Grant had scarcely forty thousand effective men on Sunday. Of these, half a dozen regiments were utterly raw--had scarcely had their guns long enough to know how to handle them. Some were supplied with weapons on their way up.
Buell crossed three divisions that took part in the action--Nelson's, Crittenden's, and McCook's. They numbered say twenty thousand--a liberal estimate. Lew. Wallace came up on Monday, with say seven thousand more. That gives us, counting the Sunday men as all effective again, sixty-seven thousand on Monday, on one side, against sixty to seventy thousand Rebels. It was not numbers that gained us the day, it was fighting. All honor to our Northern soldiers for it.
HALLECK TAKES THE FIELD--ORGANIZATION OF THE ARMY--PROGRESS AT A SNAIL'S PACE--SHERMAN'S ADVANCE--THE FLIGHT OF THE REBELS--SHERMAN'S OFFICIAL REPORT--CONGRATULATING THE TROOPS-- BEAUREGARD'S ADDRESS TO HIS SOLDIERS--SOME ACCOUNT OF CORINTH-- ABRUPT FINALE OF A REBEL HARANGUE.
The battle of Pittsburgh Landing unquestionably presented remarkable features. The magnitude of the struggle, the panic that affected some of the troops on the first day, the stern recovery and complete triumph of the second day, all make the event notable in our military annals. But far more remarkable, in an entirely different sense, was the campaign that followed; a campaign that even now can scarcely be contemplated with patience. It seemed as though the commanding General (Halleck), conceding the truth of the charges of excessive rashness and lack of preparation at Shiloh, had now resolved to atone therefore by going to the opposite extreme of caution and deliberation. The results of this policy were not disastrous; but they were exasperating. Had the Union army promptly followed up its advantage, gained at Shiloh, it could and doubtless would have annihilated the opposing forces and made rebellion in that region a thing of the past. This probably would have been done had Sherman been in command; for, as we have seen, his voice was for an aggressive campaign. But Sherman was not in command.
Immediately after the battle, Halleck came down from St. Louis and took his place as commander of the army in the field. Perhaps he believed the miserable slanders against Grant, charging him with drunkenness at Shiloh; perhaps he merely retained his former feeling of dissatisfaction with him. At any rate, he kept him under a cloud, appointing him nominally second in command, but giving him nothing to do. But it served his purpose to treat Sherman well, and he accordingly took him into his confidence and gave him important commissions to execute. He drew troops from other parts of the country, until he had an army of more than a hundred thousand men. To Major-General Pope he gave command of the left wing, to Major-General Buell the centre, to Major-General Thomas the right, and to Major-General McClernand the reserves. Lew. Wallace was under McClernand. Sherman was under Thomas, in the right wing, and was glad to be there. They were classmates and trusted friends, and, as Sherman afterward said, it made no difference which of them commanded the other, they were bound to work together in harmony for the good cause.