The Battle of Sunday, April 6th—The Union Troops Surprised—An Army in Disorder—Sherman's Heroic Effort to Stem the Tide—McClernand's Share in the Battle—The Rebels Pressing their Advantage—The Assault on Sherman's Left—Men too Brave to be Killed—Desperate Position of the Union Army—Looking to the Gunboats For aid—Three Desperate Charges Repulsed—Death of General Wallace.

"Agate" continues the story of the great battle of Sunday, April 6th, as follows:

Almost at dawn, Prentiss's pickets were driven in; a very little later Hildebrand's (in Sherman's Division) were; and the enemy were in the camps almost as soon as were the pickets themselves.

Here began scenes which, let us hope, will have no parallel in our remaining annals of the war. Some, particularly among our officers, were not yet out of bed. Others were dressing, others washing, others cooking, a few eating their breakfasts. Many guns were unloaded, accoutrements lying pell-mell, ammunition was ill-supplied—in short, the camps were virtually surprised—disgracefully, it might be added, unless someone can hereafter give some yet undiscovered reason to the contrary—and were taken at almost every possible disadvantage. The first wild cries from the pickets rushing in, and the few scattering shots that preceded their arrival, aroused the regiments to a sense of their peril; an instant afterward shells were hurling through the tents, while, before there was time for thought of preparation, there came rushing through the woods with lines of battle sweeping the whole fronts of the division-camps, and bending down on either flank, the fine, dashing, compact columns of the enemy.

Into the just-aroused camps thronged the Rebel regiments, firing sharp volleys as they came, and springing toward our laggards with the bayonet. Some were shot down as they were running, without weapons, hatless, coatless, toward the river. The searching bullets found other poor unfortunates in their tents, and there, all unheeding now, they still slumbered, while the unseen foe rushed on. Others fell, as they were disentangling themselves from the flaps that formed the doors to their tents; others as they were buckling on their accoutrements; a few, it was even said, as they were vainly trying to impress on the cruelly exultant enemy their readiness to surrender.

Officers were wounded in their beds, and left for dead, who, through the whole two days' fearful struggle, lay there gasping in their agony, and on Monday evening were found in their gore, inside their tents, and still able to tell the tale.

Such were the fearful disasters that opened the Rebel onset on the lines of Prentiss's Division. Similar were the fates of Hildebrand's Brigade in Sherman's Division.

Meantime, what they could our shattered regiments did. Falling rapidly back through the heavy woods till they gained a protecting ridge, firing as they ran, and making what resistance men thus situated might, Sherman's men succeeded in partially checking the rush of the enemy, long enough to form their hasty line of battle. Meantime the other two brigades of the division (to the right) sprang hastily to their arms, and had barely done so when the enemy's lines came sweeping up against their fronts too, and the battle thus opened fiercely along Sherman's whole line on the right.

Hildebrand's Brigade had been compelled to abandon their camps without a struggle. Some of the regiments, it is even said, ran without firing a gun. Colonel Appler's Fifty-third Ohio, is loudly complained of on this score, and others are mentioned. It is certain that parts of regiments, both here and in other divisions, ran disgracefully. Yet they were not wholly without excuse. They were raw troops, just from the usual idleness of our "camps of instruction;" hundreds of them had never heard a gun fired in anger; their officers, for the most part, were equally inexperienced; they had been reposing in fancied security, and were awakened, perhaps from sweet dreams of home and wives and children, by the stunning roar of cannon in their very midst, and the bursting of bomb-shells among their tents—to see only the serried columns of the magnificent Rebel advance, and through the blinding, stifling smoke, the hasty retreat of comrades and supports, right and left. Certainly, it is sad enough, but hardly surprising, that under such circumstances, some should run. Half as much caused the wild panic at Bull Run, for which the nation, as one man, became a loud-mouthed apologist.

But they ran—here as in Prentiss's Division, of which last more in a moment—and the enemy did not fail to profit by the wild disorder. As Hildebrand's Brigade fell back, McClernand threw forward his left to support it. Meanwhile Sherman was doing his best to rally his troops. Dashing along the lines, encouraging them everywhere by his presence, and exposing his own life with the same freedom with which he demanded their offer of theirs, he did much to save the division from utter destruction. Buckland and McDowell held their ground fiercely for a time. At last they were compelled to retire their brigades from their camps across the little ravine behind; but here again they made a gallant defence, while what was left of Hildebrand's was falling back in such order as it might, and leaving McClernand's left to take their place, and check the wave of Rebel advance.

