The Nationals and Confederates at Shiloh

GENERAL BEAUREGARD, who had left Island Number Ten with a considerable body of Confederate troops, and had hastened to Corinth to prepare for resisting the grand movement of the Nationals southward, now confronted the latter near Shiloh Meeting-House with a very large force. He had been joined by the troops under General A. S. Johnston that fled from Nashville, and that officer was now Beauregard's chief lieutenant, assisted by Generals Polk, Hardee, Bragg, and Breckenridge. With these expert leaders, the Confederates came up from Corinth in a heavy rain-storm in separate columns, and concentrated a few miles from Shiloh Meeting-House. They came so stealthily that they were within four miles of the National camp before they were discovered by Grant's sentinels. There they halted on the 5th of April, 1862, to await the arrival force from central Arkansas. Already the Confederate army of eleven thousand men at Corinth a short time before, had increased to forty thousand men.

Intelligence came of Buell's march to join Grant, and on the evening of the 5th it was resolved to strike the Nationals before the dawn next morning, for it was evident the latter were not aware of the near presence of the strong force of the Confederates. At a council of war that made this decision, Beauregard, pointing toward the Union army, said: "Gentlemen, we sleep in the enemy's camp to-morrow night." At that time General W. T. Sherman's division was lying in the woods near Shiloh Meeting-House. General Prentiss's division was planted across the road leading directly to Corinth, and General McClernand's division was behind Prentiss's right. In the rear of these and between them and Pittsburg Landing lay General Hurlburt's division, and that of General Smith led by General W. H. L. Wallace. General David Stuart's brigade of Sherman's division lay upon a road leading to Hamburg, above Pittsburg Landing, and General Lewis Wallace, with his division, was at Crump's Landing, several miles below, observing Confederate movements at Purdy, and covering the river connections between Pittsburg Landing and Savannah. To the latter place General Halleck forwarded supplies for the National army. So little was an attack by the Confederates suspected, that no intrenchments had been cast up by the Nationals, and Buell's army was marching leisurel across Tennessee.

Almost the first intimation of the near presence of the Confederates was the wild cry of pickets flying into camp and a sharp attack upon Sherman's troops by Hardee's division, before the day had fairly dawned on Sunday morning, the 6th of April. Some of the officers were slumbering; some were dressing; a portion of the troops were washing and cooking, and others were eating breakfast. Screaming shells crashed through the forest, and bullets whistled among the tents. Hardee's troops poured into the camp of the bewildered Nationals, fighting desperately, driving half-dressed and half-armed troops before them, and dealing death and terror on every hand. Fearful results followed. Prentiss's division was next attacked. His column was shattered; himself and a large portion of his followers were made prisoners, and his camp was occupied by the Confederates. The struggle soon became general, and for ten hours the battle raged, with varying fortunes on both sides. General W. H. L. Wallace of the Nationals and General Johnston of the Confederates had been killed, and the slaughter on both sides had been severe. The National army was pushed back to the Tennessee River, then brimfull with a spring flood, and the day was fairly lost by the Union troops. The victorious Confederates occupied all the Union camps excepting that of the slain Wallace, where General McArthur was now in command. In the rear of this division the smitten army had now gathered in a space not more than four hundred acres in extent, on the verge of the river. They could be pushed back no further; and so certain was Beauregard of his final triumph, that he telegraphed a shout of victory to Richmond.

General Grant had directed the storm on the National side with great skill, but his forces, at twilight, were in a most perilous position. A single vigorous blow, then given by Beauregard, might have justified his shout of victory; but he dealt a feeble one, that was parried by the guns of two boats, the Tyler and Lexington, which had just appeared, and by those of a hastily formed battery on the shore. Grant's safety was fully assured when, at evening, the van of the slow-moving army of Buell appeared on the opposite shore of the Tennessee, and other portions of it came up the river during the night. At midnight General Lewis Wallace arrived with his division, and then the palm of victory was snatched from the hands of Beauregard.