Contents
-SUBJECT INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
James Ford Rhodes (1848–1927). History of the Civil War, 1861–1865. 1917.
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| the enemy soon driven back.” Darkness was close at hand. Beauregard sent orders to his troops to cease fighting and to sleep on their arms. | 35 |
| The contest had lasted more than twelve hours and was a Confederate victory, inasmuch as the Union troops were driven back from a mile and a half to two miles and lost Shiloh Church, the point which, as Grant wrote, “was the key to our position.” 1 But the victory did not meet the expectations of Johnston, who had hoped to capture the Union Army or at any rate to drive it from the field in complete rout. At the time of his death he must have felt that his hopes were in a fair way to be realized. For the demoralization of a part of Grant’s army began with the sudden attack and continued to the end of the day, greatly impressing Nelson as he crossed the river in the late afternoon. “I found cowering under the river bank,” he wrote on April 10, “from 7000 to 10,000 men, frantic with fright and utterly demoralized, who received my gallant division with cries, ‘We are whipped; cut to pieces.’” 2 “The battle of Sunday,” wrote Henry Stone, “was like an old-fashioned country wrestling-match, where each combatant uses any method he chooses, or can bring to bear, to force his adversary to the ground.” 3 | 36 |
| Next day, Monday, April 7,20,000 of Buell’s well-disciplined soldiers, Lew Wallace’s 6500, and such troops of the four divisions that had borne the brunt of Sunday’s battle as could be brought into line, attacked Beauregard under orders from Grant and Buell and, largely out-numbering him, drove him, after eight hours’ fighting, from the field, recovering the lost positions. Beauregard’s army, badly demoralized, retreated to Corinth. Bragg, who had commanded the second corps in the battle, wrote to him on April 8, during the retreat: “Our condition is horrible. Troops utterly disorganized |
