"Many of them have doubtless been wicked men; but you can, at least, remind them of divine mercy, and tell them the story of the thief on the cross."
The next speaker, a quiet gentleman, wearing the blouse of a private soldier, after some remarks about practical religion, added:
"I can not agree with the last brother. I believe we shall best serve the souls of our wounded soldiers by ministering, for the present, simply to their bodies. For my own part, I feel that he who has fallen fighting for our country—for your Cause and mine—is more of a man than I am. He may have been wicked; but I think room will be found for him among the many mansions above. I should be ashamed to tell him the story of the thief on the cross."
Hearty, spontaneous clapping of hands through the crowded cabin followed this sentiment—a rather unusual demonstration for a prayer-meeting. The speaker was the Rev. Robert Colyer, of Chicago.
With officers who had participated in the battle, I visited every part of the field. The ground was broken by sharp hills, deep ravines, and dense timber, which the eye could not penetrate.
The reports of a surprise were substantially untrue. No man was bayoneted in his tent, or anywhere else, according to the best evidence I could obtain.
But the statements, said to come from Grant and Sherman, that they could not have been better prepared, had they known that Beauregard designed to attack, were also untrue. Our troops were not encamped advantageously for battle. Raw and unarmed regiments were on the extreme front, which was not picketed or scouted as it should have been in the face of an enemy.
Beauregard attacked on Sunday morning at daylight. The Rebels greatly outnumbered the Unionists, and impetuously forced them back. Grant's army was entirely western. It contained representatives of nearly every county in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin.
Partially unprepared, and steadily driven back, often ill commanded and their organizations broken, the men fought with wonderful tenacity. It was almost a hand-to-hand conflict. Confederates and Loyalists, from behind trees, within thirty feet of each other, kept up a hot fire, shouting respectively, "Bull Run!" and "Donelson!"
Prentiss' shattered division, in that dense forest, was flanked before its commander knew that the supporting forces—McClernand on his right and Hurlbut on his left—had been driven back. Messengers sent to him by those commanders were killed. During a lull in the firing, Prentiss was lighting his cigar from the pipe of a soldier when he learned that the enemy was on both sides of him, half a mile in his rear. With the remnant of his command he was captured.