Prentiss was faring scarcely so well. Most of his troops stood their ground, to be formed into line, but strangely enough, the line was drawn up in an open space, leaving to the enemy the cover of the dense scrub-oak in front, from which they could pour in their volleys in comparative safety.

The men held their position with an obstinacy that adds new laurels to the character of the American soldiers, but it was too late. Down on either flank came the overwhelming enemy. Fiercely pushed in front, with a wall of bayonets closing in on either side, like the contracting iron chamber of the Inquisition, what could they do but what they did? Speedily their resistance became less obstinate, more and more rapidly they fell back, less and less frequent became their returning volleys.

The enemy pushed their advantage. They were already within our lines; they had driven one division from all its camps, and nearly opened, as they supposed, the way to the river. Just here—between 9 and 10 o'clock—McArthur's Brigade of W.H.L. Wallace's Division came up to give some assistance to Stuart's Brigade of Sherman's Division on the extreme left, now in imminent danger of being cut off by Prentiss's defection. McArthur mistook the way, marched too far to the right, and so, instead of reaching Stuart, came in on the other side of the Rebels, now closely pushing Prentiss. His men at once opened vigorously on the enemy, and for a time they seemed likely still to save our imperilled division. But coming unawares, as they seem to have done, upon the enemy, their positions were not well chosen, and all had to fall back together.

General Prentiss seems here to have become separated from a large portion of his command. The division fell into confusion; fragments of brigades and regiments continued the fight, but there was no longer concert of action or continuity of lines of defence. Most of the troops drifted back behind the new lines that were being formed; many, as they continued an isolated struggle, were surrounded and taken prisoners.

Practically, by 10 o'clock the division was gone. General Prentiss and the few troops that surrounded him maintained a detached position some hours longer, till they were completely cut off and surrounded; and the Rebels signalized their success by marching three regiments, with a division general, as prisoners, to their rear.

By 10 o'clock, however, this entire division was virtually hors du combat. A deep gap in our front line was made, the Rebels had nearly pierced through, and were only held back by McArthur's Brigade and the rest of W.H. L. Wallace's Division, which hurried over to its assistance.

For the present, let us leave them there. They held the line from this time until four.

We left Sherman's Brigade maintaining a confused fight, Hildebrand's about gone, Buckland's and McDowell's holding their ground more tenaciously. The firing aroused McClernand's Division. At first they supposed it to be a mere skirmish; perhaps even only the irregular discharge of muskets by guards and pickets, to clean out their guns—a practice which, to the disgrace of our discipline be it said, was well nigh universal—and rendered it almost impossible at any time to know whether firing meant anything at all, beyond ordinary disorder of our own soldiers. But the continued rattle of musketry soon undeceived them, and almost as soon the advance of the Rebels, pouring after Hildebrand, was upon them.

The division, it will be remembered, lay a short distance in the rear, and with one brigade stretching out to the left of Sherman's line. Properly speaking, merely from the location of the camp, McClernand did not belong to the front line at all. Two-thirds of his division were entirely behind Sherman. But as the latter fell back, McClernand had to bear the shock of battle.

His division was composed as follows: First Brigade, Colonel Hare commanding, Eighth and Eighteenth Illinois, Eleventh and Thirteenth Iowa; Second Brigade, Colonel C.C. Marsh commanding, Eleventh, Twentieth, Forty-eighth and Forty-fifth Illinois, Colonels Ransom, Marsh, Haynie and Smith (the latter is the "lead mine regiment"); Third Brigade, Colonel Raith commanding, Seventeenth, Twenty-ninth and Forty-ninth Illinois, Lieutenant-Colonels Wood, Farrell and Pease, and Forty-third Illinois, Colonel Marsh. Besides this fine show of experienced troops, they had Schwartz's, Dresser's, McAllister's and Waterhouse's Batteries.

