The Work of Sunday Night—Landing of Buell's Troops—Effect of the Bombardment—Lack of System in the Union Army—Renewing the Battle—A Change of Tactics—Turning the Tide—Crittenden's Advance—The Advance at the Centre—A Grand Parade on the Field of War—Redeeming the Losses of Sunday—Facing the Louisiana Troops—Silencing the Battery—End of the Great Struggle.

After giving the roll of the Federal troops engaged at Shiloh, "Agate" concludes his remarkable narrative as follows:

With the exception of the gunboat bombardment, the night seemed to have passed in entire quiet. A heavy thunder-storm had come up about midnight, and though we were all shivering over the ducking, the surgeons assured us that a better thing could not have happened. The ground, they said, was covered with wounded not yet found, or whom we were unable to bring from the field. The moisture would to some extent cool the burning, parching thirst, which is one of the chief terrors of lying wounded and helpless on the battle-field, and the falling water was the best dressing for the wounds.

The regiments of Buell's Divisions were still disembarking at the Landing. Many had taken their places, the rest hurried out as fast as they landed, and fell in, to the rear of their brigade-lines, for reserves. I stood for a few moments at the Landing, curious to see how these fine fellows would march out to the field where they knew reverses had crowded so thickly upon us the day before, and where many of them must lie down to sleep his last sleep ere the sun, then rising, should sink again. There was little of that vulgar vanity of valor which was so conspicuous in all the movements of our rawer troops eight or nine months ago. There was no noisy and senseless yelling, no shouting of boasts, no calling on on-lookers, to "show us where the cowardly Secesh is, and we'll clean 'em out double-quick." These men understood the work before them; they went to it as brave men should, determinedly, hopefully, calmly.

It soon became evident that the gunboat bombardment through the night had not been without a most important effect in changing the conditions under which we renewed the struggle. The sun had gone down with the enemy's lines clasping us tightly on the centre and left, pushing us to the river, and leaving us little over half a mile out of all the broad space we had held in the morning. The gunboats had cut the coils, and loosened the constriction. As we soon learned, their shells had made the old position on our extreme left, which the Rebels had been pleasantly occupying, utterly untenable. Instead of being able to slip up on us through the night, as they had probably intended, they were compelled to fall back from point to point; each time as they had found places, they thought, out of range, a shell would come dropping in. Nowhere within range could they lie, but the troublesome visitors would find them out; and to end the matter, they fell back beyond our inner camps, and thus lost more than half the ground they had gained by our 4 o'clock retreat the afternoon before.

Less easily accounted for was a movement of theirs on our right. They had held here a steep bluff covered with underbrush, as their advanced line. Through the night they abandoned this, which gave them the best position for opposing Lew. Wallace, and had fallen back across some open fields to the scrub-oak woods beyond. The advantage of compelling our advance over unprotected openings, while they maintained a sheltered position, was obvious, but certainly not so great as holding a height which artillery and infantry would make as difficult to take as many a fort. Nevertheless they fell back.

The reader who is patient enough to wade through this narration, will scarcely fail to observe that thus far I have said little or nothing of any plan of attack or defence among our commanders. It has been simply because I have failed to see any evidence of such a plan. To me it seemed on Sunday as if every Division General at least—not to say in many cases, every individual soldier—imitated the good old Israelitish plan of action, by which every man did what seemed good in his own eyes. There may have been an infinite amount of generalship displayed, in superintending our various defeats and re-formations and retreats, but to me it seemed of that microscopic character that required the magnifying powers of a special permit for exclusive newspaper telegraphing on government lines to discover.

Sunday night there was a council of war, but if the Major-General commanding developed any plans there, beyond the simple arrangement of our line of battle, I am very certain that some of the Division Commanders didn't find it out. Stubborn fighting alone delayed our losses on Sunday; stubborn fighting alone saved us when we had reached the point beyond which came the child's "jumping-off place;" and stubborn fight, with such generalship as individual Division Commanders displayed, regained on Monday what we had lost before.

To those who had looked despairingly at the prospects Sunday evening, it seemed strange that the Rebels did not open out on us by daybreak again. Their retreat before the bomb-shells of the gunboats, however, explained the delay. Our own divisions were put in motion almost simultaneously. By seven o'clock Lew. Wallace opened the ball by shelling, from the positions he had selected the night before, the Rebel battery, of which mention has been made. A brisk artillery duel, a rapid movement of infantry across a shallow ravine, as if to storm, and the Rebels enfiladed and menaced in front, limbered up and made the opening of their Monday's retreating.

