THE REBEL ATTACK AT PITTSBURG LANDING. under Gen. John C. Breckinridge, closely following. This order, however, was soon sacrificed to the exigencies of the contest. 50 Rumors of a Rebel advance, and the capture of some of our officers thereby, had reached our camps on Friday; and an Ohio brigade had been sent out to reconnoiter, which had a brush with a smaller Rebel force, and pushed it back to a battery which was found in position near our lines. Gen. Lew. Wallace's division was thereupon ordered out, and advanced to Adamsville, on the road to Purdy; but, meeting no opponent, after passing a night in drenching rain, it returned to its camp. On Saturday, there was firing along our front, which ought to have incited inquiry, if not alarm, but did not. As day broke," our pickets in Prentiss's front came rushing into camp, barely in advance of the pursuing Rebels, whose shells were tearing through our tents a moment afterward. Some of our men were dressing; others washing or cooking; a few eating their breakfasts; many, especially officers, had not yet risen. The next instant, magnificent lines of battle poured out of the woods in front of our camps, and at doublequick rushed in upon our bewildered, half-dressed, and not yet half-formed men, firing deadly volleys at close range, then springing upon the helpless, coatless, musketless mob with the bayonet. Some fell as they ran; others as they emerged from their tents, or as they strove to buckle on their accouterments; some tried to surrender; but the Rebels could not stop then to take prisoners. Some of these were found, though disabled, 59 April 4. 61 still alive, when we recovered those tents next evening. Thus was Prentiss's division routed before it had time to form in line of battle; and Hildebrand's brigade, on Sherman's right, was demolished. with equal expedition, in spite of Sherman's best exertions. His efforts and influence, backed by the most reckless self-exposure, held his remaining brigades, under Buckland and McDowell, steady for a time; but these were soon compelled to fall back behind the next ravine, leaving their camps, with all their tents and tent equipage, to the enemy. McClernand's division, comprising 10 regiments and 4 batteries, had been astonished with the rest, but not yet directly assailed. Moving up, at 7 A. M., to the support of Sherman, it found his division mostly gone or going; its best officers killed or wounded, its batteries either captured or badly cut up. Buckland's brigade, which had gone after Hildebrand's, forming our extreme right on the front, had fallen back to avoid certain destruction. To all practical intents, and in spite of its leader's desperate and untiring exertions, Sherman's division was out of the fight by 8 o'clock that ominous morning. It seemed a miracle that their commander, always in the hottest of the Rebel fire, escaped with a single musket-ball through his hand. Prentiss formed his division as quickly as possible, and not far in the rear of their camps, where his men faced to the front and fought stubbornly for a time; but they had been strangely drawn up in an open field, leaving to the enemy the cover of a dense scrub-oak thicket in our On Sunday, April 6. 60 A Positions of Maj.-Gen. Grant's forces on the morning C Positions of Grant and Buell on the morning of of April 6th. B Positions of Grant, with the divisions of Nelson and Crittenden, on the evening of April 6th. front, whence they could pour volley after volley in comparative security. Soon, our men were flanked on either side, and fell back, perceiving that they were squandering their lives to no purpose. Thus the division lost all coherence and efficiency; its leader became separated from a large 01 This did not occur till about 4 P. M.; but he had long before ceased to form a part of our April 7th. D Positions of Grant and Buell on the evening of E April 7th. Reserve Artillery. portion of his command; and by 10 o'clock it had been virtually demolished. Prentiss himself, with three regiments, held an unassailed position until, having long since become completely surrounded, he was finally obliged to surrender;" when over 2,000 of our men in one body were line of battle, the Rebels having flanked and passed on beyond him. PRENTISS CAPTURED-MOCLERNAND WORSTED. 63 hurried to the Rebel rear as prisoners, and soon started on the road to Corinth. McClernand for a while stood firm; but the defection of Sherman's division on one side, and Prentiss's on the other, left the Rebels free to hurl themselves against him in tremendous force. Two green regiments, the 15th and 16th Iowa, which he now brought to the front under a heavy fire, gave way at once in disorder. Changing his front to meet the Rebel onset, he faced along the Corinth road and planted his batteries to command it; so that the Rebels were for a time foiled in their efforts to advance; and an effort to come in on his rear, over ground abandoned by Sherman's division, was handsomely repulsed, with heavy mutual loss, by Dresser's rifled battery. But one division could not sustain the weight of more than half the Rebel army, admirably handled, and constantly advancing fresh regiments to replace those already blown or too badly cut up. After repulsing several determined attacks, sometimes advancing a little, but generally giving ground, and losing three Colonels of the line and three officers of his staff, with at least half the effective force of his batteries, McClernand, by 11 A. M., found himself pushed back, with Hurlbut's fresh division on his left, and the débris of Sherman's on his right. Meantime, a brigade of Sherman's division, under Col. David Stuart, which had been oddly posted on our extreme left, holding what was known as the Hamburg road, had been suddenly shelled from the opposite bluffs of Lick creek, by a force which the next instant peppered them with grape, and the next rushed across the creek and began pouring in sharp volleys of musketry, while the Rebel batteries, firing over the heads of their infantry, soon made our position untenable. Stuart fell back to the next ridge; and, finding the Rebels who had followed Prentiss beginning to come in on his right, sent to Gen. W. H. L.Wallace for assistance. Gen. McArthur's brigade was promptly dispatched to Stuart's support; but, bearing too much to the right, was soon sharply engaged with the pursuers of Prentiss. Falling back to a good position, he held it, though wounded, until Wallace came to his aid; but Stuart, receiving no direct support, was driven back from one ridge to another, until by noon, himself wounded, several of his officers fallen, and his command sadly shattered, he fell in behind McArthur to reorganize. And thus, of our six divisions, three had been