LATE BRIGADIER-GENERAL AND BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL, U.S.V., COMMANDING FIRST DIVISION, SEVENTEENTH CORPS. NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Facsimile Reprint Edition from the original edition of 1881-1883 by The Archive Society, 1992. Address all inquiries to: The Archive Society 130 Locust Street Harrisburg, PA 17101...

I have endeavored to prepare the following narrative from authentic material, contemporaneous, or nearly contemporaneous, with the events described. The main source of information is the official reports of battles and operations. These reports, both National and Confederate, will appear in the series of volumes of Military Reports now in preparation under the supervision of Colonel Scott, Chief of the War Records Office in the War Department. Executive Document No. 66, printed by resolution of

Western Tennessee , Field of Operations in Missouri and Northern Arkansas , The Line from Columbus to Bowling Green , Fort Henry , Fort Donelson , New Madrid and Island Number Ten , The Field of Shiloh , The Approach to Corinth , Tennessee Western Tennessee....

PRELIMINARY. Missouri did not join the Southern States in their secession from the Union. A convention called to consider the question passed resolutions opposed to the movement. But the legislature convened by Governor Jackson gave him dictatorial power, authorized him especially to organize the military power of the State, and put into his hands three millions of dollars, diverted from the funds to which they had been appropriated, to complete the armament. The governor divided the State into

FORT HENRY. General A.S. Johnston, on September 17, 1861, sent General S.B. Buckner, who had left Kentucky and entered the Confederate service, to seize and occupy Bowling Green, in Kentucky, with a force of 4,000 men. Bowling Green is at the crossing of the Big Barren River by the Louisville and Nashville road. A little to the south the Memphis and Ohio branches off from the Louisville and Nashville. Bowling Green was therefore a gateway through which all approach to the south from Louisville b

FORT DONELSON. The capture of Fort Henry was important, but it would be of restricted use unless Fort Donelson should also be taken. At this point the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers are only twelve miles apart. The little town of Dover stood upon a bluff on the left bank of the Cumberland. Immediately above it, two small brooks empty into the river, making a valley or bottom overflowed by every high water. Immediately below the town is Indian Creek. One branch of it, rising close by the head of

NEW MADRID AND ISLAND NUMBER TEN. A division belonging to General Pope's command in Missouri went with General Curtis to Pea Ridge and Arkansas. A considerable portion of what was left was sent up the Tennessee and Cumberland to General Grant. On February 14, 1862, General Pope was summoned to St. Louis by General Halleck, and on the 18th General Halleck pointed out to him the situation at New Madrid and Island No. Ten, and directed him to organize and command a force for their reduction. On the

THE GATHERING OF THE FORCES. After the surrender of Fort Donelson, the force confronting Halleck was the command of General Beauregard, stationed at Columbus, Island Number Ten, at Forts Pillow and Randolph, at Memphis, and at convenient points on the railroads in Mississippi. The next objective point that presented itself was Memphis, and, as preliminary, the fortified points on the river above it. But Memphis had large railway connections. The direct road to Nashville was cut at its crossing o

SHILOH—SUNDAY. Three companies of the Twenty-fifth Missouri, which regiment formed the right of Colonel Peabody's brigade, Prentiss' division, were sent out on reconnoissance about three o'clock in the morning of Sunday, April 6th. Following the road cautiously in a south-westerly direction, oblique to the line of the camp, they struck the enemy's pickets in front of General Sherman's division. General Johnston, at breakfast with his staff, hearing the fire of the encounter, turned to Colonel Pr

SHILOH—NIGHT, AND MONDAY. The vice of the formation of Johnston's army into three long, thin, parallel lines, together with the broken character of the ground and the variable obstinacy of resistance encountered, produced a complete and inextricable commingling of commands. General Beauregard left it to the discretion of the different commanders to select the place for bivouac for the night. Colonel Pond, retiring from his disastrous repulse toward the close of the afternoon, found himself wholl

CORINTH. When news of the two days' fighting was received at the North, the people of the Ohio Valley and St. Louis were stirred to active sympathy. Steamboats bearing physicians, nurses, sisters of charity, and freighted with hospital supplies were at once despatched and soon crowded the shore of Pittsburg Landing. There was need for all the aid that was brought. Besides the thousands of wounded, were other thousands of sick. The springs of surface water used in the camps, always unwholesome, w