General Rousseau's Report of the Battle.
... "I then returned to Harris's brigade, hearing that the enemy was close upon him, and found that the 33d Ohio had been ordered further to the front by General McCook, and was then engaged with the enemy, and needed support. General McCook, in person, ordered the 2d Ohio to its support, and sent directions to me to order up the 24th Illinois also, Captain Mauf commanding. I led the 24th Illinois, in line of battle, immediately forward, and it was promptly deployed as skirmishers by its commander, and went gallantly into action, on the left of the 33d Ohio. The 2d Ohio, moving up to support the 33d Ohio, was engaged before it arrived on the ground where the 33d was fighting. The 38th Indiana, Colonel B. F. Scribner commanding, then went gallantly into action, on the right of the 2d Ohio. Then followed in support the 94th Ohio, Colonel Frizell. I wish here to say that this regiment, although new, and but few weeks in the service, behaved most gallantly, under the steady lead of its brave Colonel Frizell. Colonel Harris's whole brigade—Simonson's battery on its right—was repeatedly assailed by overwhelming numbers, but gallantly held its position. The 38th Indiana and 2d Ohio, after exhausting their ammunition and that taken from the boxes of the dead and wounded on the field, still held their position, as did also, I believe, the 10th Wisconsin and 33d Ohio. For this gallant conduct these brave men are entitled to the gratitude of the country, and I thank them here, as I did on the field of battle....
"I had an opportunity of seeing and knowing the conduct of Colonel Starkweather, of the Twenty-eighth Brigade, Colonel Harris, of the Ninth Brigade, and of the officers and men under their command, and I can not speak too highly of their bravery and gallantry on that occasion. They did, cheerfully and with alacrity, all that brave men could do...."
"I herewith transmit the reports of Colonels Starkweather, Harris, and Pope, and also a list of casualties in my division, amounting, in all, to 1,950 killed and wounded. My division was about 7,000 strong when it went into the action. We fought the divisions of Anderson, Cheatham, and Buckner.
"I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
"Lovell H. Rousseau."
It will not be amiss here to give a brief outline of the early history, coming down to a recent date, of the renowned hero, Major-General A. McD. McCook, United States Volunteers.
He was born in Columbiana County, Ohio, April 22, 1831. At the age of sixteen he entered the Military Academy at West Point, as a cadet. He graduated in July, 1852, and was commissioned Brevet Second Lieutenant, in the 3d Regiment United States Infantry. After being assigned to duty for a few months, at Newport Barracks, Ky., he was ordered, in April, 1853, to join his regiment, then serving in the Territory of New Mexico. Here he remained nearly five years, constantly on active duty in the field, and participating in all the Indian campaigns on that wild and remote frontier. His long services and good conduct were mentioned in General Orders by Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott. In January, 1858, he was ordered from New Mexico to West Point, and assigned to duty in the Military Academy, as instructor in Tactics and the Art of War. On the breaking out of the rebellion he was relieved from duty there, and ordered, in April, 1861, to Columbus, Ohio, to muster in volunteers. Before his arrival there he was elected Colonel of the 1st Ohio Volunteers, a three-months regiment, already on its way to the seat of war in Virginia; and hastening to join the command, to which he was elected without his knowledge or solicitation, soon had an opportunity of exhibiting those admirable qualities as a field-officer for which he has since become so justly distinguished. His coolness in the unfortunate affair at Vienna, and his consummate military skill in the management of his command at Bull Run, were universally commended. At the close of that eventful conflict he marched his regiment back to Centerville in the same good order in which it had left there, an honorable exception to the wide-spread confusion and disorder that prevailed elsewhere among the National forces.
When the three-months troops were mustered out of the service he received permission to raise the 1st Regiment Ohio Volunteers, a three-years regiment; but on the 3d of September, 1861, and before his command was ready to take the field, he was appointed Brigadier-General of Volunteers, and assigned to command the advance of the Federal forces then in Kentucky, at Camp Nevin. Here, and at Green River, he organized his splendid Second Division, with which he afterward marched to Nashville, and thence toward the Tennessee River.
On the 6th of April, 1862, alarmed by the sullen sound of distant artillery, and learning the precarious situation of Grant's army, he moved his division, over desperate roads, twenty-two miles, to Savannah, and there embarked on steamboats for Pittsburg Landing. After clearing a way with the bayonet through the army of stragglers that swarmed upon the bank of the river, soon after daylight on the morning of the 7th of April, the Second Division of the Army of the Ohio advanced through the sad scenes of our defeat the day before, and deployed, with stout hearts and cheers, upon the field of Shiloh. General McCook fought his troops that day with admirable judgment. He held them in hand; his line of battle was not once broken—it was not once retired; but was steadily and determinedly advanced until the enemy fled, and the reverse of the day before was more than redeemed by a splendid victory.