Lieutenant Dawes, Appler’s adjutant, met a pre-battle acquaintance, Private A. C. Voris, Seventeenth Illinois, a veteran of Frederickstown and Fort Donelson. Dawes asked Voris if he would go over and talk to the remaining shaky members of his outfit. The Illinoisan said he would if his captain would allow it. The captain was agreeable, and Private Voris joined the nervous men from Ohio. First collecting some extra Enfield cartridges for the Ohioans to use, he told them that he had learned that the best way to meet the enemy was to “keep cool, shoot slow, and aim low.” His parting words to the now more confident Fifty-third Ohioans were, “Why, it’s just like shooting squirrels—only these squirrels have guns, that’s all.”15
The collapse of the Fifty-third endangered Sherman’s left flank, but only temporarily, for General McClernand was already moving troops forward to protect the Fifth Division from being outflanked. General Sherman’s right was much more secure, for Colonel Buckland’s brigade, having formed up in its camp near Shiloh Church, advanced about two hundred yards just in time to meet Cleburne’s overlapping left. From left to right Buckland’s order of battle was the Seventieth, Forty-eighth, and Seventy-second Ohio. The Forty-eighth, carrying their not so trusty Austrian rifles, moved up first to support the picket post, already under fire from Cleburne’s skirmishers. Colonel Ralph Buckland immediately advanced with the other two regiments, and just in time, for the Tennesseans opened up with a tremendous blast of musketry. The Forty-eighth began to waver as men dropped on all sides, but the regimental commander, Peter J. Sullivan, and other officers managed to steady the men. They could not, however, calm the color sergeant, Theodore D. Jones, who dropped the regimental flag and ran away at the very start of the action. Taking advantage of the cover of the trees and numerous logs, however, the Ohioans gave as good as they received.16
The Second Tennessee charged across the small field south of Shiloh Church, butting head on into the Forty-eighth Ohio, Colonel William Bate leading his men forward on his celebrated race horse, Blackhawk, a magnificent coal black stallion.17 The men from Ohio promptly shot the regiment to pieces. Major W. R. Doak and Captains Joseph Tyree and Humphrey Bate were killed, while half a dozen other officers were badly wounded. Nearly a hundred privates and non-commissioned officers also littered the muddy brown earth of the field, just a short walk from the House of the Prince of Peace. Colonel Bate escaped the charge without a scratch, only to be wounded in the leg while reconnoitering the Union position a few minutes later, the wound in capacitating him for the rest of the battle.18 Besides Captain Humphrey Bate, the colonel lost four other kinsmen either killed or wounded in this action.19
The other attacking regiments fared no better, taking heavy losses from Buckland’s fire. So devastating was the effect of the Yankees’ shooting that numbers of Southerners completely broke down. Captain L. L. Dearing, Fifth Tennessee, tried to run off and hide in the rear of his regiment, but Colonel Ben Hill dragged him back under threat of shooting him. Private Perry Murrell, Company K, was the first casualty and the first man killed in the Fifth Regiment, dropping from artillery fire. As the Fifth pushed toward Buckland’s position, a projectile cut the colors in the hands of the color bearer, William Sims, who managed to catch them as they fell, tying the flag back to the staff with his canteen strap. Soldier after soldier went down, killed or wounded, mostly from artillery fire, and one private, B. F. Taylor, was knocked unconscious from the concussion of a bursting shell.20 The Fifth included at least one fifteen year old, Private John Roberts, who had his musket shattered and was twice knocked down by spent musket balls, but “displayed the courage of a veteran.”21
The former state senator from Ohio’s brigade held firm. The hard-driving Cleburne was stopped on his left, but on the right one of the defending regiments was out of the battle, and the other two were beginning to feel the pressure. Could the Mississippians recoup the attack there? With artillery support perhaps they could have made it, but General Hardee’s chief of artillery, Major F. A. Shoup, ordered Trigg’s Battery to pull back, thus leaving Cleburne gunless.
The Sixth Mississippi and Twenty-third Tennessee charged across the Fifty-third Ohio’s camp between the rows of tents, tent pegs, tent lines, mud, Waterhouse’s shells, and a heavy blast of musketry coming from the Fifty-seventh, and possibly the Seventy-seventh. Finally they fell back, the Twenty-third incomplete disorder.22
Most of the surviving Tennesseans took shelter in a ravine near where they had started their attack. General Cleburne went over and spoke to the men, saying, “Boys, don’t be discouraged; this is not the 1st charge that was repulsed; fix bayonets and give them steel.”23
Even with Cleburne’s encouraging words, it took much time to get even part of the regiment formed up again, thus leaving it up to the Sixth Mississippi to do the job, but they were rapidly being outweighed by the arrival of reinforcements from McClernand’s division.