To the left we were slower in finding the enemy. They had been compelled to travel some distance to get out of gunboat range. Nelson moved his division about the same time Wallace opened on the Rebel battery, forming in line of battle, Ammon's Brigade on the extreme left, Bruce's in the centre, and Hazen's to the left. Skirmishers were thrown out, and for nearly or quite a mile the division thus swept the country, pushing the outlying Rebels before it, till it came upon them in force. Then a general engagement broke out along the line, and again the rattle of musketry and thunder of artillery echoed over the late silent fields. There was no straggling this morning. These men were better drilled than many of those whose regiments had broken to pieces on the day before, and strict measures were taken, at any rate, to prevent the miscellaneous thronging back to places of safety in the rear. They stood up to their work and did their duty manfully. It soon became evident that, whether from change of commanders or some other cause, the Rebels were pursuing a different policy in massing their forces. On Sunday the heaviest fighting had been done on the left. This morning they seemed to make less determined resistance here, while toward the centre and right the ground was more obstinately contested, and the struggle longer prolonged.

Till half-past ten o'clock, Nelson advanced slowly but steadily, sweeping his long lines over the ground of our sore defeat on Sunday morning, and forward over scores of Rebel dead, resistlessly pressing back the jaded and wearied enemy. The Rebels had received but few reinforcements during the night, their men were exhausted with their desperate contest of the day before, and manifestly dispirited by the evident fact that notwithstanding their well-laid plans of destruction in detail, they were fighting Grant and Buell combined.

Gradually, as Nelson pushed forward his lines under heavy musketry, the enemy fell back, till about half-past ten, when, under cover of the heavy timber and a furious cannonading, they made a general rally. Our forces, flushed with their easy victory, were scarcely prepared for the sudden onset, where retreat had been all they had been seeing before. Suddenly, the Rebel masses were hurled against our lines with tremendous force. Our men halted, wavered, and fell back. At this juncture, Captain Terrill's regular battery came dashing up. Scarcely taking time to unlimber, he was loading and sighting his pieces before the caissons had turned, and in an instant was tossing shell from twenty-four pound howitzers into the compact and advancing Rebel ranks. Here was the turning-point of the battle on the left. The Rebels were only checked, not halted. On they came. Horse after horse from the batteries were picked. Every private at one of the howitzers fell, and the gun was worked by Captain Terrill himself and a corporal. Still the Rebels advanced, till, in the very nick of time, a regiment dashed up from our line, and saved the disabled piece. Then for two hours artillery and musketry at close range. At last they began to waver. Our men pressed on, pouring in deadly volleys. Just then Buell, who assumed the general direction of his troops in the field, came up. At a glance he saw the chance. "Forward at double-quick by brigades!" Our men leaped forward as if they had been tied, and were only too much rejoiced at suddenly finding themselves able to move. For a quarter of a mile the Rebels fell back. Faster and faster they ran, less and less resistance was made to the advance. At last the front camps on the left were reached, and by half-past two that point was cleared. The Rebels had been steadily swept back over the ground they had won, with heavy loss as they fell into confusion; we had retaken all our own guns lost here the day before, and one or two from the Rebels were left as trophies, to tell in after days how bravely that great victory over treason in Tennessee was won.

I have sketched the advance of Nelson. Next to him came Crittenden. He, too, swept forward over his ground to the front some distance before finding the foe. Between 8 and 9 o'clock, however, while keeping Smith's Brigade on his left up even with Nelson's flank, and joining Boyle's Brigade to McCook on the right, in the grand advance, they came upon the enemy with a battery in position, and well supported. Smith dashed his brigade forward; there was sharp, close work with musketry, and the Rebels fled, leaving us three pieces—a twelve-pound howitzer, and two brass six-pounders. But they cost the gallant Thirteenth Ohio dear. Major Ben. Piatt Runkle fell, mortally wounded. Softly may he sleep, and green grow the laurels over his honored grave. None worthier wear them living.

For half an hour, perhaps, the storm raged around these captured guns. Then came the reflex Rebel wave that had hurled Nelson back. Crittenden, too, caught its full force. The Rebels swept up to the batteries, around them, and on down after our retreating column. But the two brigades, like those of Nelson to their left, took a fresh position, faced the foe, and held their ground. Mendenhall's and Bartlett's Batteries now began shelling the infantry that alone opposed them. Before abandoning the guns so briefly held, they had spiked them with mud, and the novel expedient was perfectly successful. From that time till after 1 o'clock, while the fight raged back and forth over the same ground, the Rebels did not succeed in firing a shot from their mud-spiked artillery.

