But, proceeding. The letters further establish, that, immediately upon receiving the order, I put my column en route, to execute it.
Now comes the questions. Did I take the right road to effect the junction with the right of the army, or one leading to Purdy, away from the battle? Pertinent to these inquiries, General Knefler says, that the road chosen for the movement had been patrolled and picketted by my cavalry. By their report, if by nothing else, I must have been posted as to its terminus. In corroboration of this assertion please notice that General Macaulay, General Strickland, General Thayer and General Knefler, all allude to the fact that the head of the column was approaching, not going away from the firing, when the countermarch took place. Consider, further, that the most imperative necessities of my situation, isolated as I had been from the main army, were, to know all the communications with that army, and to keep them clear, and in order for rapid movement. Not only did I know the road, but every step my division took from the initial point of the march up to the moment of the change of direction, was, as is well known to every soldier in the column, a step nearer to the firing and therefore a step nearer to the battle. While on this inquiry, let me add that the report of my being set right after marching upon the wrong road has in it this much truth, and no more. When about a mile from the position which had been occupied by the right of the army (General Sherman's division), Captain Rowley overtook me and told me that you had sent him to hurry me up, and that our lines had been carried by the enemy and the army driven back almost to the river, a very different story from the one brought me by Captain Baxter. Captain Rowley set me right as to the conditions of the battle, not as to the road I was following. Colonel McPherson and Major Rawlins, the other members of your staff, mentioned as having been sent to me, met me after the countermarch, when my command was on the river road moving to Pittsburg Landing.
Concerning the countermarch, I would remark that the condition of the battle, as reported by Captain Rowley, made it prudent, if not necessary. My column was only five thousand men, of all arms. Reflecting upon it now, I am still of the opinion that it did better service the next day in your new line of battle, than it could have done, operating alone and unsupported in the rear of the whole rebel army, where I was certainly taking it, when "set right" by the captain.
Instead of making the change of direction, when it was resolved on, by a countermarch, the result proved that it should have been effected by a general right about. The former manoeuvre was chosen, however, because I was confident of finding a cross road to the river road long before the head of the column doubled upon its foot. [See Colonel Ross' statement of the effort made to accomplish that idea.]
One of the results I confidently anticipated from a reading of the letter submitted, is, that you will be satisfied of the wrong done me (unintentional, I believe), by Colonel Badeau, when, in his book, he describes me as consuming seven hours in marching five miles in the direction of the battle. The march actually performed in that time was not less than fifteen miles, over an execrable dirt road.
Your opinion, as advanced in your letter to the War Office, July, 13, 1863, that General Morgan L. Smith, had he been put in command, could have had the division in the battle by 1 o'clock P.M., is in direct terms, based upon the condition that General Smith received your orders as you supposed them communicated to me. But, suppose he had not received the order as originally given; suppose, on the contrary, the order actually received by him had the effect to send him in another direction from Pittsburg Landing; and suppose that, on approaching his objective, he had found himself in the rear of the whole rebel army, and in his judgment compelled, by that circumstance, together with the bad fortune of our own army, to a further movement of quite ten miles—all of which were terrible realities in my case—I am sure you are too just a man to have held him accountable for the hours, however precious, thus necessarily lost.
With these remarks I place the letters of the officers named in your hands. They will satisfy you, I think, that the exoneration I seek will be a simple act of justice. The many misconceptions which have been attached to my movements on that bloody Sunday, have, it must be confessed, made me extremely sensitive upon the subject. You can imagine, therefore, with what anxiety your reply will be waited.
Very respectfully your friend,
LEW WALLACE.
To GENERAL U.S. GRANT, WASHINGTON CITY.