At the request of General Sherman, McClernand directed his Third Brigade, whose nominal commander was Colonel L. F. Ross, to go to the support of the Fifth Division. Unfortunately, Ross was absent on this morning, so the command devolved on Colonel J. S. Rearden.24 Colonel Rearden was ill, thus Lieutenant Abram H. Ryan, acting assistant adjutant of the Third Brigade, set out to find Colonel Julius Raith, letting him know that he was the senior officer present, hence, he would be in command.
Notified of his unexpected promotion, Raith soon had the brigade moving forward to support General Sherman’s battered left, the Seventeenth Illinois advancing directly up to the Seventy-seventh Ohio’s camp. From left to right, he deployed the Forty-ninth Illinois, Lieutenant Colonel Phineas Pease, Forty-third Illinois, Lieutenant Colonel Adolph Engelmann, Twenty-ninth Illinois, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Ferrell, and the Seventeenth Illinois, Lieutenant Colonel Enos P. Wood.25
It was about this time the Sixth Mississippi made another charge on the Fifty-third’s camp, so presumably the Illinoisans helped break the gallant but futile effort. The Mississippians made it into the camp area, and they raked the Federals with wicked blasts of Enfield balls. Colonel A. J. Thornton and Major Robert Lowery were both hit. (Thornton was disabled for the rest of his life.) Many others were hit, and the rest were finally forced to retreat in order to keep from being completely destroyed. Of the 425 Mississippians who jauntily moved forward to fight the Northerners only a little more than an hour earlier, 300 now lay in and around Shiloh Branch and the Ohioan’s camp, dead or wounded.26
Raith soon found himself under heavy attack from Hardee and Bragg. Cleburne’s Brigade was temporarily knocked out of action by the bloody repulse it had endured, but Anderson’s Second Brigade quickly formed up on virtually the same ground Cleburne’s men had launched their attack from. From left to right the black-bearded Anderson deployed his Twentieth Louisiana, Colonel August Reichard, Ninth Texas, Colonel W. A. Stanley, First Florida Battalion, Major T. A. McDowell, Confederate Guard Response Battalion, Major Franklin Clark, and the Seventeenth Louisiana, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Jones. The Fifth Company of the Washington Artillery set up their battery on high ground to the rear of Anderson, and they began dropping 6-pound shells and shot, along with 12-pound howitzer rounds, on Colonels Buckland’s and Hildebrand’s soldiers. Lieutenant George Nispel’s Battery E, Second Illinois Light Artillery quickly slashed back at the men from New Orleans. Cannon balls and shells were traded with much enthusiasm but little damage to either side. Major Shoup brought two field pieces up to a position thirty or thirty-five yards from the Louisianans, and under the combined fire of the eight guns the Federal battery was forced to withdraw. Nispel left behind a disabled gun, five dead horses, one dead gunner, and he carried off three wounded cannoneers.27
Bankhead’s Tennessee Battery also wound up supporting Anderson’s advance, firing from a position about one hundred yards from the Louisianans. With the guns pounding Sherman’s position, and upon orders from General Bragg, Anderson led his brigade forward. The Twentieth Louisiana ran into the Second Tennessee, falling back after its earlier bloody encounter with the Forty-eighth Ohio, and there was some confusion as the men broke ranks and became intermingled.28
The two regiments were quickly unscrambled, and Prussian-born Colonel August Reichard’s Twentieth was soon steadily moving toward Buckland’s position again. The whole brigade somewhat clumsily straggled across Shiloh Branch or stumbled through the boggy area with a minimum of coordination. Piece by piece Anderson’s units hit Sherman, some being repulsed with heavy losses, while others were able to partially penetrate Hilde brand’s positions.29
The Seventeenth Louisiana picked up some unexpected support as one of Colonel R. M. Russell’s regiments, the Eleventh Louisiana, suddenly showed up. General Bragg had directed Brigadier General Charles Clark to silence Waterhouse’s Battery,30 and the Eleventh was the closest unit at hand, so it naturally got the job. Colonel Samuel F. Marks, with General Clark standing by, launched his attack on Waterhouse’s guns when the Seventeenth came wandering by. Waterhouse’s James rifles had already taken a grim toll of the Eleventh. Just moments before, a bursting shell tore off Third Lieutenant John Crowley’s left hand, that unfortunate officer having already lost his right arm at Belmont the previous November.31
