“Grape and canister,” he said to the officers commanding the four brass twelve-pounders. Its fire was terrific. Wherever his guns were turned there was silence along the Rebel lines. Their musketry ceased. Their columns staggered back. All the while Mendenhall was pounding them. The Nineteenth Ohio, from Crittenden’s division, came down upon the run, joined the brigade, and the contest went on again. The Rebels, instead of advancing, began to lose the ground they had already won.
Crittenden and McCook advanced a little later. They came upon the enemy, which had quiet possession of McClernand’s and Sherman’s camps. Beauregard’s head-quarters were there. The Rebels, finding themselves assailed, made a desperate effort to drive back the advancing columns. Rousseau advanced across the open field, over the ground so hotly contested by McClernand the day before. This movement made a gap between McCook and Crittenden. Beauregard saw it, threw Cheatham and Withers into the open space. They swung round square against Rousseau’s left, pouring in a volley which staggered the advancing regiments. The Thirty-second Indiana regiment, Colonel Willich commanding, was on the extreme right of McCook’s division. They had been in battle before, and were ordered across to meet the enemy. You see them fly through the woods in rear of Rousseau’s brigade. They are upon the run. They halt, dress their ranks as if upon parade, and charge upon the Rebels. Colonel Stambough’s Seventy-seventh Pennsylvania follows. Then all of Kirk’s brigade. It is a change of position and a change of front, admirably executed, just at the right time, for Rousseau is out of ammunition, and is obliged to fall back. McCook’s third brigade, General Gibson, comes up. Rousseau is ready again, and at eleven o’clock you see every available man of that division contending for the ground around the church. Meanwhile Wallace is moving over the ground on the extreme right, where Sherman fought so bravely. Sherman, Hurlburt, and the shattered regiments of W. H. L. Wallace’s division, now commanded by McArthur, follow in reserve. Driven back by Nelson, the Rebel forces concentrate once more around the church for a final struggle. Wallace watches his opportunities. He gains a ridge. His men drop upon the ground, deliver volley after volley, rise, rush nearer to the enemy, drop once more, while the grape and canister sweep over them. Thus they come to close quarters, and then regiment after regiment rises, and delivers its fire. It is like the broadsides of a man-of-war.
The time had come for a general advance. Nelson, Crittenden, McCook, Wallace, almost simultaneously charged upon the enemy. It was too powerful to be resisted. The Rebels gave way, retreated from the camps which they had occupied a single night, fled past the church, across the brook, up through the old cotton-field on the south side, to the shelter of the forest on the top of the ridge beyond. The battle was lost to them. Exultant cheers rang through the forest for the victory won.
If I were to go through all the details, as I might, and write how Crittenden’s brigades pressed on, and captured Rebel batteries; how the Rebels tried to overwhelm him; how the tide of battle surged from hill to hill; how the Rebels tried to cut McCook to pieces; how Wallace’s division flanked the enemy at Owl Creek; how Rousseau’s brigade fought in front of McClernand’s camp; how the Fifth Kentucky charged upon a battery, and captured two guns which were cutting them up with grape and canister, and four more which were disabled and could not be dragged off by the enemy; how Colonel Willich, commanding the Thirty-second Indiana, finding some of his men were getting excited, stopped firing, and drilled them, ordering, presenting, and supporting arms, with the balls whistling through his ranks; how the men became cool and steady, and went in upon a charge at last with a wild hurrah, and a plunge of the bayonet that forced the Rebels to give up McClernand’s camp; how Colonel Ammen coolly husked ears of corn for his horse, while watching the fight, with the shells falling all around him; how Colonel Kirk seized a flag and bore it in advance of his brigade; how Color-Sergeant William Ferguson of the Thirteenth Missouri was shot down, how Sergeant Beem of Company C seized the flag before it touched the ground, and advanced it still farther; how Beauregard was riding madly along the lines by the church, trying to rally his men, when Thurber’s battery opened, and broke them up again; how, at noon, he saw it was no use; how he drew off his men, burned his own camp, and went back to Corinth, defeated, his troops disheartened, leaving his killed and hundreds of his wounded on the field; how the Union army recovered all the cannon lost on Sunday;—if I were to write it all out, I should have no room to tell you what Commodore Foote was doing all this time on the Mississippi.
It was a terrible fight. The loss on each side was nearly equal,—about thirteen thousand killed, wounded, and missing, or twenty-six thousand in all.
I had a friend killed in the fight on Sunday,—Captain Carson, commanding General Grant’s scouts. He was tall and slim, and had sparkling black eyes. He had travelled all over Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee, had often been in the Rebel camps. He was brave, almost fearless, and very adroit. He said to a friend, when the battle began in the morning, that he should not live through the day. But he was very active, riding recklessly through showers of bullets. It was just at sunset when he rode up to General Grant with a despatch from General Buell. He dismounted, and sat down upon a log to rest, but the next moment his head was carried away by a cannon-ball. He performed his duties faithfully, and gave his life willingly to his country.
You have seen how the army was surprised, how desperately it fought, how the battle was almost lost, how the gunboats beat back the exultant Rebels, how the victory was won. Beauregard was completely defeated; but he telegraphed to Jefferson Davis that he had won a great victory. This is what he telegraphed—
“Corinth, April 8th, 1862.
“To the Secretary of War, Richmond:—
“We have gained a great and glorious victory. Eight to ten thousand prisoners and thirty-six pieces of cannon. Buell reinforced Grant, and we retired to our intrenchments at Corinth, which we can hold. Loss heavy on both sides.
“Beauregard.”