with the infor-mation, then first received, that our army had beendriven from the line it occupied in the morning, and wasback far towards the river, I supposed it utterly unableto help me. Then whether the enemy attacked me or Ithem, it was only my division . and not a part of it, thatcould have achieved your desires. . . .
“ Atyour table at City Point we one day sat listeningto the commentsof someofficersupon thebattleof Pitts-burg Landing. After a while you remarked to me in alow tone, ‘ If I had known then what I know now, Iwould have ordered you where you were marching whenstopped.’ The remark was made at your table, and ina confidential manner, so that I have never felt atliberty to repeat, much less publish, it. But timesinnumerable since then I have wished that Rowley hadnot overtaken me for another hour that afternoon. Tlieenemy had used the last of his reserves. I would havetaken the bluff on which Sherman had been camped inthe morning and, without opposition, effected my de-ployment. The first of the rebels struck would havebeen the horde plundering the sutlers and drinking inthe streets of the camp. Their fears would have magni-fied my command, and rushing to their engaged linesthey would have carried the word that Buell’s armywasup and on their lines of retreat. For your sake andmy own, general, and for the cause generally, it wasunfortunate that Rowley had not lost his way, as it wassaid I had mine.
“ Finally, general, did you ever ask yourself what mo-tive I could have had to play you falsely that day % Itcouldn’t have been personal malice. Only a few weeksbefore I had been promoted major-general on yourrecommendation. It couldn’t have been cowardice.You had seen me under fire at Bonelson, and twice thesecond day at Pittsburg Landing you found me with mydivision under fire. It couldn’t have been lack of reso-lution. I certainly showed no failing of that kind atMonocacy Junction, where my situation was quite astrying as at any hour of the 6th of April of which I amwriting. The fact is, I was the victim of a mistake.Captain Baxter’s omission from the order you gave himfor transmission to me—the omission of the road youwanted me to take in coming up — viz., the lower orRiverRoad to Pittsburg Landing, was the cause of iny move-ment at noon. It is also the key of explanation of allthat followed. That I took tbe directest and shortestroad to effect a junction with the right of the army, andmarched promptly upon receipt of the order, are thebest evidence I could have furnished of an actual desireto do my duty, and share the fortunes of the day withyou, whether they were good or bad.
“In all the years that have followed I have beenpatient and uncomplaining, because, as you had shownthe will to exonerate me, I believed you would follow itup on all proper occasions. And I submit to you if thisis not one of them. For the sake of the hundreds of sur-vivors of my old division, as well as that justice maybe finally and completely done to me individually, Ipresume to present tbe matter to you in this letter.