As already stated, McClernand was first called into action shortly after the surprise of Sherman's left Brigade (Hildebrand's)—about 7 in the morning—by having to move up his left brigade to support Sherman's retreating left, and preserve the line. Then, as Sherman's other brigades fell back, McClernand's moved up and engaged the enemy in support. Gradually the resistance in Buckland's Brigade and what was still left to its right of Hildebrand's, became more confused and irresolute. The line wavered, the men fell back in squads and companies, they failed to rally promptly at the call of their officers. As they retreated, the woods behind them became thinner, and there was less protection from the storm of grape that swept as if on blasts of a hurricane among the trees. Lieutenant-Colonel Canfield, commanding the Seventy-second Ohio, was mortally wounded and borne dying from the field. Colonel Sullivan, of the Forty-eighth Ohio, was wounded, but continued at the head of his men. Company officers fell and were carried away from their men.

At one of our wavering retreats, the Rebels, by a sudden dash forward, had taken part of Waterhouse's Battery, which McClernand had sent them over. Behr's Battery, too, was taken, and Taylor's Chicago Light Artillery was so terribly pounded as to be forced to retire with heavy loss. As the troops gave way, they came out from the open woods into old fields, completely raked by the enemy's fire. For them all was lost, and away went Buckland's and Hildebrand's Brigades, Ohioans and Illinoisans together, to the rear and right, in such order as they might.

McDowell's Brigade had fallen back less slowly than its two companions of the same division, but it was now left entirely alone. It had formed our extreme right, and, of course, had no support there; its supporting brigades on the left had gone; through the space they had occupied the Rebels were pouring; they were in imminent danger of being entirely cut off, and back they fell, too, still farther to the right and rear, among the ravines that border Snake Creek.

And here, so far as Sunday's fight is concerned, the greater part of Sherman's Division passes out of view. The General himself was indefatigable in collecting and reorganizing his men, and a straggling contest was doubtless kept up along portions of his new lines, but with little weight in inclining the scales of battle. The General bore with him one token of the danger to which he had exposed himself, a musket-ball through the hand. It was the common expression of all that his escape so lightly was wonderful. Whatever may be his faults or neglects, none can accuse him of a lack of gallantry and energy when the attack was made on his raw division that memorable Sunday morning.

To return to McClernand's Division: I have spoken of his sending up first, his left, and then his centre brigade, to support Sherman, shortly after the surprise. As Sherman fell back, McClernand was compelled to bring in his brigades again to protect his left against the onset of the Rebels, who, seeing how he had weakened himself there, and inspired by their recent success over Prentiss, hurled themselves against him with tremendous force. To avoid bringing back these troops, a couple of new regiments, the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Iowa, were brought up, but taking utterly raw troops on the field, under heavy fire, was too severe a trial for them, and they gave way in confusion. To meet the attack, then the whole division made a change of front, and faced along the Corinth road. Here the batteries were placed in position, and till 10 o'clock the Rebels were foiled in every attempt to gain the road. 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.

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.

During the attack on Prentiss, Stuart's Brigade was formed along the road, the left resting near the Lick Creek Ford, the right, Seventy-first Ohio, Colonel Rodney Mason, (late Assistant Adjutant-General of Ohio, and Colonel of the Second Ohio at Manassas,) being nearest Prentiss. The first intimation they had of disaster to their right was the partial cessation of firing. An instant afterward muskets were seen glinting among the leaves, and presently a Rebel column emerged from a bend in the road, with banners flying and moving at double-quick down the road toward them. Their supports to the left were further off than the Rebels, and it was at once seen that, with but one piece of artillery a single regiment could do nothing there. They accordingly fell rapidly back toward the ford, and were re-formed in an orchard near the other regiments.

The Rebel column veered on further to the right, in search of Prentiss's flying troops, and for a brief space, though utterly isolated, they were unmolested.

Before ten, however, the brigade, which had still stood listening to the surging roar of battle on the left, was startled by the screaming of a shell that came directly over their heads. In an instant the batteries of the Rebel force that had gained the commanding bluffs opposite, by approaching on the Corinth and Hamburgh road, were in full play, and the orchards and open fields in which they were posted (looking only for attack in the opposite direction) were swept with the exploding shells and hail-storm rush of grape.