The two regiments moved across the blood-spattered ground, the camp of Appler’s Fifty-third Ohio, stepping over the dead and wounded Mississippians and Tennesseans. Marks and his men became entangled in the same boggy ground in which Pat Cleburne had muddied his shining uniform. The shells from Waterhouse’s guns added to the confusion, and only four of Marks’ companies actually got into the camp area. Having reached this point, Marks’ troubles were only starting, as Federal soldiers, concealed in and behind the tents and other equipment in Appler’s camp, began picking off his remaining men. Federal infantry, supporting Waterhouse, also fired into the Eleventh. One James shell burst between the legs of Lieutenant Levi S. Brown, killing him and Privates Thomas Bladon and Thomas Cameron. The Louisianans began to falter and Sergeant John Leonard, Company I, ran out in front to encourage the wavering Eleventh.32 He received a Minie ball through his head for his trouble. The wavering turned into a rout, and the regiment wound up badly scattered, a large portion of it winding up in Stewart’s Brigade.33
Lieutenant Colonel Charles Jones, Seventeenth Louisiana, fared a little better. Becoming entangled with a group of Tennesseans, presumably the Twenty-third, Jones spent precious minutes getting the regiment straightened out before giving the order to charge. Heading right for the Northerners, the regiment gradually slowed down and finally halted under the steady and accurate volleys of musketry coming across the stream. There was no rout; the Seventeenth simply stopped advancing, and the men began returning the enemy’s fire. On both sides men began dropping, but finally the Louisianans beat a reluctant retreat.
Reforming what was left of his regiment, Jones tried again, this time moving more to the left. Hit by another Federal battery, probably Barrett’s, and by small arms fire, Jones was forced to fall back a second time. Two of his company commanders, R. H. Curry and W. A. Maddox, the latter just back from an extended sick leave in Claiborne Parish, Louisiana, were badly wounded in this effort.34
The Confederate Guards Response (Twelfth Louisiana Infantry Battalion) and the Florida Battalion fared no better in their charge on Sherman,35 the Floridians losing their commander, T. A. McDonell.36 In the army less than four weeks, the ninety-day volunteers from Louisiana pressed their attack home with courage, but when the troops on their right began falling back, the untrained Louisianans quickly followed them.37 The laggard Twentieth Louisiana got into the attack also, as well as Colonel W. A. Stanley’s Ninth Texas, but they were repulsed like everyone else.38
It was now a few minutes after 9:00 a.m. and Prentiss’ division was in full retreat from its camps; the Union right, however, still held. At 9:10 a.m., General Beauregard directed General Polk to send a brigade to help break General Sherman’s position.39 The Creole then directed Polk to send Russell’s brigade to help break Raith’s position, not knowing that Russell was already partly engaged.40
Cleburne’s left wing was pretty well knocked out of the fight, but the Irishman managed to collect sixty of his Mississippians and about one-half of the Twenty-third Tennessee in preparation for another charge. At the same time Anderson’s individual regiments and battalions were also busy getting ready for another attempt.
About 9:30 a.m., General Sherman and Colonel Raith found themselves assaulted by six separate brigades, for Sterling Wood, Bushrod Johnson, Robert M. Russell, and A. P. Stewart were also going in. (The latter was going in on orders from Bragg, although the brigade technically belonged to Polk’s Corps.)41 Partly on orders from Bragg and partly on the initiative of the individual officers, the six brigades and pieces of brigades began stumbling for ward to ward Sherman and Raith.
Sherman found himself being heavily pounded by Cleburne and Anderson, as well as the brand new fresh brigade of Bushrod Johnson. With his remaining tiny force, Cleburne boldly assaulted the Seventieth Ohio and the remnants of Hildebrand’s Third Brigade.42 Anderson also boldly smashed into the ridge to which Buck land still grimly clung. The Seventeenth Louisiana, making its third charge through the Fifty-third Ohio’s camp, changed its direction slightly, passing to the left of the ridge. The Louisianans took a bad pounding from small arms’ fire, including the loss of Lieutenant Colonel Charles Jones’ sergeant major, Thuron Stone, who took a bullet through the thigh.
