As soon as General Beauregard was apprised of General Johnston’s death, he gathered his bleeding forces and hurled regiment after regiment against the “Hornet’s Nest,” with its “sunken road” of destiny, sweeping all supporting artillery of the enemy from that portion of the field; but the gray troops could not see the hidden line of blue until they were within a few feet of the old road. The Union troops would suddenly rise out of the ground, fire, and sink from view again. Only after a long and concentrated fire from sixty-two pieces of Confederate artillery under General Ruggles did the blue line of the “sunken road” abandon its fateful trench of chance and fall back. Then both of its flanks were turned. General Wallace was mortally wounded, and General Prentiss, with more than two thousand troops, was captured. But--alas!--the hours wasted before that “sunken road” brought us in weariness too near the edge of the approaching night; and, with a seeming victory in our grasp, with the brave, though depleted and disorganized army of blue at bay at the river’s brink, we saw the battle cease for that day; and in the early falling shadows and through the long, long night came the troops of Lew Wallace and of Buell, unscathed and fresh, and twenty-five thousand strong. This was a sad development to our tired army that had fought without ceasing for eleven hours; and at about 6 o’clock we were withdrawn to the Union camps, where we fell into the obliterating sleep of exhaustion: I was lying on my rubber blanket, and about midnight there was such a downpour of rain as I have seldom seen. My blanket held water so well that I was partly submerged when I woke, and the remainder of the night was spent in cat naps, sitting on the ground with my back against a tree. On Monday morning, the 7th, the battle opened with not less than twenty-five thousand fresh troops added to Grant’s sorely pressed lines, and so the Confederate hopes of Shiloh took wings; but in the deep gloom of the changed situation, our army went into battle line with the coming of the day. Every Confederate had heard the disheartening news; but they were soldiers still, and, with a courage that at this far-distant day is difficult to understand, they held the enemy to a very slow advance until past the hour of noon. With no Confederate reënforcements in prospect, General Beauregard began, early in the afternoon, to withdraw the gray army from the unequal conflict. We retired in good order, and were deeply surprised that the Union forces made no attempt to pursue us beyond their encampment. We marched back to Corinth, taking with us all captured cannon and other arms, without a rear-guard fight.