The attack began at daybreak, and was made with tremendous force and in full confidence of success. The nature of the ground made regularity of movement impossible, and the battle was rather a series of assaults by separate columns, now at one part of the line and now at another, which were kept up all day with wonderful persistence. Probably no army ever went into action with more perfect confidence in itself and its leaders than Johnston's. Beauregard had told them they should sleep that night in the camps of the enemy, and they did. He also told them that he would water his horse in the Tennessee, but he did not. The heaviest attacks fell upon Sherman and McClernand, whose men stood up to the work with unflinching courage and disputed every inch of ground. But they were driven back by overwhelming numbers, which the Confederate commanders poured upon them without the slightest regard to losses. The Sixth Mississippi regiment lost three hundred men out of its total of four hundred and twenty-five, and the Eighteenth Louisiana lost two hundred and seven. Sherman's men lost their camps in the morning, and retired upon one new line of defence after another, till they had been crowded back more than a mile; but all the while they clung to the road and bridge by which they were expecting Lew Wallace to come to their assistance. General Grant says of an open field on this part of the line, over which repeated charges were made, that it was "so covered with dead that it would have been possible to walk across the clearing in any direction, stepping on dead bodies, without a foot touching the ground. On our side National and Confederate troops were mingled together in about equal proportions; but on the remainder of the field nearly all were Confederates. On one part, which had evidently not been ploughed for several years, bushes had grown up, some to the height of eight or ten feet. Not one of these was left standing unpierced by bullets. The smaller ones were all cut down." Many of the troops were under fire for the first time; but Sherman's wonderful military genius largely made up for this deficiency. One bullet struck Sherman in the hand, another grazed his shoulder, another went through his hat, and several of his horses were killed. A bullet struck and shattered the scabbard of General Grant's sword. Gen. W. H. L. Wallace was mortally wounded. On the other side, Gens. Adley H. Gladden and Thomas C. Hindman were killed; at about half-past two o'clock General Johnston, placing himself at the head of a brigade that was reluctant to attempt another charge, was struck in the leg by a minie-ball. The wound need not have been mortal; but he would not leave the field, and after a time bled to death. The command then devolved upon General Beauregard.