Reaching the top of the ridge, the Seventeenth was hit by artillery fire (probably from Nispel’s new battery position near the Church).43 The first lieutenant of Company K, Thomas O. Hynes, had his left arm blown off. Then Jones went down as an exploding shell panicked his horse, throwing the lieutenant colonel to the ground with enough force to knock him out for several minutes. Even while their commander was temporarily out of the fight, the Southerners swarmed to ward Sherman’s position.44
Supported by the fire of the Washington Artillery, the Ninth Texas and Twentieth Louisiana, along with the Confederate Guards Response Battalion, assaulted Buckland’s position on the ridge. Screaming their wild yells, many of them in German, (three-fourths of the Twentieth were Germans by birth, and their commanding officer was the former Prussian Consul at New Orleans), the Rebels forced Buckland to fall back and entered the Seventy-seventh Ohio’s camp.45
If Buckland was beginning to give ground, the situation on Sherman’s left was even worse, for Colonel Hildebrand’s brigade was disintegrating. Under heavy pressure from the troops of Johnson’s and Russell’s brigades, the Fifty-seventh Ohio broke and headed for the rear.46
From left to right, Johnson had Colonel J. K. Walker’s Second Tennessee, Lieutenant Colonel R. C. Tyler’s Fifteenth Tennessee, Colonel A. K. Blythe’s Mississippi Battalion (subsequently known as the Forty-fourth), and Colonel Preston Smith’s One hundred fifty-fourth Tennessee, plus Captain Marshall T. Polk’s Tennessee Battery of four 6-pound smoothbores and two 12-pound howitzers. On orders from General Bragg, the brigade went into action, charging Sherman’s left, but the Mississippians advanced around the point of the hill north of the Rhea House, attacking Waterhouse’s Battery from the right flank.47
As the Mississippi soldiers moved up, they observed the wreckage of the earlier attack. A Private Gullick, Company H, remarked to his sergeant, “From the looks of things around here we are going to have some fun…. I would give a thousand dollars for a shot in my hand”—a Civil War reference to a “million dollar” wound. Meeting some wounded, who were walking and looking for a field hospital, Gullick spotted a young soldier with a smashed hand, and he laughingly made the same remark he had made earlier to his sergeant. With tears streaming down his cheeks, the young wounded soldier replied, “Go up the hill where I have been, and the Yanks will give you one and won’t charge you a cent.” (Gullick was later killed in Georgia.)48
Many of the Mississippians suffered worse than wounded hands as they went into action. Colonel Blythe was shot dead from his horse, and within minutes his successor, Lieutenant Colonel D. L. Herron, went down mortally wounded. The regiment quickly halted, taking cover in a ravine near the battery.49 The wounded were sent to the rear, including Private John C. Thompson, aged seventy-one, probably the oldestman on either side in the battle. The regimental surgeon took one look at Judge Thompson’s scalp wound and told the elderly soldier to go ride in an ambulance. Within minutes, how ever, the determined Thompson, a strong secessionist, was back with his company, fighting by the side of his thirteen year old son, Flem.50
Johnson’s two left regiments charged the remnants of the Third Brigade and the Seventy-second Ohio together. Coming under heavy fire, the Tennesseans began to falter, but Lieutenant Colonel Tyler drew his pistol and restored order. With Polk’s Battery in position just behind the attacking force, the two regiments pushed steadily onward, trading shots with the Federals. Union fire wounded Colonel Tyler’s horse, then the rider, forcing him to leave the field. Federal riflemen worked Polk’s Battery over, breaking the doughty captain’s leg and killing and wounding many men and horses. Lieutenant T. R. Smith assumed command of the battery, but its fire dropped off badly.51
Johnson’s two left regiments bogged down, but his detached One hundred fifty-fourth Tennessee, charging through the Fifty-third Ohio camp and stumbling across Shiloh Branch, finally made it to Waterhouse’s position just as the troops from Russell’s brigade came swarming upon the Illinoisans’ left flank.52 The battery tried to withdraw, but Waterhouse was wounded and then the next officer to take over, Lieutenant Abial Abbott, also went down. Lieutenant J. A. Fitch then took charge, but by this time the Tennesseans were virtually on top of the gunners.53 The battery personnel managed to pull back, leaving three guns behind in the hands of Company B, One hundred fifty-fourth Tennessee. Privates D. W. Collier, John C. Southerland, James W. Maury, and James Southerland were the first four to get to the cannon,54 where they found a beautiful Irish setter guarding the body of his dead master and barking fiercely at any Southerner who approached him.55
At this time Bushrod Johnson was severely wounded while trying to reform Walker’s Second Tennessee, but his other regiments had already penetrated the Shiloh Church line.56 The Fifth Division’s position was now hopelessly compromised. The Third Brigade was either routed or shattered; Buck land’s brigade front was falling back; and the en tire division was cut off from Raith’s Illinois brigade, which was now in danger of being overwhelmed.
