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 316 Southern Historical /society Papers.

disputing every inch. At about sunset an order came from General Beauregard to withdraw, collect and reorganize the troops, all of whom had become greatly broken and intermixed. * * At

the time this order was given, the plain truth must be told, that our troops at the front were a thin line of exhausted men, who were making no further headway, and were glad to receive orders to fall back. * * * Several years of subsequent service have impressed me that General Beauregard's order for withdrawing the troops was most timely; otherwise the collection and reorganization of troops, that took place that night, could not have been made, and the army would not have been in condition to make the obstinate head which it did on the next day against Grant and Buell's combined armies, up to the moment in the afternoon when it was withdrawn, carrying off so considerable a part of the enemy's artillery and in such good order that Buell's and Grant's armies did not venture to follow." {Military Operations of General Beauregard, Volume I, page 551).

My summary of so much of the published official documents as bear at all upon the question of the alleged " Lost Opportunity," revived so strenuously in sheer assertion by Mr. Davis and his aid- de-camp, is now concluded. Its fullness will be justified to the reflec- ing, as it could not be shortened without falling fatally short also of the real object which has incited me to write my papers ; that is, to present so vigorous an analysis and exposition of the unquestionable documentary official history of certain mooted phases of the cam- paign and battle of Shiloh as must leave no foundation hereafter for two honestly entertained opinions among those who, in the pursuit of the truth of history, or from any other cause, may have been at the pains, after reading my papers, to compare their citations with the documents from which they are taken. Without at least as minute an inquisition, the discussion thus recently revived by Mr. Davis and Colonel Johnston would be as endless as any human affair can be. Colonel Johnston has asserted explicitly that it was " the opinion of almost all the officers and men at the front the victory was won, and would have been consummated by the capture of Grant's army with- out any order of advance from General Beauregard, by the generals actually there, and therefore it was his order of withdrawal which broke up and disintegrated the victorious battle array, as a night was given for the reinforcements of Buell and Lew Wallace to come up."

Such a statement becomes simply shameful, under the light of the closely contemporaneous statements of every division commander,