Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 1.djvu/360

328 agony. The track of slaughter formed awful proof of the blind heroism, born of fanatical devotion to their bad cause, with which the rebels faced—yea, courted—death. At three points I found, in spaces not over five hundred feet long and wide, successive swaths of from twenty to fifty bodies, cut down by our small arms and batteries, showing that the most murderous fire did not stop them. Altogether, the sights formed as horrifying a spectacle as those on the field of Shiloh.

I devoted the 10th to visits to General Rousseau and the headquarters of General Crittenden and his division commanders. All the generals I saw expressed their great disappointment and humiliation at the unsatisfactory results, so far, of the operations of the army since it turned north from Nashville. Several of them charged Bragg's escape without severe punishment directly to mismanagement. The belief was very general that he would not fight again in Kentucky. One of the bitterest talkers was General Rousseau. He denounced General Gilbert without stint for failing to support McCook in the battle. Rousseau, a lawyer and politician at Louisville when the war broke out, an ardent loyalist, and one of the first to raise volunteers in Kentucky for the Union cause, was considered at first a “political” general and did not stand very high with trained military men. But active service in the field had rapidly made him a true soldier and able commander. He manifested great courage at Shiloh, and his conduct in this battle was certainly admirable. His fearlessness under fire shone out all the afternoon. He was middle-aged, of tall, full stature, with fine manly face, and presented a commanding, martial appearance, especially on horseback.

I also had an hour with Colonel Daniel McCook, whose acquaintance I had made during my stay at Leavenworth in the spring of 1859, where he was practising law. Like all the McCooks, he was of a very genial, frank, and yet resolute nature. Like his father and his eldest brother, he was doomed to lose his life in the service of his country.