At last our brigades began to gain the advantage again. Crittenden pushed them steadily forward. Mendenhall (with his accomplished First Lieutenant Parsons, one of our Western Reserve West Pointers), and Bartlett, poured in their shell. A rush for the contested battery, and it is ours again. The Rebels retreated toward the left. Smith and Boyle, holding the infantry well in hand, Mendenhall again got their range, and poured in shell on the new position. The fortune of the day was against them as against their comrades to Nelson's front, and they were soon in full retreat.

Just then Brigadier-General Thomas J. Wood's advance brigade, from his approaching division, came up. It was too late for the fight, but it relieved Crittenden's weary fellows, and pushed on after the Rebels, until they were found to have left our most advanced camps.

Thus the left was saved. Meanwhile McCook, with as magnificent regiments as ever came from the Army of the Potomac, or from any army of volunteers in the world, was doing equally well toward the centre. His division was handled in such a way as to save great effusion of blood, while equally important results were obtained. Thus the reserves were kept as much as possible from under fire, while those to the front were engaged. The lists of killed and wounded will show that, while as heavy fighting was done here as anywhere on the right or centre, the casualties are fewer than could have been expected.

It would scarcely be interesting to prolong details where the course of one division so nearly resembled that of the others. But let me sketch the close. An Illinois battery, serving in the division, was in imminent danger. The Sixth Indiana was ordered to its relief. A rapid rush; close musketry firing; no need of bayonets here; the battery is safe. The enemy are to the front and right. Advancing and firing right oblique, the Sixth pushes on. The Rebel colors fall. Another volley; they fall again. Another volley; yet once more the colors drop. There is fatality in it, so the Rebels seem to think at least, as they wheel and disappear.

And then Rousseau's Brigade is drawn off in splendid style, as if coming in from parade, conscious of some grand master of reviews watching their movements. So there was—the Rebel general. As he saw the brigade filing back, he pushed his forces forward again. Kirk's Brigade advanced to meet them, coming out of the woods into an open field to do so. They were met by a tremendous fire, which threw a battalion of regulars in front of them (under Major Oliver, I think,) into some confusion. They retire to reform, and meanwhile down drops the brigade, flat on the ground. Then, as the front is clear, they spring up, charge across the open field—never mind the falling—straight on, on to the woods—under cover, with the enemy driven back by the impetuous advance. And now he rallies. Fierce musketry firing sweeps the woods. They advance—thirty rods, perhaps—when the Twenty-ninth Indiana gets into a marsh, and falls partially to the rear. Heavier comes the leaden hail. Twenty-ninth and Thirtieth both fall back fifteen or twenty rods; they rally and advance; again they are hurled back; again they start forward; and this time they come in on the vulnerable points. The enemy flees. Colonel Waggoner's Fifteenth Indiana comes up to the support; the enemy disappear; fresh troops take their places, and for them the fight is ended. I might describe similar deeds of Willich's and Harrison's regiments, but "from one learn all."

Farther to the right, McClernand and Hurlbut were gallantly coming on with their jaded men. The soldiers would fight—that was the great lesson of the battle. If surprised, and driven off in consequence of surprise, that can hardly be wholly charged on them. Four times McClernand regained and lost again the ground to the front of his division. Similar were Hurlbut's fortunes.

But I must abandon these details. Beginning at the left we have followed the wave of successes that swept us forward again, from spot to spot, over the hard-lost fields of Sunday—our paeans of victory, the wild cheers of our successful soldiers, sounding the requiem of the fallen Rebels, who have atoned for their treason by the brave man's death. Nelson, Crittenden, McCook, Hurlbut, McClernand have borne their divisions through the fray. It lasted longer on the right, and was as rarely interesting as the chess-game of a master. Let us trace it through.

In speaking of the beginning of Monday's battle, I mentioned Major-General Lew. Wallace's opening the ball at seven o'clock, by shelling with enfilading fires a Rebel battery. A few shots demonstrated to the Rebels that their position was untenable. The instant Sherman came in to protect his left, Wallace advanced his infantry. The Rebel battery at once limbered up and got out of the way. The advance had withdrawn the division from Sherman. Making a left half-wheel, to get back into the neighborhood of our line, they advanced some two hundred yards, which brought them to a little elevation, with a broad, open stretch to the front.

