Colonel Thompson, aide-de-camp to Beauregard, says in his report: "While I was engaged in rallying our disorganized troops to the left and rear of the church, you seized the banners of two different regiments and led them forward to the assault in face of the fire of the enemy; but from the feebleness of the response I became convinced that our troops were too much exhausted to make a vigorous resistance. I rode up to you and advised that you should expose yourself no further, but should dispose your troops so as to retire from Shiloh Church in good order." Colonel Whittlesey, in his report, states: "There being signs of a retreat farther to the south, Lieutenant Thurber was directed to sweep the ground in front, which he did with his two howitzers and three smooth-bores in fine style. Two prisoners captured near there, one of them an officer of the Creole Guard, state that General Beauregard was endeavoring to form a line for a final and desperate charge on our right when Lieutenant Thurber opened upon him, and the result was a disorderly retreat." The battle was over. General Beauregard posted a battery and a brigade on the rising ground south of Oak Creek, commanding the ground about Shiloh Church, and withdrew his worn troops behind them. General Beauregard says this was at two o'clock. Cheatham fixes the hour when he retired at half-past two. The National commanders fix the close of the contest at about three o'clock. At Woods', about two miles beyond, a rear-guard took position again. At Mickey's, where Breckenridge had already arrived, he was detailed with his command as rear-guard, and the rest of the army passed on to Monterey. There was no pursuit of the retreating army. All advance by the National troops ceased about four o'clock. McCook went into bivouac near the camp of Peabody's brigade, Prentiss' division. Wood's division, arriving too late to take part in the battle, pushed to the front and engaged his skirmishers with the light troops covering the retreat. Mendenhall's battery, far off toward Crittenden's left, catching some glimpses of the retiring column through openings in the forest, sent some parting rounds. Wood and Crittenden went into bivouac in front of Prentiss' camp. General Buell pushed Nelson forward on the Hamburg road, near to the crossing of Lick Creek, and the division bivouacked near Stuart's camp. The divisions, or what was present of them, of McClernand, Sherman, Hurlbut, and W.H.L. Wallace, returned to their camps. Lewis Wallace advanced his division across Oak Creek to the large field. Company A, of the Twentieth Ohio, obtaining permission to proceed farther, advanced to the Confederate hospital and was deploying to drive off a detachment of cavalry that was burning a commissary train, when it was recalled to rejoin the division, then returning across Oak Creek, to bivouac in front of the camp of McDowell's brigade.