“An army comprising seventy regiments of infantry, twenty batteries of artillery and a sufficiency of cavalry lay for two weeks and more in isolated camps, with a river in its rear and a hostile army, claimed to be superior in numbers, twenty miles distant in its front, while the commander made his headquarters and passed his nights nine miles away, on the opposite side of the river. It had no line or order of battle, no defensive works of any sort, no outposts, properly speaking, to give warning or check the advance of an enemy, and no recognized head during the absence of the regular commander. On a Saturday the hostile force arrived and formed in order of battle, without detection or hindrance, within a mile and a half of the unguarded army, advanced upon it the next morning, penetrated its disconnected lines, assaulted its camps in front and flank, drove its disjointed members successively from position to position, capturing some and routing others, in spite of much heroic individual resistance, and steadily drew near the landing and depot of its supplies in the pocket between the river and an impassable creek. At the moment, near the close of the day, when the remnant of the retrograding army was driven to refuge in the midst of its magazines, with the triumphant enemy at half-gunshot distance, the advance division of a reinforcing army arrived on the opposite bank of the river, crossed and took position under fire at the point of attack; the attacking force was checked and the battle ceased for the day. The next morning at dawn the reinforcing army and a fresh division belonging to the defeated force advanced against the assailants, followed or accompanied by such of the broken columns of the previous day as had not lost all cohesion, and, after ten hours of conflict, drove the enemy from the captured camps and the field.” It will be seen from the statement in his article that one of the strongest points he made as to the unpreparedness of Grant’s army is the repeated fateful turning of the flanks of the different divisions throughout the day, in one of which Prentiss was captured. He says: “The outflanking so common in the Union report at Shiloh is not a mere excuse of the inferior commanders. It is the practical consequence of the absence of a common head and the judicious use of reserves to counteract partial reverses and preserve the front of battle.” [Illustration: GENERAL GRANT. As he appeared at the time of Shiloh] From this alone he argues all the misfortunes of the different divisions acting independently and without a common head. Their flanks turned again and again as each fell back with no warning from the others. And this is his graphic statement of the critical ending of the first day’s fight: