Gen. Grant officially reported his losses as 485 in killed, wounded and missing. Gen. Polk officially reported his losses as killed, 105; wounded, 419; missing, 117; total, 641. He estimated the Union losses at 1,500; "fourteen-fifteenths of that number must have been killed, wounded or drowned." He also said that he had a stand of colors, something over 1,000 stand of arms, with knapsacks, ammunition, and other military stores.
Medical Director J. H. Brinton gives the following list of losses by regiments:
Command. Killed. Wounded
27th Ill. Vol.......................... 11 47
80th Ill. Vol......................... 9 27
31st Ill. Vol.......................... 10 70
22d Ill. Vol........................... 23 74
7th Iowa Vol........................... 26 93
Cavalry and Artillery................. 1 11
Total.................................. 80 322
While Gen. Grant and the officers and men under him regarded the affair as a great victory, and deservedly plumed themselves upon their achievements that day, there was a decidedly different opinion taken in the North, and the matter has been the subject of more or less sharp criticism ever since. It was pronounced by the McClellan-Halleck school of military men as a useless waste of men in gaining no object, and probably the most charitable of Gen. Grant's critics could find no better excuse for him than that he was like the man in the Bible who had bought two yoke of oxen and wanted to go and try them. All this did not disturb the equanimity of Gen. Grant and his men in the least. He knew he had accomplished what he had set out to do, to give Gen. Polk something else to occupy his mind than capturing Oglesby or reinforcing Thompson and Price.
Col. Oglesby made his way unmolested back to Cairo. Polk was probably beginning to think that he would have quite enough to do to stay in Columbus, and his dreams as to St. Louis were dissipated.
Gen. Grant's men knew that they had met their enemies on equal terms in the open field, and had driven them, whether they were in their front or rear, and so they were content.
The Confederates of course proclaimed a great victory, and made the most of it. Albert Sidney Johnston enthusiastically congratulated Polk, Jefferson Davis did the same, and the Confederate Congress passed a resolution of thanks to Maj.-Gen. Polk and Brig.-Gens. Pillow and Cheatham and the officers and soldiers under their commands.
The battle was the occasion of still further increasing the bitterness between Polk and his insubordinate subordinate, Gideon J. Pillow, who resigned his commission, and sent to the Confederate War Department a long and bitter complaint against Gen. Polk, a large part of which was taken up with charges against his superior for non-support when he, Pillow, was engaged in a terrible struggle on the west side of the river with a force "three times my own." Pillow asserted that he had repeatedly driven back the Unionists at the point of the bayonet, after his ammunition had been exhausted, and no more was furnished him by Gen. Polk. He said that Polk had thus needlessly sacrificed many brave men, and that a like, if not greater, calamity was possible if he were to continue in command. "His retention is the source of great peril to the country." Pillow said: "As a zealous patriot, I admire him; as an eminent minister of the Gospel, I respect him; but as a Commanding General I cannot agree with him."