thoroughly routed before mid-day. Gen. Grant had arrived on the battle-field about 8 A. M.; but, early as was the hour, his army was already beaten. As this, however, is a circumstance of which he is not easily convinced, it did not seem to make as vivid an impression on him as on others. Sending word to Lew. Wallace to hasten up with his division on our right, he devoted his personal attention to reforming his shattered brigades, rëestablishing his silenced batteries, and forming new lines of defense to replace those so suddenly demolished. Hurlbut's and W. H. L. Wallace's divisions were still intact; while of the others the better but not the larger part of those not already disabled fell into line on their flanks, or just behind them. Lew. Wallace was at Crump's Landing, with his force extended on the road to Purdy, when he received, at 11 A. M., Grant's order to bring his division into the fight. He had been anxiously awaiting that order, listening to the sound of the mutual cannonade since morning; and his Hurlbut held the direct road to | pelled them to fall back also, or be Corinth, with woods at his back flanked and surrounded as Prentiss and open fields commanded by his had been. Just now, their leader fell, batteries in his front; and here he mortally wounded; closing in death stood, fighting a more numerous, a day's work which had won for him equally gallant, and victory-flushed the admiration of all beholders and enemy, for more than five hours. the lasting gratitude of his country. Here he was thrice charged in full The division fell back into line with force, and thrice he repulsed the foe Hurlbut's new position; losing of its with terrible slaughter. The close batteries but a single gun, whereof ranks which rushed upon him were the carriage had been disabled. first plowed through and through with grape, then, as they came nearer, with more deadly musketry; until the shouted orders, entreaties, menaces, of frantic officers no longer availed, and the long lines sank back defeated to the shelter in their rear. Here fell, at 2 o'clock, Albert Sidney Johnston, the Rebel commander-in-column was instantly put in motion. chief, struck in the thigh by a fragment of shell, but sitting silently on his horse for some minutes, and only taken off to die. Beauregard at once assumed command; but the death of Johnston was concealed, so far as possible, until his army had returned to Corinth. An hour later, Hurlbut's division, worn out by incessant fighting against fresh regiments, fell back nearly half a mile, to a position about that distance from the Landing. W. H. L. Wallace's division was in like manner exposed to and attacked by the exultant Rebels about 10 A. M.; and for six hours was hotly engaged, with scarcely an intermission. Four times was it charged along its whole line; and every charge was repulsed with heavy slaughter. Once or twice, our men pursued their retreating foes; but the disparity of numbers was too great, and they were soon pushed back to their lines. They were still fighting as eagerly and confidently as ever, when Hurlbut's retreat com Snake creek, with steep banks and swampy bottom, was in his way; but his men were eager for the fray, and were soon making good time in the direction indicated. But he was met, near the creek, by messengers from Grant with tidings that our advanced divisions had been overpowered and beaten back; so that the road on which he was hastening would now lead him directly into the midst of the enemy, who could easily envelop him with thrice his numbers. He thereupon turned abruptly to the left, moving down the west bank of Snake creek to the river road, which follows the windings of the Tennessee bottom, and crosses the creek at its mouth, close by Pittsburg Landing. This countermarch delayed his junction with our sorelypressed combatants until after nightfall; and thus 11 regiments of our infantry, 2 batteries, and 2 battalions of cavalry, remained useless throughout that day's bloody struggle. WEBSTER'S GUNS STOP THE REBEL ADVANCE. 65 commanding the roads whereby the Rebels must approach. Gunners proving scarce, Dr. Cornyn, surgeon of the 1st Missouri artillery, volunteered in that capacity, and proved himself a workman who needed not to be ashamed. There was rare virtue inherent in those 22 guns, and men around them who knew how to evoke it. It was hardly 6 o'clock when the Rebel batteries, once more in position, opened, at a distance of a few hundred yards, on our last possible holding-ground. At 4 P. M., our surprised but | remaining guns-22 only—and plant otherwise over-matched army, apart them on the bluff in a semicircle, from Lew. Wallace's division, had been crowded back into a semicircle of three or four hundred acres immediately around, but rather to the left of the Landing. It could retreat no farther. A deep, rapid river in its rear could only be crossed with the loss of half its remaining men" and every thing beside. Of its five divisions, two had been beaten back; the other three utterly routed. Our artillery was half lost or disabled; our field-hospitals overflowing; our tents and camp-equipage mainly in the hands of the enemy; our losses in men enormous; and those who had not fallen were in good part disheartened; not less than 5,000 men in uniform, possibly twice that number-to say nothing of sutlers, commissaries, and the usual rabble of camp-followers-were huddled under the bank of the river, not all of them privates, but all repeating the stereotyped excuse, "Our regiment is all cut to pieces," and resisting every entreaty of their more zealous officers to bring them again into line. Our next recoil must be over the bank, into the hideous, helpless massacre of a grander Ball's Bluff. Promptly and most efficiently, Webster's guns make reply. Soon, the Rebel infantry was seen crowding up to their guns, opening fire at rather long range, to find our shattered battalions reformed and giving abundant answer. At this moment, the gunboats Tyler and Lexington, which had all day been chafing at their impotence, opened on our left, firing up a deep ravine that seemed to have been cut through the bluff on purpose. Seven-inch shell and 64-pound shot were hurled by them diagonally across the new Rebel front, decidedly interfering with the regularity of its formation, and preventing that final rush upon our guns and the supporting infantry whose success would have perfected their triumph. So, far into the evening of that busy, lurid Sabbath, our asked Buell. "Oh, across the river," responded Grant. "But you could not have ferried over more than 10,000 men," persisted Buell. "Well, there would not have been more than that," replied Grant. Temerity was then so rare among our Generals that it seemed a virtue. |