Some of the big chances, standing out in the light of to-day like gray ghosts above the battlefield, are:
First—The chance that cut Buell off one day too late for the Union cause.
Second—The chance that put him there one day too soon for the Confederates.
Third—The chance which Grant took—and which he says in his autobiography he would not have taken with the riper knowledge gained later in the war—of not entrenching.
Fourth—The chance of mud and rain, which delayed Johnston one day in bringing on the fight.
Fifth—The chance of one fateful bullet amid ten thousand harmless ones, striking an artery not hit once in ten thousand times in battle, and striking from the boards the only head on either side which had absolutely a clear conception of the entire battle to be, planned by himself with consummate skill and executed, till stricken to death, like a thunderbolt of Jove in the brain of Mars. He alone, I repeat, of all the host of generals, Federals and Confederates, who swarmed booted and bedecked around the contending hosts of that day, had definite plans, knew what was to be done, and held the doing of it in the hollow of his hand, and his name was Albert Sidney Johnston.
Sixth—The great chance Beauregard had for ending the fight on the first day, instead of calling off the troops until the fatal to-morrow.
Seventh—The chance—ay, the blunder—of Grant in recalling Lew Wallace from a position which a most gracious and generous fate had given him. A chance which gave to Wallace the opportunity for his own fame and the fame of Grant’s army—the chance of falling upon the flank and rear of the eager, neglectful, front-fighting Confederates, of breaking their hearts as Johnston’s death could never have done. This was a greater chance than Jackson had at Fredericksburg when he utterly defeated the Yankee army; it was as great as the chance Blücher had at Waterloo; greater than Bonaparte’s at Austerlitz.
In thinking of Stonewall Jackson and Johnston, did God in His wisdom know it was best that the Confederacy should not be, as we all now know it, and take these two men from life that it might not come to pass?
And there we are at it again: For God’s decision is man’s destiny.