The wisdom of his decisions had been proven; his judgment justified.
From the last line of the retreating Federals a bullet whistled back, whistled back and cut him down, did its fatal work in the very moment in which he felt the conviction that success now lay with the Confederate cause.
His death seemed for a time to paralyze the further efforts of his troops, to whom his presence had been a continual inspiration.
General Beauregard took command.
Night fell and the battle was stayed.
The Federals had been driven to the banks of the Tennessee River, where the gunboats afforded but meager protection.
From Nashville, General Buell arrived before daybreak with the needed reënforcements. Lew Wallace came in. Grant assumed the offensive; and the afternoon of the second day of the hard-fought contest the final victory swept to the Federals.
What would have been the result to the Confederate cause had the great leader not fallen that first day, who can say?
“In his fall, the great pillar of the Southern Confederacy was crushed,” says Jefferson Davis in his Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, “and beneath its fragments the best hope of the Southland lay buried.”