Who was responsible for the encampment of the army at Pittsburgh Landing, however, has been a matter of dispute. To place the army there, instead of on the other side of the river, has been criticised as a serious error. Grant's friends have sought to free him from blame by saying that the choice was made by Smith, while Grant was in disgrace and practically under arrest. As Smith was dead when this statement was made, he could not reply to it. Grant himself made no effort to exculpate himself at Smith's expense. He has left it on record that when he was restored to his command, on March 13th, he found his army partly at Savannah, on the northeast bank, and partly at Pittsburgh Landing, on the southwest bank, nine miles apart. He at once moved them all to the latter place, but personally remained at Savannah, awaiting the arrival of Buell, who was to join him there with his Army of the Ohio. Lew. Wallace was with his division at Crump's Landing, on the southwest bank, five miles below Pittsburgh Landing, where he had been placed by Smith and where Grant was well satisfied to let him remain. By this acceptance of the place selected by Smith, Grant practically approved it; and by remaining there for three weeks, until the battle was fought, he made himself entirely responsible for the whole situation, a responsibility which he never sought to evade. Concerning the arrangement and management of the Federal army during the three weeks before the battle, there have been voluminous and bitter controversies. Sherman was in a measure responsible for whatever was done, or left undone, since he was at Pittsburgh Landing all the time, while Grant spent half of his time at Savannah; and Sherman was the adviser of McClernand, who was the actual senior. The Rebels were known to be massed in force at Corinth, only a score of miles away, under their ablest and bravest commanders. Sherman himself had been, before the rendezvous was made at Pittsburgh Landing, sent out to cut the communication between the two points, to prevent a sudden advance of the enemy. In this he had not been successful. The errand was then accomplished by W. H. L. Wallace, but the damage done was quickly repaired by the Rebels and the line of approach restored. With such danger of attack staring them in the face, the troops made no elaborate preparations for defence. General Buell and other critics have charged them with the most astounding and culpable negligence. The army, according to Buell, had no line or order of battle, although it was on the enemy's ground and the enemy was confronting it in force; it had no defensive works of any sort; no outposts, properly speaking, to give warning of or to check the advance of an enemy; and no recognized head in the absence of its Commander, who spent half his time nine miles away. And so, continues this drastic critic, the enemy advanced upon it and formed in line of battle only a mile and a half away without