Note 9 — Chapter VIII · SHILOH

Stanley, now having become a prisoner, is not able to conclude his personal account of this historical contest. It may be of interest to the reader if I briefly summarise the final result.

On Sunday, April 6, 1862, was fought the greatest battle of the war. As General D. C. Buell says in a magazine article: ‘The battle of Shiloh was the most famous, and, to both sides, the most interesting of the war.’ The Confederate army advanced upon the Federal army, penetrated its disconnected lines, assaulted its camps in front and flank, and drove it from position to position, towards the Tennessee River.

At the close of the day, when the retreating army was driven to take refuge in the midst of its magazines, a re-enforcing army was marching to its assistance, and an advance division, on the opposite bank of the river, checked the attacking force.

At dawn, the next morning, Monday, April 7, General Buell heading the re-enforcing army, and with a fresh division of the defeated force, drove the Confederates from the field and recaptured the camps, after ten hours’ desperate fighting.

Whereupon General Beauregard, seeing the hopelessness of prolonging the contest, withdrew his army, in perfect order, and unmolested, to Corinth. There was no pursuit; and this was afterwards much commented on. But both armies appear to have been utterly spent, the Federal troops being as much outdone as the Confederates. General Grant stated that, though desirous of pursuing the retreating army, he ‘had not the heart to order it to men who had fought desperately for two days, lying in the mud and rain, whenever not fighting.’—D. S.