There lives near me in honor and good name, General Gates P. Thruston, one of the greatest scholars of the South, and perhaps the greatest living ethnologists of this country. He was with Buell, and corroborates his chief, and he refers me to General Lew Wallace’s oration, delivered at Shiloh, April 6th, 1903, in which General Wallace uses the following language:
“Did any of you, my friends, ever hear of an army fighting a battle without a commander? No? Well, that was the case with the Army of the Tennessee at the beginning of the first day here. The five divisions on the field had each its chief, to be sure; but none of the five chiefs was in general command. Instead of one supreme governing will, nowhere so essential as in battle, there were five officers, each independent of the others. Between them things were done by request, not orders. No one of them was responsible for what the others did. I am sure you will see the enormity of the disadvantage. You will even wonder that there was any resistance made.
“I may not pass this point without an explanation. To do so would be grossest injustice. General Grant, as everybody knows, was in command of the Army of the Tennessee at the time. By order of General Halleck, his headquarters were at Savannah, ten miles below Pittsburg Landing. Hearing the guns, he made all haste to the scene of action, arriving there four hours after the attack began. It was then too late for him to change the day. The battle had passed beyond his control.
“A strange circumstance that, certainly; but what will you say to this I offer you next? The Confederate army left Corinth for Pittsburg Landing on Thursday, in the afternoon. It moved in three corps—Hardee’s, Bragg’s, Polk’s—with Breckinridge’s three brigades in reserve. The intention was to attack the Army of the Tennessee Saturday morning, but it was not until late Saturday afternoon that the entire army reached its destination and was deployed. Here, now, is the marvel. How was it possible to move the three great army corps into as many lines of battle, each behind the other, within two miles of Shiloh Church, without making their presence known? Were there any Union pickets out? How far out could they have been? Had they no eyes, no ears? It would seem not. For at five o’clock Sunday morning, when Hardee moved to the attack—I give you all permission to wonder while you listen—neither General Grant at Savannah nor one of his division commanders on the field knew of the peril, or even suspected it.”
Of the other great chance or blunder of Shiloh—Grant’s recall of Lew Wallace—let us now speak. Early in my study of this battle I stumbled on this so unexpectedly that it filled me with surprise. It was beyond doubt the greatest opportunity of Shiloh, as I mentioned in a previous paper. The story of it by Lew Wallace himself, is the most interesting paper ever written about that battlefield. For many years the distinguished author of “Ben-Hur” was made the scapegoat of Shiloh. He bore it like the man he was, but history will now vindicate him and nothing has given me greater pleasure than to contribute my share toward his vindication in this series of papers. At the time I arrived at the conclusion I did concerning General Wallace’s brilliant movement during the first day’s fight, I did not know that he had ever explained it himself, but seeing the position I took, and the conclusions I deduced, a friend has sent me the account General Wallace wrote of it himself and turned it over to General James Grant Wilson to be published by General Wilson after the death of the author. This was done last January by the Appletons,[1] and it is useless to add that the author of “Ben-Hur” has told in no usual way the graphic story of that blunder of his superior which made Wallace a scapegoat instead of a hero of that much misunderstood fight. I quote only part of it, but this part bristles with interest, and is enough:
“On the 6th, the memorable Sunday, a sentinel woke me from sleep on the steamboat serving me for headquarters. He reported cannonading up the river. When I reached the hurricane deck dawn was breaking. The air was humid and heavy, but still. The guns were quite audible. Five minutes—ten—and then the irregular pounding, sometimes distinct, sometimes muffled, kept scurrying down the yellow flood of the river. Directly the camp on the bluff became astir.
“My staff officers reported to me. One of them (Lieutenant Ware) I sent to Colonel Smith with directions to form his brigade and conduct it to ‘Stoney Lonesome.’ Another (Major James R. Ross) was dispatched at speed to Colonel Thayer with orders to have everything ready to move; continuing his ride, he bore an order to Colonel Wood of the Third Brigade to break camp, send baggage and property to the landing (Crump’s) and bring his regiments to the rendezvous at ‘Stoney Lonesome.’ The purpose of these orders was to have the division ready for movement when General Grant, who was at Savannah for the night, should pass in his dispatch boat going up the river.
“About 8:30 o’clock General Grant drew alongside, and a conversation, substantially (almost literally) the following, took place:
“‘Have you heard the firing?’ he asked.
“‘Yes, I have been listening to it since daybreak.’