Under cover of this fire from the bluffs, the Rebels rushed down, crossed the ford, and in a moment were seen forming this side of the creek, in open fields also, and within close musket range. Their color-bearers stepped defiantly to the front, as the engagement opened furiously, the Rebels pouring in sharp, quick volleys of musketry, and their batteries above continuing to support them with a destructive fire. Our sharpshooters wanted to pick off the audacious Rebel color-bearers, but Colonel Stuart interposed: "No, no, they're too brave fellows to be killed." Almost at the first fire, Lieutenant-Colonel Barton S. Kyle, of the Seventy-first, was shot through the breast. The brigade stood for scarcely ten minutes, when it became evident that its position was untenable, and they fell rapidly back, perhaps a quarter of a mile, to the next ridge; a few of his men, at great personal risk, carrying Lieutenant-Colonel Kyle, in a dying condition, from the field they were abandoning. Ohio lost no braver, truer man that day.

As they reached the next woody ridge, Rebel cavalry, that had crossed the creek lower down, were seen coming up on their left; and to resist this new attack the line of battle was formed, fronting in that direction. For three quarters of an hour the brigade stood here. The cavalry, finding its purpose foiled, did not come within range. In front they were hard pressed, and the Rebels, who had followed Prentiss, began to come in on their right. Colonel Stuart had sent across to Brigadier-General W.H.L. Wallace, then not engaged, for support. Brigadier-General McArthur's Brigade was promptly started across, but mistaking the way, and bearing too much on the right, it speedily found itself in the midst of the Rebel forces, that had poured in after Prentiss. General McArthur could thus render Stuart's Brigade no assistance, but he vigorously engaged the Rebels to his front and flanks, fell back to a good position, and held these troops in bay till the rest of his division came up to his aid. General McArthur was himself disabled by a wound in the foot, but he rode into a hospital, had it dressed, and returned to the brigade, which meantime sturdily held its position.

But this brought Stuart's isolated brigade little help. They were soon forced to fall back to another ridge, then to another, and finally, about 12 o'clock, badly shattered and disordered, they retreated to the right and rear, falling in behind General McArthur's Brigade to reorganize. Colonel Stuart was himself wounded by a ball through his right shoulder, and the loss of field and company-officers was sufficient to greatly discourage the troops.

This clears our entire front line of divisions. The enemy has full possession of all Sherman's, Prentiss's, and McClernand's camps. By 10 o'clock our whole front, except Stuart's Brigade, had given way, and the burden of the fight was resting on Hurlbut and W.H.L. Wallace. Before 12 Stuart, too, had come back, and for the time absolutely only those two divisions stood between our army and destruction or surrender.

Still all was not lost. Hurlbut and Wallace began making a most gallant stand; and meantime most of the troops from the three driven divisions were still to some extent available. Many of them had wandered down the river—some as far as Crump's Landing, and some even to Savannah. These were brought back again on transports. Lines of guards were extended to prevent skulkers from getting back to the Landing, and especially to stop the shrewd dodge among the cravans of taking six or eight able-bodied soldiers to assist some slightly-wounded fellow into the hospital; and between this cordon and the rear of the fighting divisions the fragments of regiments were reorganized after a fashion, and sent back to the field. Brigades could not be got together again, much less divisions, but the regiments pieced together from the loose squads that could be gathered and officered, often by men who could find scarcely a soldier of their own commands, were hurried to the front, and many of them did good service.

It was fortunate for us that the accidental circumstance that Prentiss's portion of our lines had been completely broken sooner than any of the rest, had caused the enemy's onset to veer chiefly to our left. There we were tolerably safe; and at worst, if the Rebels drove us to the river on the left flank, the gunboats would come into play. Our weakest point was the right, and to turning this the Rebels do not seem to have paid so much attention on Sunday.

According to general understanding, in the event of an attack at Pittsburgh Landing, Major-General Lew. Wallace was to come in on our right and flank the Rebels by marching across from Crump's Landing below. Yet strangely enough, Wallace, though with his division all drawn up and ready to march anywhere at a moment's notice, was not ordered to Pittsburgh Landing till nearly if not quite 12 o'clock. Then through misdirection as to the way to come in on the flank, four miles of marching were lost, and the circuitous route made it twelve miles more, before they could reach the scene of battle. Meantime our right was almost wholly unprotected. Fortunately, as I said, however, the Rebels do not seem to have discovered the full extent of this weakness, and their heaviest fighting was done on the centre and left, where we still preserved our line.

