Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/243

Rh against the armies of Halleck's department, while their comrades were as bravely resisting the Federals under McClellan. During the first days of April, when McClellan was slowly forcing the Confederate position at Yorktown, the two military leaders in the West, provoked by the disasters of the preceding months, moved their armies from Corinth to attack Grant and Sherman at Shiloh. Their assault was made immediately on reaching the enemy with such persisting vigor on the first day, April 6th, that the army of Grant was beaten from the field; but the great victory cost the Confederacy the loss of Albert Sidney Johnston's life. The night screened the defeated Federals, the battle ceased, the reinforcements of Buell were hurried to Grant's relief, and on the next day, after a resolute defense against the attack of these new forces, the wearied and unsupported Confederate victors of the day before were withdrawn from the field, taking with them hundreds of captured muskets thirty cannon and nearly 3,000 prisoners. In this battle—one of the engagements that contributed largely to the final result—40,000 Confederates engaged the first day 44,000 Federals; and on the second day the reinforcements of the Federals were sufficient to maintain their first numbers, while the Confederates were reduced by all casualties about one-fourth and were without reserves. It is estimated that on the second day 45,000 was the total of Grant's strength, opposed by less than 30,000 effective Confederates.

The battle of Shiloh, taken into a view that embraces the positions of both armies at the close of the first day and the condition of both after the battle was ended, is properly written down among Confederate victories. It is placed among the engagements on which Confederate fate was suspended, only because the victory was not so complete as to enable the Confederates to regain the command of Fort Donelson and the possession of all Tennessee and Kentucky. Beauregard, succeeding the fallen