Sherman’s First Brigade was committed on the right of Buckland’s brigade to prevent its flank from being turned by Colonel Preston Pond, Jr.’s Brigade,57 so no reinforcements were forthcoming from that quarter. McDowell had moved his three regiments, from left to right Colonel Stephen Hicks, Fortieth Illinois, Captain Daniel Iseminger, Sixth Iowa, (Colonel McDowell was now commanding the brigade, the lieutenant colonel was under arrest, and Major J. M. Corse was absent on General John Pope’s staff) and his battery, the Sixth Indiana Light Artillery, Captain Frederick Behr, into position on the ridge to cover Buck land’s right about 8:00 a.m. He detached two companies of the Sixth Iowa under Captain M. W. Walden, afterwards governor of Iowa, and a 12-pound howitzer under Lieutenant William Mussman to protect the crossing at the Owl Creek Bridge.
Observing Pond’s Brigade moving toward him, McDowell ordered Captain Behr to open fire with his remaining howitzer. McDowell then ordered the Fortieth Illinois to move to the left in closer support of Buckland’s right.58
Confederate skirmishers quietly worked their way forward toward McDowell’s position and commenced peppering Behr’s gunners with musketry. The battery commander, formerly of the Prussian artillery, handed his binoculars to an enlisted man, J. L. Bieler, instructing him to spot the snipers. Eyes straining through the glasses, Bieler slowly searched the surrounding terrain until he finally located a group of Confederates well concealed in a far away corn crib. With this information in hand, and at Behr’s order, the ponderous iron tubes were wheeled about and sighted on the crib. Shell fire raked the Confederates and the musket fire abruptly ceased.59
Pond’s Brigade, less the Thirty-eighth Tennessee and one section of Ketchum’s Battery (which was detached to cover Owl Creek Bridge), moved slowly forward. Before serious contact was made, however, McDowell received orders about 10:00 a.m. to fall back to the Purdy Road.60
Some of Pond’s skirmishers did have a rather weird experience with Colonel Stephen Hicks’ Fortieth Illinois just be fore the withdrawal. Still clad in their pre-war blue militia uniforms, the group of Louisianans stumbled upon the Federals. Colonel Hicks assumed that they were a party of lost Northerners, but some of the colonel’s men suspected the men to be Rebels. The colonel ordered his soldiers to hold their fire, and he asked the group to identify themselves. They replied that they belonged to an Indiana regiment, and in turn asked the colonel what out fit his was. Hicks then gave the command to fall back by “right of companies to the rear into columns,” and as the Federals turned around and marched off, Pond’s bluecoated Confederates speeded their withdrawal by peppering the Fortieth with musketry.61
Sherman sent Captain J. H. Hammond of his staff to notify Buckland’s regiments to pull back. He made it to the Seventieth’s and Forty-eighth’s commanding officers, but before he could inform the Seventy-second, Colonel Buckland, on his own initiative, ordered the regiment to retreat to the Purdy Road.62
After about two hours of stubborn fighting, the entire Fifth Division was falling back in some disorder. Raith’s brigade was also trying to pull back, under attack by Russell, Stewart, and Wood.63 Russell’s lead regiment, the Twelfth Tennessee, had a comparatively easy advance, for by the time they attacked, the Illinoisans were already pulling back. They suffered a few casualties to rear guard fire, but managed to occupy the Fourth Illinois Cavalry camp. The Thirteenth advanced on the Twelfth’s right, with Colonel Vaughan intending to turn the Illinois battery’s left flank. Advancing to ward Raith’s brigade, the regiment began catching heavy musket fire. Private Bert Moore was hit by a spent slug, which knocked him off his feet. Men began drop ping faster and faster. Sergeant John S. Scarbrough saw his brother, Lemuel, drop from a bullet, but he had only time to cry out, “Hello, Lemuel!” so swift was Vaughan’s Confederates’ pace.64
Through a mix-up in orders, Major Wingfield went wandering off to the left with four companies while Vaughan and the other six turned the corner and headed in on Waterhouse’s left flank. The lost sheep became scattered and took heavy casualties, but Vaughan and the others charged the battery, which was attempting to retreat at the same time the One hundred fifty-fourth Tennessee was charging head on.65