Hurlbut's Division, it will be remembered, stretched across the Corinth road, facing rather to our left. W.H. L. Wallace's other brigades had gone over to assist McArthur, and the division, thus reunited, steadily closed the line, where Prentiss's Division and Stuart's Brigade, in their retreat, had left it open. To Hurlbut's right the lines were patched out with the reorganized regiments that had been resent to the field. McClernand and Sherman were both there.

Hurlbut had been encamped in the edge nearest the river, of a stretch of open fields, backed with heavy timber. Among his troops were the Seventeenth and Twenty-fifth Kentucky, Forty-fourth and Thirty-first Indiana, constituting Lauman's Brigade; Third Iowa, Forty-first Illinois and some others, forming Colonel Williams' Brigade.

As Prentiss fell back, Hurlbut's left aided Wallace in sustaining the Rebel onset, and when McClernand gave way, the remainder of the division was thrown forward. The position beyond the camp, however, was not a good one, and the division was compelled to fall back through its camp to the thick woods behind. Here, with open fields before them, they could rake the Rebel approach. Nobly did they now stand their ground. From 10 to half-past 3 they held the enemy in check, and through nearly that whole time were actively engaged. Hurlbut himself displayed the most daring and brilliant gallantry, and his example, with that of the brave officers under him, nerved the men to the sternest endurance.

Three times during those long hours the heavy Rebel masses on the left charged upon the division, and three times were they repulsed, with terrible slaughter. Close, sharp, continuous musketry, whole lines belching fire on the Rebels as the leaden storm swept the fields over which they attempted to advance, were too much for Rebel discipline, though the bodies left scattered over the fields, even on Monday evening, bore ghastly testimony to the daring with which they had been precipitated toward our lines.

But there is still much in the Napoleonic theory that Providence has a tendency at least to go with the heaviest battalions. The battalions were against us. The Rebel generals, too, handled their forces with a skill that extorted admiration in the midst of our suffering. Repulse was nothing to them. A rush on our lines failed; they took their disordered troops to the rear, and sent up fresh troops, who, unknowing the fearful reception awaiting them, were ready to try it again. The jaded division was compelled to yield, and after six hours' magnificent fighting, it fell back out of sight of its camps, and to a point within half a mile of the Landing.

Let us turn to the fate of Hurlbut's companion division—that of Brigadier-General W.H.L. Wallace, which included the Second and Seventh Iowa, Ninth and Twenty-eighth Illinois, and several of the other regiments composing Major-General Smith's old division; with also three excellent batteries, Stone's, Richardson's and Weber's (all from Missouri), forming an artillery battalion, under the general management of Major Cavender.

Here, too, the fight began about ten o'clock, as already described. From that time until four in the afternoon they manfully bore up. The musketry fire was absolutely continuous; there was scarcely a moment that some part of the line was not pouring in it rattling volleys, and the artillery was admirably served, with but little intermission through the entire time.

Once or twice the infantry advanced, attempting to drive the continually increasing enemy, but though they could hold what they had, their numbers were not equal to the task of conquering any more.

Four separate times the Rebels attempted to turn to charge on them. Each time the infantry poured in its quickest volleys, the artillery redoubled its exertions, and the Rebels retreated with heavy slaughter. The division was eager to remain, even when Hurlbut fell back, and the fine fellows with the guns were particularly indignant at not being permitted to pound away. But their supports were gone on either side; to have remained in isolated advance would have been madness. Just as the necessity for retreating was becoming apparent, General Wallace, whose cool, collected bravery had commanded the admiration of all, was mortally wounded, and borne away from the field. At last the division fell back. Its soldiers claim—justly, I believe—the proud distinction of being the last to yield, in the general break of our lines, that gloomy Sunday afternoon, which, at half past four o'clock, had left most of our army within half a mile of the Landing, with the Rebels up to a thousand yards of their position.

Captain Stone could not resist the temptation of stopping, as he passed what had been Hurlbut's headquarters, to try a few parting shots. He did fine execution, but narrowly escaped losing some guns, by having his wheel horses shot down. Captain Walker did lose a twenty pounder through some breakage in the carriage. It was recovered again on Monday.