And it was only this frowning line of artillery that stood between Grant's army and utter rout.
"Have you any way of retreat mapped out?" asked General Buell of Grant. Buell had come up from Savannah on a boat, and was now on the field, viewing with consternation and alarm the tremendous evidences of demoralization and defeat.
Turning to him as quick as a flash, Grant replied: "Retreat! retreat! I have not yet despaired of victory."
Both the right and left wings of Grant's army were now crushed back from the center. Around the flanks of W. H. L. Wallace's and Prentiss' divisions the exultant Confederates poured. Well had Wallace and Prentiss obeyed the orders of Grant to hold their position. From ten o'clock in the forenoon until nearly five o'clock in the afternoon their lines had hurled back every attack of the enemy. The Hornet's Nest stung every time it was touched. But now the divisions were hemmed in on every side. The brave Wallace formed his men to cut their way out, and as he was cheering them on he fell mortally wounded. No better soldier than Wallace fell on that bloody field. As for the two divisions, they were doomed.
General Grant sits on his horse, watching the preparations for the last stand. An officer, despair written in every lineament of his face, rides up to him.
"General," he says, "Sherman reports that he has taken his last position. He has but the remnant of one brigade with him and what stragglers he has gathered. His slender line cannot withstand another attack."
"Go back," quietly said Grant, "and tell Sherman to hold if possible; night is most here."
McClernand's division had been standing bravely all day, and had furnished fewer stragglers than any other division in the army, but now an orderly with a pale face and his left arm resting in a bloody sling, came spurring his reeking horse up to Grant, and exclaimed:
"General McClernand bade me report, that after his division had most gallantly repulsed the last charge of the enemy, for some unaccountable reason, the left regiments broke, and are fleeing panic-stricken to the Landing."