General Johnston, after falling back from Nashville, sought to concentrate his army at Corinth, and to fight the enemy in detail — Grant first and Buell afterward. General Polk’s army was driven back from Columbus. General Lovell brought a brigade from Louisiana; and General Bragg, with his well-disciplined army, was ordered from Florida to the aid of Johnston. In a period of four weeks fragments of commands from Kentucky, Alabama, and Louisiana, with such new levies as could be hastily raised, all badly armed and equipped, were united at and near Corinth and organized as an army. “It was a heterogeneous mass,” wrote General Bragg, “in which there was more enthusiasm than discipline, more capacity than knowledge, more valor than instruction. Rifles, rifled and smooth-bore muskets — some of them originally percussion, others hastily altered from flint-locks by contractors — many with the old flint-and-steel, and shot-guns of all sizes and patterns held place in the same regiments. The task of organizing such a command in four weeks, and supplying it, especially with ammunition suitable for action, was simply appalling.”
This force, about 40,000 men of all arms, was divided into four corps, commanded respectively by Generals Polk, Bragg, Hardee, and Breckinridge. General Beauregard was second in command under Johnston.
The plan to attack the Federal forces before Buell should unite with Grant was frustrated by the arrival of Buell two days earlier than he was expected. His advance reached Savannah on April 5, 1862: next day we attacked Grant.
At one o’clock on the morning of April 3d preliminary orders were issued to move at a moment’s notice. General Hardee led the advance, and next morning reached Mickey’s, a position about eighteen miles from Corinth and four or five miles from Pittsburg Landing. The second corps, under Bragg, bivouacked in the rear of Hardee’s on the night of the 4th. The first corps, under General Polk, consisted of two divisions, under Cheatham and Clarke. Clarke was ordered to follow Hardee at an interval of half an hour, and to halt near Mickey’s, so as to allow Bragg’s corps to fall in behind Hardee, at a thousand yards’ interval, and form a second line of battle. Polk’s corps was to form the left wing of the third line of battle, and Breckinridge’s reserve the right wing. The other division of Polk was on outpost duty near Bethel; Cheatham, commanding it, was ordered to assemble his forces at Purdy and pursue the route to Monterey. He effected his junction on the 5th, and took position on the left wing of Polk’s corps. Breckinridge’s corps, delayed by rains, did not effect its junction with the other corps until late in the afternoon of the 5th.
Owing to their delay in the march it was about four o’clock when the lines were completely formed — too late to begin the battle on that day. General Johnston, therefore, determined to attack early on the following morning.
The results of the first day of the famous battle are very concisely presented in the following brief report of General Beauregard:
“At 5 A.M., on the 6th instant, a reconnoitring party of the enemy having become engaged with an advance picket, the commander of the forces gave orders to begin the movement and attack as determined upon. … Thirty minutes after 5 A.M. our lines and columns were in motion, all animated, evidently, with a promising spirit. The front line was engaged at once, but advanced steadily, followed, in due order, with equal resolution and steadiness, by the other lines, which were brought successively into action with rare skill, judgment, and gallantry by the several corps commanders, as the enemy made a stand, with his masses rallied, for the struggle for his encampments. Like an Alpine avalanche our troops moved forward, despite the desperate resistance of the enemy, until after 6 A.M., when we were in possession of all his encampments between Owl and Lick Creeks but one, nearly all of his field artillery, about 30 flags, colors, and standards, over 3,000 prisoners — including a division commander and several brigade commanders — thousands of small arms, an immense supply of subsistence, forage, and munitions of war, and a large amount of means of transportation, all the substantial fruits of a complete victory, such, indeed, as rarely have followed the most successful battles; for never was an army so well provided as that of our enemy.
“The remnant of his army had been driven, in utter disorder, to the immediate vicinity of Pittsburg, under the shelter of the heavy guns of his iron-clad gunboats, and we remained undisputed masters of his well-selected, admirably provided cantonments, after our twelve hours of obstinate conflict with his forces, who had been beaten from them and the contiguous covert, but only by the sustained onset of all the men we could bring into action.”
