It will be seen from the statement in his article that one of the strongest points he made as to the unpreparedness of Grant’s army is the repeated fateful turning of the flanks of the different divisions throughout the day, in one of which Prentiss was captured. He says:
“The outflanking so common in the Union report at Shiloh is not a mere excuse of the inferior commanders. It is the practical consequence of the absence of a common head and the judicious use of reserves to counteract partial reverses and preserve the front of battle.”
GENERAL GRANT.
As he appeared at the time of Shiloh
From this alone he argues all the misfortunes of the different divisions acting independently and without a common head. Their flanks turned again and again as each fell back with no warning from the others. And this is his graphic statement of the critical ending of the first day’s fight:
“Before the incumbrance of their success was entirely put out of their day, the Confederates pressed forward to complete a seemingly assured victory, but it was too late. John K. Jackson’s brigade and the Ninth and Tenth Mississippi of Chalmer’s brigade crossed Dill’s ravine, and their artillery on the south side swept the bluff at the landing, the missiles falling into the river far beyond. Hulbert had hurriedly gotten into line in rear of the siege guns, as they are called in the official report, posted a half-mile from the river, but for five hundred yards from the landing there was not a soldier or any organized means of defense. Just as the danger was perceived Colonel Webster, Grant’s Chief of Artillery, rapidly approached Colonel Fry and myself. The order of getting the battery which was standing in park into action was expressed simultaneously by the three of us, and was promptly executed by Colonel Webster’s immediate exertion. General Grant came up a few minutes later, and a member of his escort was killed in that position. Chalmer’s skirmishers approached within one hundred yards of the battery. The number in view was not large, but the gunners were already abandoning their pieces, when Ammen’s brigade, accompanied by Nelson, came into action. The attack was repelled and the engagement ended for the day.... We know from the Confederate report that the attack was undertaken by Chalmer’s and Jackson’s brigade, as above stated; that the reserve artillery could effect nothing against the attacks from under the shelter of Dill’s ravine; that the fire of the gunboats was equally harmless on account of the elevation which it was necessary to give the guns in order to clear the top of the bluff, and that the final assault, owing to the show of resistance, was delayed. Jackson’s brigade made its advance without cartridges, and when they came to the crest of the hill and found the artillery supported by infantry, they shrank from the assault by bayonet alone. Jackson went in search of co-operation and support, and in the meantime the attack was superseded by the order of the Confederate commander calling off his troops for the day.”
His description of how things looked when he landed at Pittsburg Landing, of the demoralized condition of Grant’s army, is graphic in the extreme:
“On the shore I encountered a scene which has often been described. The face of the bluff was crowded with stragglers from the battle. The number that at different times has been estimated at five thousand in the morning to fifteen thousand in the evening. The number at nightfall would never have fallen short of fifteen thousand, including those who had passed down the river, and the less callous, but still broken and demoralized, fragments about the camps on the plateau near the landing. At the top of the bluff all was confusion. Men mounted and on foot and wagons with their teams and excited drivers, all struggling their way closest to the river, were mixed up in apparently inextricable confusion with a battery of artillery which was standing in park without men or horses to man or move it.”