It was hideous. Why didn't they rescue those men? Why didn't they proclaim a truce to bury the dead and save the wounded? Grant must be a fiend! Far off on the river another black smudge was seen in the sky. More reënforcements were coming.
The three Confederate generals suddenly waked with a shock to realize that their foe had landed a second army, cutting their communications with Nashville.
A council of war was hastily called on the night of the fourteenth. It was a discordant aggregation. Floyd, the former Secretary of War in Buchanan's administration, was the senior officer in command. He was regarded more as a politician than a soldier and his exploits in West Virginia had not added to his fame. The men around him had little respect for his capacity as a commander. Besides quarreling had become the fashion in the armies of the victorious South since the affair at Bull Run. The example of Joseph E. Johnston and Beauregard was contagious.
There was but one thing to do. The wrangling generals were unanimous on that point. They must make a desperate assault next morning on Grant's right wing and reëstablish their communications with Nashville at all hazards.
Under cover of the darkness on the morning of the fifteenth, the men were marched from their trenches and massed on the Federal right. But a handful were left to guard the entrenchments on the Confederate right.
At the first streak of dawn, the concentrated lines of the Confederates were hurled on the division of McClernand. Before two o'clock Grant's right wing had been crushed into a shapeless mass with the loss of his artillery. The way was open to Nashville and the discordant commanding generals of the Confederacy paused.
Buckner ordered up his artillery and reserves to pursue the enemy or hold his newly-won position. Pillow flatly refused to allow a single gun to be withdrawn from the entrenchments and sent peremptory orders to his victorious subordinate to return to the trenches on the right.
As Buckner was reluctantly returning to the old lines he encountered Floyd.
"Where are you going?" the Commander-in-Chief demanded.
"I am ordered back to the entrenchments—"