Union officers of high rank may perhaps be justly criticised for not having been better prepared for the battle by intrenchments, concentration, etc., but certainly both officers and soldiers deserve high commendation for their heroic, bloody, and successful resistance after the conflict began. About twenty-five per cent. of those actually engaged fell dead or wounded, and at least a like number of the enemy was disabled. Napoleon fought no single battle in one day where the proportionate losses, dead and wounded, in either contending army were so great; and no battle of modern times shows so great a proportionate loss in the numerically weaker army, which was forced to retire steadily during an entire day, and yet at night was still defiantly standing and delivering battle, and its commander giving orders to assume the offensive at dawn on the morrow.
Grant was not perfection as a soldier at Shiloh, but who else would or could have done so well? If not a war genius, he was the personification of dogged, obstinate persistency, never allowing a word of discouragement or doubt to escape during the entire day, not even to his personal staff, though suffering excruciating pain from the recent injury from the fall of his horse. To him and to the valor of his officers and soldiers the country owes much for a timely victory, though won at great cost of life and limb. To him and them are due praise, not blame.
Thus far the Army of the Ohio is given no credit for participation in the Sunday battle. Buell and Nelson's division of that army were at Savannah on the evening of the 5th, but Buell refrained from attempting to report his presence to Grant until the next morning. Grant had then departed for the battle-field. Grant was eating his breakfast at Savannah when the battle opened, and at first determined to find Buell before going to his army; but the sound of guns was so continuous, he felt that he should not delay a moment, and hence left a note for Buell asking him to hasten with his reinforcements to Pittsburg Landing, gave an order for Nelson to march at once, and then proceeded by boat up the river. Buell, after reiterating Grant's instructions to Nelson to march to opposite the Landing, himself about noon proceeded by boat to that place with his chief of staff, Colonel James B. Fry.( 9)
Buell seems to have been much impressed by the number and temper of the stragglers he saw on his arrival, and he made some inquiry as to Grant's preparations for the retreat of his army. Grant, learning that Buell was on board a steamboat at the Landing, sought him there, hastily explained the situation and the necessity for reinforcements, and again departed for the battle-field. He had before that been in the thick of the fight, where his sword and scabbard had been shot away. Not until 1 or 1.30 P.M.( 9) did the head of Nelson's column move, Ammen's brigade leading, for Pittsburg Landing, and then by a swampy river road over which artillery could not be hauled. The artillery went later by boat. At 5 or 6 P.M. the advance,—eight companies of the 36th Indiana (Col. W. Grose)—reached a point on the river opposite the Landing. These companies were speedily taken across the Tennessee in steamboats and marched immediately, less than a quarter of a mile to the left of the already massed artillery, to the support of Grant's army, then engaged in its struggle to repel the last assault of the Confederates for the day. Other regiments (6th Ohio, Colonel N. L. Anderson, 24th Ohio, Colonel F. C. Jones) of Ammen's brigade followed closely, but only the 36th Indiana participated in the engagement then about spent. This regiment lost one man killed.(10) The expected arrival of the Army of the Ohio and the presence of such of it as arrived may have had a good moral effect, but its late coming gives to it little room to claim any credit for the result of the first day's battle.
As always, those who only see the rear of an army during a battle gain from the sight and statements of the demoralized stragglers exaggerated notions of the condition and situation of those engaged. That Grant's army was in danger, and in sore need of reinforcements, cannot be doubted. That the Confederate Army had been fearfully punished in the first day's fighting is certain. Beauregard reports that he could not, on Monday, bring 20,000 men into action (11)— less than half the number Johnston had when the battle began. The arrival of Nelson's and Lew Wallace's divisions six hours earlier would have given a different aspect, probably, to the fist day's battle. The Army of the Ohio was then composed, generally, of better equipped, better disciplined and older troops, though unused to battle, than the majority of those of the Army of the Tennessee.
Though night had come, dark and rainy, when the four divisions of Buell's army reached the west bank of the Tennessee, and Lew Wallace's division arrived on the right, Grant directed the ground in front to be examined and the whole army to be put in readiness to assume the offensive at daybreak next morning. Wallace was pushed forward on the extreme right above the mouth of Owl Creek, and Sherman, McClernand, and Hurlbut, in the order named, on Wallace's left, then McCook (A. McD.),(12) Crittenden (Thomas T.), and Nelson (Wm.) were assigned positions in the order named, from Hurlburt to the left, Nelson on the extreme left, well out towards Lick Creek; all advanced (save McCook) during the night a considerable distance from the position of the Army of the Tennessee at the close of the battle.(13)
Buell's artillery arrived and went into battery during the night.
General George H. Thomas' division and one brigade of General Thomas
J. Wood's division did not arrive in time for the battle. There
were present, commanding brigades in the Army of the Ohio, Brigadier-
Generals Lovell H. Rosseau, J. T. Boyle, Colonels Jacob Ammen, W.
Sooy Smith, W. N. Kirk (34th Illinois), and William H. Gibson (49th
Ohio). These Colonels became, later, general officers.
Soon after 5 o'clock in the morning the entire Union Army went forward, gaining ground steadily until 6 A.M., when the strong lines of Beauregard's army with his artillery in position were reached, and the battle became general and raged with more or less fury throughout the greater part of the day, and until the Confederate Army was beaten back at all points, with the loss of some guns and prisoners, besides killed and wounded. The last stand of the enemy was made about 3 P.M. in front of Sherman's camp preceding the first day's battle. Both Grant and Buell accompanied the troops, often personally directing the attacks, as did division and brigade commanders. Grant, late in the day, near Shiloh Church, rode with a couple of regiments to the edge of a clearing and ordered them to "Charge." They responded with a yell and a run across the opening, causing the enemy to break and disperse. This practically ended the two days' memorable battle at the old log church where it began.(14)
The Confederate Army of the Mississippi which came, but four days before, so full of hope and confidence, from its intrenched camp at Corinth, was soon in precipitate retreat. Its commander was dead; many of its best officers were killed or wounded; its columns were broken and demoralized; much of its material was gone; hope and confidence were dissipated, yet it maintained an orderly retreat to its fortifications at Corinth. Beauregard claimed for it some sort of victory.(15)
From Monterey, on the 8th of April, Beauregard addressed Grant a note saying that in consequence of the exhausted condition of his forces by the extraordinary length of the battle, he had withdrawn them from the conflict, and asking permission to send a mounted party to the battle-field to bury the dead, to be accompanied by certain gentlemen desiring to remove the bodies of their sons and friends. To this Grant responded that, owing to the warmth of the weather, he had caused the dead of both sides to be buried immediately.(16)