During the first day of terrific fighting, Van Dorn succeeded in driving Rosecrans back to the refuge of the town's fortifications. On the next morning he assailed the works with extraordinary vigor and determination. His men suffered terribly from the cannon and musketry fire of a protected enemy at short range, but they succeeded at last in breaking the defenses and forcing their way into the town where they fought inch by inch through the streets. For a time it seemed certain that they must succeed not only in carrying the town and capturing the stores that had been collected there, but also in compelling the surrender of the defending force, twenty thousand strong, with the multitude of large guns mounted upon the works. But reinforcements came to Rosecrans's aid at the critical moment and turned the tide of battle just in time to prevent a great disaster to the Federals. The Confederates were driven back and after a heavy loss, never accurately reported, they retreated from the place. Grant had ordered Rosecrans, should this occur, to pursue with all his force and crush the Confederate column completely. Rosecrans delayed even the beginning of pursuit from noon, when the retreat began, until the morning of the next day and then, by a mistake in the road taken, lost even the little chance left to him of effective pursuit. Grant was sorely displeased with this loss of an opportunity which had been purchased at cost of so severe a battle, and at his request Rosecrans was removed to another field. He was sent in fact, after a brief time, to succeed Buell, whose failure to do greater damage to Bragg met with condemnation at Washington. The Confederate authorities were equally displeased with their general, Van Dorn, and soon afterwards he was superseded in command by General John C. Pemberton. Pemberton was a Pennsylvanian by birth, who had married at the South. He was a special, personal favorite of President Davis. He had never commanded an army or conducted a battle in his life, yet Mr. Davis had rapidly promoted him all the way from colonel to lieutenant general, over the heads and to the great discouragement of colonels, brigadiers and major generals who had won high distinction upon hotly contested Confederate battlefields. And now, when the Federal forces were firmly established on the far Southern line of the Memphis and Charleston railroad, and when the very greatest generalship was obviously and peremptorily needed to save the Confederate cause in the South and West, the Richmond authorities selected this favorite, who had done no fighting, commanded no armies and manifested no military ability, to take control of Confederate defense at the most critical point of all.