Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 29.djvu/374

 358 Southern Historical Society Papers.

erates upon the death of General Albert Sidney Johnston, says : "By 5 o'clock the whole Federal army except Prentiss's division with a part of W. H. L. Wallace's, had receded to the river bank, and the indomitable force which under Prentiss still contested the field was being environed on its left by brigades from the divisions of Breckinridge, Cheatham, and Withers, in that quarter. It remains to be said that Prentiss was equally encompassed on the other flank by a part of Ruggle's division together with some of General Polk's corps. Thus surrounded on all sides that officer whose division had been the first to come into collision with us that morning, stoutly keeping the field to the last, was now forced to surrender in person, just after 5 : 30 P. M., with some 2,200 officers and men."

GRANT CORROBORATES BEAUREGARD.

General Grant corroborates this statement of General Beauregard, and adds: "If it had been true, as currently reported at the time, and yet believed by the thousands of people, that Prentiss and his division had been captured in their beds, there would not have been an all-day struggle with the loss of thousands killed and wounded on the Confederate side."

At the close of the battle of April 6th, General Grant had been forced back to his last stand on the banks of the Tennessee. Not a single attack had he made upon the Confederates during the whole day. All his camps and a rich spoil of cannon, small arms and other war material was in the hands of the victorious southerners.

Just before dark General Lew Wallace's division of fresh troops came upon the field, followed by the whole army of the Ohio, under General Buell.

On the next morning this new army under General Buell and the remnant of Grant's defeated troops, all under Grant orders, attacked the Confederates, who had not been reinforced by a single man, and who, though fearfully outnumbered, held their ground until late in the afternoon. Then, in accordance with the orders of Beauregard, they made a show of resuming the offensive, which checked the Federal attack. Then, unmolested they retired from the field, car- rying the caissons loaded down with captured muskets and rifles, and bearing off, besides, thirty pieces of captured artillery, twenty-six stands of colors taken from the enemy, and nearly 3,000 prisoners. Many of the soldiers had also exchanged their arms for the superior ones of the Federals, captured in the battle of the 6th.