As the division halted on the crest of the swell, there passed before them a rare vision. Away to the front were woods. Through the edge of the timber, skirting the fields, the head of a Rebel column appeared, marching past in splendid style on the double-quick. Banner after banner appeared; the "stars and bars" formed a long line, stretching parallel with Wallace's line of battle. Regiment after regiment followed on, the line lengthened, and doubled and trebled; the head of the column was out of sight, and still they came. Twenty regiments were counted passing through these woods. The design was plain. The Rebels had abandoned the idea of forcing their way through our left, and now the manifest attempt was to turn our right.

Batteries were ordered up—Thompson's and Thurber's—and the whole column was shelled as it passed. The Rebels rapidly threw their artillery into position, and a brisk cannonading began. After a time, while the fight still rested with the artillery, the Rebels opened a new and destructive battery to the right, which our men soon learned to know as "Watson's Louisiana Battery," from the marks on the ammunition-boxes they forced it from time to time to leave behind.

Batteries, with a brigade of supporting infantry, were now moved forward over open fields under heavy fire, to contend against this new assailant. The batteries opened, the sharpshooters were thrown out to the front to pick off the Rebel artillerists, the brigade was ordered down on its face to protect it from the flying shell and grape. For an hour and a half the contest lasted, while the body of the division was still delayed, waiting for Sherman. By ten o'clock Sherman's right, under Colonel Marsh, came up. He started to move across the fields. The storm of musketry and grape were too much for him, and he fell back in good order. Again he started on the double, and gained the woods. The Louisiana Battery was turned; Marsh's position left it subject to fire in flank and front, and it fled. The other Rebel batteries at once did the same; and Wallace's Division, up in an instant, now that a master move had swept the board, pushed forward. Before them were broad fallow fields, then a woody little ravine, then corn-fields, then woods.

The left brigade was sent forward. It crossed the fallow fields, under ordinary fire, then gained the ravine, and was rushing across the corn-fields, when the same Louisiana steel rifled guns opened on them. Dashing forward they reached a little ground-swell, behind which they dropped like dead men, while skirmishers were sent forward to silence the troublesome battery. The skirmishers crawled forward till they gained a little knoll, not more than seventy-five yards from the battery. Of course the battery opened on them. They replied, if not so noisily, more to the purpose. In a few minutes the battery was driven off, with artillerists killed, horses shot down, and badly crippled every way. But the affair cost us a brave man—Lieutenant-Colonel Garber—who could not control his enthusiasm at the conduct of the skirmishers, and in his excitement incautiously exposed himself. All this while Rebel regiments were pouring up to attack the audacious brigade that was supporting the skirmishers, and fresh regiments from Wallace's Division came up in time to checkmate the game.

But the battery was silenced. "Forward," was the division order. Rushing across the corn-fields under heavy fire, they now met the Rebels face to face in the woods. The contest was quick, decisive. Close, sharp, continuous musketry for a few minutes, and the Rebels fell back.

Here, unfortunately, Sherman's right gave way. Wallace's flank was exposed. He instantly formed Colonel Wood's (Seventy-sixth Ohio) in a new line of battle, in right angles with the real one, and with orders to protect the flank. The Eleventh Indiana was likewise here engaged in a sharp engagement with the enemy attempting to flank, and for a time the contest waxed fierce. But Sherman soon filled the place of his broken regiments; again Wallace's Division forced forward, and again the enemy gave way.

By 2 o'clock the division was into the woods again, and for three-quarters of a mile it advanced under a continuous storm of shot. Then another contest or two with batteries—always met with skirmishers and sharp-shooting—then, by 4 o'clock, two hours later than on the right, a general Rebel retreat—then pursuit, recall and encampment on the old grounds of Sherman's Division, in the very tents from which those regiments were driven that hapless Sunday morning. The camps were regained. The Rebels were repulsed. Their attack had failed. We stood where we began. Rebel cavalry were within half a mile of us. The retreating columns were within striking distance. But we had regained our camps. And so ended the battle of Pittsburgh Landing.

I do not pretend to give more than an estimate; but I have made the estimate with some care, going to the adjutants of different regiments that had been in as heavy fighting as any—getting statements of their losses, sure to be very nearly if not quite accurate, and approximating thus from the loss of a dozen regiments to the probable loss of all. I have ridden over the grounds, too—have seen the dead and wounded lying over the field—have noted the number in the hospitals and on the boats. As the result of it all, I do not believe our loss in killed and wounded will number over five thousand. The question of prisoners is another matter.

The best opinions of the strength with which the Rebels attacked us place their numbers at sixty thousand. They may have been reinforced five to ten thousand Sunday night.

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.