The battle on Monday—Defeat of the enemy's right wing—Firmness of the left—Gallant conduct of Gen. Hurlbut—Col. Johnson in command of a part of our divided brigade—Victory—Flight of the enemy and failure to pursue.

All night the troops of Buell continued to cross. Regiment after regiment filed up the bluff, took position in line of battle, and awaited the dawn of day. During the fore part of the night, a moist, warm breeze blew from the south. About 10 P.M. the sky was overcast, and there began a drizzling, uncomfortable rain. Nevertheless, the soldiers, blanketless and weary, lay down and slept.

No one who has not experienced it knows with what a sleep a soldier sleeps after a great battle. But ours was interrupted at regular intervals by the jar of the gunboat howitzer, which had been ordered to throw shells during the night to annoy the enemy. Thus awakened and closing our eyes again to sleep, we saw in our brain-fever all the terrible images of the day's battle—hedges of glittering bayonets; blue masses swaying to and fro; and that last appalling image, the army in retreat—gigantic even in ruin, sublime in its own dismay. These images, flitting ghostlike and without effort through our minds seemed to possess the reality of day. Could I have produced them on canvas as I saw them in my mind that night, what a panorama it would have been.

But the generals could not have slept, they were busy with the preparations for the morning's battle. During the night two divisions and a part of a third succeeded in getting across. Lines of battle grew in the darkness and extended themselves over the hills. All expected victory. The plan was an admirable one—to turn the enemy's right and get possession of the Pittsburg and Corinth road, his only line of retreat. But of this of course the men knew nothing. Buell's men were as weary with marching as we with fighting, and all slept.

The day dawned. Our men arose and awaited the order to advance. The enemy, too, began to form his lines of battle. To his soldiers, who knew nothing of our being reinforced, our capture was expected without difficulty. "We will have them by eight o'clock," said some. Others thought we would hold out till nine and possibly later. Both hosts were full of expectation. With what a shock, then, would they join! Nevertheless the enemy formed his ranks slowly. His officers had to use curses and threats to induce the men to move with sufficient alacrity. Weary with yesterday's battle, added to their previous fatigues, a stupor clung to their limbs which not even a sense of their situation could dissipate.

Suddenly they heard the reports of rifles. Their pickets driven in announced the advance of our troops. In a moment our infantry confronted them. If the earth had sunk under their feet they could not have been more stupified. Batteries mounted the crests of the ridges and thundered at them. Lines of skirmishers appeared and vanished, followed by full battalions advancing at a charge and shouting victory! victory! It was not possible that the broken host of yesterday had renewed its strength and were turning upon them. No, Buell was on the field. They realized it immediately, expected the worst, and determined to meet the shock like men.

The Fourth Division rested at this time on the bluffs as a reserve. We listened with great impatience to the noise of battle on the left, and to the frequent reports that came to us from that part of the field. The firing rose and continued heavily for two or three hours, growing the while more and more distant. The end of this beginning is known. The enemy fought desperately, inflicting upon us heavy loss, but he was forced back several miles, losing part of his artillery. By nine o'clock his stragglers began to pace through the woods towards Corinth, reporting Buell on the field and the day lost. By twelve o'clock this part of his lines seems to have been pushed nearly to Shiloh Springs, and crumbling and streaming through the woods, is said to have left the field in rout. Why Buell did not get possession of the Corinth road is more than the troops who subsequently passed over this ground could understand. It must have been owing to the stubborn resistance our attack met with on the center and right. Here the battle rose as soon as it was well in progress on the left, and raged heavily and with varying fortunes until four o'clock in the afternoon.

