But Sherman having now fallen back, there was nothing to prevent the Rebels from coming in, farther out on the road, and turning McClernand's right. Prompt to seize the advantage, a brigade of them went dashing audaciously through the division's abandoned camp, pushing up the road to come in above McClernand, between him and where Sherman had been. Dresser's Battery of rifled guns opened on them as they passed, and with fearful slaughter—not confined, alas! to one side only—drove them back.
But the enemy's reserves were most skillfully handled, and the constant advance of fresh regiments was, at last too much for our inferior numbers. Major Eaton, commanding the Eighteenth Illinois, was killed; Colonel Haynie was severely wounded; Colonel Raith, commanding a brigade, had his leg so shattered that amputation was necessary; Major Nevins, of the Eleventh Illinois, was wounded; Lieutenant-Colonel Ransom of the same regiment was wounded; three of General McClernand's staff, Major Schwartz, Major Stewart and Lieutenant Freeman, were wounded and carried from the field. Line officers had suffered heavily. The batteries were broken up. Schwartz had lost half his guns and sixteen horse. Dresser had lost several of his rifled pieces, three caissons and eighteen horses. McAllister had lost half his twenty-four-pound howitzers.
The soldiers fought bravely to the last—let no man question that—but they were at a fearful disadvantage. Gradually they began falling back, more slowly than had Prentiss's regiments, or part of Sherman's, making more determined, because better organized, resistance, occasionally rallying and repulsing the enemy in turn for a hundred yards, then being beaten back again, and renewing the retreat to some new position for fresh defence.
By 11 o'clock the division was back in a line with Hurlbut's. It still did some gallant fighting; once its right swept around and drove the enemy for a considerable distance, but again fell back, and at the last it brought up near the position of W. H. L. Wallace's camps.
We have seen how Prentiss, Sherman, McClernand were driven back; how, fight as fiercely as they would, they still lost ground; how their camps were all in the hands of the enemy; and how this whole front line, for which Hurlbut and Wallace were but the reserves, was gone.
But the fortunes of the isolated brigade of Sherman's Division, on the extreme left, must not be forgotten. It was doubly let alone by the Generals. General Grant did not arrive on the field till after nearly all these disasters had crowded upon us, and each Division General had done that which was good in his own eyes, and carried on the battle independent of the rest; but this brigade was even left by its Division General, who was four miles away, doing his best to rally his panic-stricken regiments there.
It was Commanded by Colonel David Stuart, (of late Chicago divorce-case fame, and ex-Congressman,) and was composed of the Fifty-fifth Illinois, Lieutenant-Colonel Malmbourg, commanding; Seventy-first Ohio, Colonel Rodney Mason; the Fifty-fourth Ohio, (Zouaves,) Colonel T. K. Smith. It was posted along the circuitous road from Pittsburgh Landing, up the river to Hamburgh, some two miles from the Landing, and near the crossing of Lick Creek, the bluffs on the opposite side of which commanded the position, and stretching on down to join Prentiss's Division on its right. In selecting the grounds for the encampment of our army, it seems to have been forgotten that from Corinth an excellent road led direct to Hamburgh, a few miles above this left wing of our forces. Within a few days, the oversight had indeed been discovered, and the determination had been expressed to land Buell's forces at Hamburgh, when they arrived, and thus make all safe. It was unfortunate, of course, that Beauregard and Johnston did not wait for us to perfect our pleasing arrangements.
LIEUTENANT GENERAL SHERIDAN.
When the Rebels marched out from Corinth, a couple of brigades (rumored to be under the command of Breckinridge) had taken this road, and thus easily, and without molestation reached the bluffs of Lick Creek, commanding Stuart's position.