“General Grant, speaking of the order, has several times said that he sent it to me not later than 10 o’clock; that it directed me to march to Pittsburg Landing by the lower or river road; that he gave it verbally to a staff officer, and did not know what it was when delivered to me. Of course, he could not know, but I do; and others, some dead, some living, who read it, have given their accounts of it, so that I can speak with confidence. Here it is—as I received it, mark you—almost verbatim:
“‘You will leave a sufficient force at Crump’s Landing to guard the public property there; with the rest of your division march and form junction with the right of the army, your line at right angles with river, and be governed by circumstances.’
“Observe, if you please, that the words by the lower or river road to Pittsburg Landing are omitted, leaving nothing but a naked direction for me to march and form junction with the right of the army.
“Do I deny General Grant’s version of the order? I believe he ordered me to Pittsburg Landing by the river road because he says he did, and because at 10 o’clock, when the whole army was slowly and sullenly retiring to the river, it was the order logically right and first to present itself. Moreover, by inserting in the body of the order actually brought to me the words ‘to Pittsburg Landing by the lower or river road,’ we have sense in the other direction to ‘form my line of battle at right angles with the river,’ otherwise without sense. At the right of the army, out three miles from the Landing, how was the angle to be ascertained? Why, then, did I not lead my column to Pittsburg Landing? And I answer, because the order Captain Baxter delivered to me contained no mention of Pittsburg Landing or of any road. Satisfied that I comprehended it, I passed the paper to Colonel Thayer; others about us at the moment read it. I gave it finally to Captain Kneffler, my Adjutant-General, who probably stuck it under his sword belt. It was lost during the day. On account of its informality, he attached no importance to it, and, as I shared the opinion, I never blamed him.
“My first thought was, where is the right of the army? Captain Baxter’s good news settled the point. If not where it was in the morning, then Sherman must have advanced. In short, Sherman’s camp was now my goal, and I knew it was just beyond the bridge at the junction of Owl and Snake Creeks, on the road from Pittsburg Landing to Purdy. To get to it by the shortest route and in the quickest time from the corner of the V my brigades were in, I must take the right-hand road. General Grant has said in a footnote of his ‘Memoirs’ that, in the absence of an express direction, if I had been an older soldier I would have marched to Pittsburg Landing, and thence, as from a base, out to Sherman. I think not. He forgot the news I had from Baxter as to the condition of the battle; besides which, by taking the right line of the road fork, the distance of the march would be reduced nearly, if not quite, three miles; in addition to which, again, the column would be on the very road Myers had bridged and corduroyed for me. So I sent word to Myers to lead out for the Owl Creek bridge next to Sherman’s camp.
“I asked myself, to be sure, if we are beating the enemy, and he is on the run, why the want of me? And why the order to form my line at right angles with the river? I could not answer, but rested implicitly on the order. Grant was on the ground—he knew—that was enough. The idea of defeat never entered my mind; and starting, as I was, with intelligence of a victory already won by our army, what ground is there for the imputation that I had the achievement of some special glory in purpose?
“The road we were pursuing had been well repaired. The cavalry had done its work substantially, and we bowled along. By the firing we could tell we were nearing the battle. We took no note of time. Somewhere about half after one o’clock—I remember the head of the column was reported in the vicinity of the Owl Creek bridge—a cavalry officer, quite young and capless, covered with mud, slashed across the forehead, rode up from the rear and asked:
“‘Are you General Wallace?’
“Without pulling rein, I replied.
“‘General Grant,’ he said, ‘has sent me to tell you to hurry up.’