About ten o'clock General Hurlbut was ordered to move forward his division and reinforce the right. "Here," said the General, looking at his fragments of battalions, "is what I am ordered to march against the enemy." He then ordered the regiments to be counted. The 3d Iowa numbered one hundred and forty men, and First Lieutenant George W. Crosley, as ranking officer, was in command. We moved by the flank, the First Brigade in advance, and General Hurlbut and Colonel Pugh at the head of the column. Thus this remnant of the Fourth Division, gallant men whom nothing could dismay, led by a general whom in one day they had learned to love, again moved forward into the battle. Having advanced perhaps a mile, we came within range of the enemy's shells, which fell in the rear of our line in this part of the field with great rapidity. This firing fortunately did us no damage. We reached the point we were ordered to support, and the division was drawn up in front. The battle here raged heavily, and the line in front of us which was engaged swayed to and fro.

To our right and rear, one of our batteries was engaged with one of the enemy's, a short distance to our left and front. The duel they kept up was rapid and revengeful. They fired shot and shell, which flew directly over our heads and struck and burst behind us and before us. A soldier in our ranks expressed the wonder whether the battery on our right was ours or the enemy's. A voice from behind him answered, "It is ours of course." Looking around us we saw General Hurlbut, seated on his horse and smoking calmly. Such was the conduct of this brave man. Whatever the danger, he kept constantly near his line, inspiring us with his presence, and never omitting a word that could encourage his meanest soldier.

In front of us we could catch glimpses of the battle. Regiments advanced, disappeared in the thick woods, and came back in disorder. It was a succession of successful and unsuccessful attacks. Now fortune was with us, and now with the enemy. Behind all the Fourth Division stood firmly, stayed the retreating battalions and held the line. Through all, the enemy's battery held its position and kept up its cannonade. Its shells seemed omnipresent. Its projectiles falling far and near to right and left, scaling the tree tops or crashing through their boughs, it seemed to overlook the field and talk to the army's whole right wing.

General Hurlbut several times changed the disposition of his line as circumstances seemed to dictate. A regiment retreating in confusion by the flank, broke through it cutting it about the center of our regiment. At this precise moment, Col. Pugh began to move the brigade to the left. In the noise and confusion, the command was not heard by those of the right, and one regiment thus separated from the rest; nor was the movement known until the left of the brigade had disappeared. This portion took position in the reserve line and was not engaged during the day. The right of the brigade, however, including about forty of our regiment with our colors, were to play a very different part.

Col. Emory K. Johnson, of the 28th Illinois, assumed command, and began immediately to advance the line. As it moved into more open ground and discovered its length, it was evident he had command of a greater part of the brigade. Having advanced a considerable distance, the line halted and volunteer skirmishers were called for. A sufficient number immediately went forward and when about a hundred and fifty yards to the front, the line again advanced. The skirmishers soon discovered the enemy moving by the left flank along our front in the edge of a wide field. At the same time skirmishers farther to the left reported him massing troops in that direction, with the apparent design of flanking us. Col. Johnson immediately took measures to meet this movement. He moved his line to the left perhaps a quarter of a mile and then changed its direction to the front.

Suddenly we confronted the enemy, standing in compact line of battle, as if just dressed to begin an advance. We halted and both lines began a vigorous and steady fire. On our part there was no swaying nor straggling. It was a fair stand-up fight, the antagonists exposed to view, and deliberately shooting each other down. The enemy must have outnumbered us, for his right extended some distance beyond our left. It was a splendid test of the morale of the two forces. Victory was with us. We had expended from twenty to thirty rounds of ammunition, when the enemy's line gave way and ours followed at a charge. We pushed him to the edge of a field, over which he fled in disorder, suffering severely under our fire. A part of a battery fell into our hands, around which dead men and horses lay thickly, showing how severely it had suffered. The enemy, escaped across the field, and began a feeble fire from the opposite side.

All at once our line was ordered to retreat. It fell back rapidly and not without some disorder, and took position with the other troops. I have never been able to ascertain why this retreat was made. At the time it was commanded, the enemy's fire was so slight, that without its being increased we could have easily crossed the field. Neither part of our regiment was engaged during the remainder of the day. Fresh troops went forward to reinforce the right, and the battle raged with unvarying steadiness all along the line, the enemy being gradually forced back till about four o'clock, when he finally disappeared from the field, and the cavalry rode forward with loud shouts to pursue. We who knew nothing of the ineffectiveness of cavalry against infantry, and especially untrained cavalry, and on a timbered field, expected them to perform prodigies in disorganizing the retreating enemy. But when we learned they had only followed him a short distance, picking up a few stragglers, "the man on the horse" sunk profoundly low in our estimation. As it was, they doubtless did all they could. Breckinridge's division covered the enemy's retreat, and presented a strong front to them when they approached.