Lieutenant Colonel Enos P. Wood, Seventeenth Illinois, had already fallen back about two hundred yards behind the battery’s position as the Tennesseans hit it, and he could see the Southerners hoist the “Stars and Bars” above the captured pieces. Lieutenant Alexander T. Davis, Company K, grabbed a rifle from one of his wounded men and brought down the color bearer. The regiment continued falling back until it reached General McClernand and the rest of the division.66
Wood’s and Stewart’s brigades were supposed to have joined in with Russell and Johnson in this advance, but both had been delayed by some peculiar circumstances. Stewart’s Second Brigade, from left to right, the Fifth Tennessee, Lieutenant Colonel C. D. Venable, Thirty-third Tennessee, Colonel A. W. Campbell, Thirteenth Arkansas, Lieutenant Colonel A. D. Grayson, and the Fourth Tennessee, Colonel Rufus Neely, formed up on the main Pittsburg Road, beginning its forward movement about 7:00 a.m. Advancing about eight hundred yards, the troops dropped their knap sacks and then resumed their march. As the Fifth Tennessee passed Fraley’s Field one of Sherman’s batteries opened fire on Venable and his men. One private was killed, another wounded, and the flagstaff severed.67
Stewart continued moving forward until General Johnston came riding up and directed him to support Bragg. The Confederate commander left, and Stewart has tened to execute his order.68
As his Arkansas regiment reached the camp of the Fourth Illinois, heavy fire broke out around the Trans-Mississippi soldiers. Union gunners were sporadically shelling Gibson’s Brigade behind and slightly east of Stewart’s unit. An exploding projectile mortally wounded a private in Company D, Thirteenth Arkansas;69 another burst of fire killed five enlisted men in the Thirteenth Louisiana;70 still another shell burst badly wounded Captain William A. Crawford, a member of Company E, First Arkansas.71
The whole brigade was getting restless and a bit nervous when suddenly Private A. V. Vertner came riding toward the Fourth Louisiana with a U. S. flag draped around his waist and a Yankee cap on his head. Vertner, a former member of Company C, Fourth Louisiana, had been detached from the company since June the previous year and was now serving as an orderly to Major General William J. Hardee. Someone yelled, “Here’s your Yankee,” and a hundred guns instantly were leveled at the horseman. Vertner and his horse went down, riddled with bullets before anyone recognized him.72
Some of the Louisianans’ shots hit Stewart’s Brigade, particularly the Thirteenth Arkansas. Captain H. W. Murphy, Company C, was killed and Captain R. B. Lambert, Company A, Lieutenants J. C. Hall and B. M. Hopkins, Company A, and several privates were wounded. Assuming they had been outflanked, Stewart’s Arkansans returned the fire with enthusiasm. Their musket balls raked the Fourth Louisiana with deadly effect. Colonel Henry W. Allen, future governor of Louisiana, reported that it was “a terrible blow to the regiment; far more terrible than any inflicted by the enemy.”73 Private Thomas Chinn Robertson reported one hundred and five members of the regiment down from the Arkansans’ fire. Colonel Gibson’s horse was also hit, and the brigade commander was somewhat shaken up, but he quickly ordered Colonel Allen’s regiment to fall back and reform.74 Lieutenant Colonel Grayson finally calmed his Thirteenth Arkansas, but precious minutes were lost before the unit was able to move forward again, thus the advance of the entire brigade was disrupted.75
Stewart soon had his men moving forward again, but Raith’s Illinoisans were already falling back to link up with the rest of General McClernand’s division.76 Wood’s Brigade moved up on Stewart’s right, but also had trouble making contact with the Illinoisans. After resistance described as “not strong,” his brigade advanced into Colonel Raith’s camps.77
All six Confederate brigades now moved forward toward the new Union defensive arrangement established along the northern side of the Review Field at the crossroads of the Corinth-Purdy roads and on up along the Purdy Road.