The national troops were posted on a line three miles in length, extending from a creek on the right to another on the left, each of which had overflowed its banks and effectually protected the flanks of the army. The Union troops numbered at the beginning of the battle thirty-three thousand men. At Crump's Landing, four miles distant, was General Lew Wallace's division of five thousand more. The rebel troops were reported by Beauregard to be over forty thousand; but there were some discrepancies in his statements which render it probable that he magnified the results of the first day by understating his force. The forward movement of the Union army into the first heart of the Confederacy had startled the rebel leaders, and they had decided to make a gigantic effort to overwhelm the daring invaders. For this purpose General A.S. Johnston, the most accomplished soldier in the enemy's ranks, was sent to the scene of operations, with the most reliable troops in their army. Beauregard, who, in spite of his sensational style, was a very able soldier, whose name carried a prestige no other rebel chief had won, was the leading spirit of the battle, while Hardee, Bragg, and Polk, all educated military men, were in command of divisions. On the other side, only Grant and Sherman were trained soldiers. The Confederacy was smarting under its overwhelming defeat at Donelson. The boasted superiority of Southern soldiers had been disproved, and, in addition to the necessity of saving the rebel cause from the disaster of having its railway communications severed, lost honor and lost prestige were to be recovered. Never was an army more thoroughly stimulated to valor and desperation than that which was hurled upon the national lines at Pittsburg Landing. A stirring appeal had been issued by General Johnston, in which he inflamed the zeal of the soldiers to the highest pitch, pointing out to them the bitter results of defeat, all of which were fully realized in the ultimate issue. Everything which could rouse the men to desperation in the approaching fight was done with unsparing energy. Thus goaded to madness by the hopes and fears of the future, the confident army of the Mississippi marched out of Corinth, under Johnston, three days before the great battle. The Union generals were on the alert, and during the three days that the armies confronted each other there was much heavy skirmishing. On the morning of Sunday, the first day of the battle, Prentiss, in the centre of the line, sent out a regiment at three o'clock to reconnoitre the position of the enemy. He had doubled his pickets on Saturday, thus carefully guarding himself against the possibility of a surprise. On Friday, the day on which he was injured by the fall of his horse, Grant was at the front with Sherman, to make sure that every preparation had been made to receive a sudden attack, though none was yet expected.