The soldiers now expected the order to pursue. It is now almost useless to inquire why this was not done; but history will demand to know why nearly two months of hardship and suffering, including the recall of the army of the Mississippi from its theater of successful operations, was required to force the evacuation of Corinth, which might now have been accomplished by twenty-four hours vigorous action. General Grant's apology for not pursuing the enemy is expressed in his official report: "My force was too much fatigued during two days hard fighting, and exposed in the open air to a drenching rain during the intervening night, to pursue immediately. Night closed in cloudy and with heavy rain, making the roads impracticable for artillery by the next morning." This statement admits of some qualification. None of Buell's army had been engaged but one day; and of this but a part of Wood's Division, and none of Thomas' had been engaged at all. The latter, though greatly fatigued by the long and hurrying march they had made to reach the scene of conflict, were eager to participate in the honors of the occasion, and might have been advantageously used in the pursuit. At least, were we not as able to pursue as the enemy to retreat? He had suffered as much in fatigue as we, and proportionally far more in the losses of the battle. He had marched against us expecting everything, and had gained nothing but slaughter and defeat. His right wing had left the field in rout. His whole army, conscious of our now superior strength and of their utter inability to make a stand against us, whatever the position they might take, was retreating demoralized on a single road which defiled for twenty miles through an almost uninterrupted forest, and which was now almost impassable for his artillery and train. Before reaching Corinth his retreat had degenerated into a rout, and his army had dissolved into a disorganized and straggling multitude. If we may believe the concurrent accounts of citizens, added to those of his own soldiers whom we subsequently captured, such was their dismay, that a pursuit conducted with ordinary skill and vigor, would have resulted in immense captures of men and materiel. The enemy succeeded in getting his artillery through to Corinth after the night's rain, which General Grant avers made the road impassable for artillery. But had this been the case, a successful pursuit could have been made without doubt by infantry and cavalry alone. Who then shall say, that, within the utmost scope of endurance, General Grant should not have pursued as soon as the enemy retreated? The soldiers seemed to think so, and murmured because it was not attempted.

Nevertheless, whole regiments dissolved into squads and scattered over the field in search of their dead and wounded; and it was not long before the entire field was covered with stragglers and plunderers of the dead. To put a stop to this, the cavalry was ordered to get up a panic among them. They rode frantically over the field, circulating the report that the enemy's cavalry was upon them. The effect was admirable. In a few minutes the panic communicated itself to all parts of the field, and stragglers without number poured through the woods toward the river like herds of frightened brutes. No one could tell what he was running from. Each saw his fellow straggler run and followed him, seized and mastered by an indefinable, vague dread. At one point an officer, meeting a gang of stragglers, advised them to congregate for their safety upon an open field which was without a fence! The simpletons actually followed his advice.

General Sherman pursued the enemy a short distance and returned. The men of our regiment, after collecting their wounded and most of their dead, assembled at our regimental camp. Through the energy and prudence of Quartermaster Clark, during the forenoon of Monday, our tents had been let down to the ground and our baggage hauled to the landing. Thus the former were saved from being greatly injured by the missiles of the battle, and the latter from capture by the enemy. The baggage was not brought up till the next day. We divided and ate a little food, put up our tents, and without covering lay down to rest. With blankets for their shrouds our dead comrades lay near us. Scattered over the field were thousands of wounded whose sufferings we could not alleviate. Under ordinary circumstances it would seem that men in this situation would scarcely wish to sleep at all. But we slept a sound and joyous sleep.

All night it rained heavily and with scarcely a moment's intermission. Storm, darkness and gloom—a fitting termination of those two dreadful days.