Alas! it was that one uncaptured encampment that deprived us of “the substantial fruits of a complete victory;” that furnished a foothold for all the subsequent reinforcements sent by Buell, and gave occasion for the final withdrawal of our troops; whereas, if it had been captured, and the waters of the Tennessee reached, as General Johnston designed, it was not too much to expect that Grant would have surrendered; that, with a skilful commander like Johnston to lead our troops, the enemy would have sought safety on the north bank of the Ohio; that Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri would have been recovered, the Northwest disaffected, and our armies filled with the men of the Southwest, and perhaps of the Northwest also.
But a terrible and unforeseen calamity robbed the South of the great results that would have followed the complete victory impending at Shiloh. General Johnston was killed on the field of battle, just as the Confederate army was so fully victorious that, had the attack been vigorously pressed, General Grant and his army would have been prisoners or fugitives before the setting of the sun. Such, at least, is the belief founded on the abundant and trustworthy evidence.
“On the death of General Johnston,” reported General Hardee, “the command having devolved upon General Beauregard, the conflict was continued until near sunset, and the advance divisions were within a few hundred yards of Pittsburg, where the enemy were hurled in confusion, when the order to withdraw was received.”
General Polk said: “We had an hour or more of daylight still left, were within one hundred and fifty to four hundred yards of the enemy’s position, and nothing seemed wanting to complete the most brilliant victory of the war but to press forward and make a vigorous assault on the demoralized remnant of his forces.”
General Gilmer, the chief engineer of the Confederate States Army, in a letter dated September 17, 1872, to the son of General Johnston, writes:
“It is my well-considered opinion that, if your father had survived the day, he would have crushed and captured General Grant’s army before the setting of the sun of the 6th. In fact, at the time your father received the mortal wound the day was ours. The enemy having lost all the strong positions on that memorable field, his troops fell back in great disorder on the banks of the Tennessee. To cover the confusion rapid fires were opened from the gunboats the enemy had placed in the river, but the shots passed entirely over our devoted men, who were exultant and eager to be led forward to the final assault, which must have resulted in a complete victory, owing to the confusion and general disorganization of the Federal troops. I knew the condition of General Grant’s army at the moment, as I had reached a high projecting point on the bank of the river, about a mile above Pittsburg Landing, and could see the hurried movements to get the disordered troops across to the right bank. Several thousand had already passed, and a confused mass of men crowded to the landing to get on the boats that were employed in crossing. I rode rapidly to General Bragg’s position to report what I had seen, and suggested that if he would suspend the fire of his artillery and marshal his infantry for a general advance the enemy must surrender. General Bragg decided to advance, and authorized me and other officers to direct the commanders of the batteries to cease firing.
“In the midst of the preparations orders reached General Bragg from General Beauregard directing the troops to be withdrawn and placed in camp for the night — the intention being to resume the contest in the morning. This decision was fatal, as the delay enabled General Buell and General Wallace to arrive on the field. That is, they came up in the course of the night.”
Sidney Johnston fell in sight of victory. The hour he had waited for, the event he had planned for, had arrived. His fame was vindicated; but far dearer than this to his patriotic spirit was it with his dying eyes to see his country’s flag, so lately drooping in disaster, triumphantly advancing. In his fall the great pillar of the Southern Confederacy was crushed.
Grant’s army being beaten, the next step of General Johnston’s programme would have been followed — the defeat of Buell’s and Wallace’s forces, as they successively came up, and a return by our victorious army through Tennessee to Kentucky. The great embarrassment had been the want of good military weapons. These would have been largely supplied by the victory hoped for, and, in the light of what occurred, not unreasonably anticipated. I believe that again, in the history of war, the fate of an army depended on one man; and more, that the fortunes of a country hung by the single thread of the life that was yielded on the field of Shiloh.