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ground. Through the opening to the southwest we had a straight shot for Corinth
on a fairly good road (considering) down which we could march when the time
came for us to move out for the attack on Beauregard.
    Hurlbut's division landed with us. Within a few days the
others had arrived, Prentiss and McClelland and W.H.L. Wallace. Lew Wallace had
his division at Crump's Landing, downstream on the Tennessee about five miles
north of Snake Creek. Our division was out front—the position of honor; they
called it that to make us feel good, probably; certainly there was small honor
involved—three miles down the Corinth road, on a line stretching roughly cast
and west of a small Methodist log meeting-house called Shiloh Chapel, near
which Sherman had his headquarters. Hurlbut was two miles behind us, within a
mile of the Landing. Prentiss took position on our left flank when he came up,
and McClelland camped directly in our rear. W.H.L. Wallace was to the right and
slightly to the rear of Hurlbut.
    There were forty thousand of us. General Smith, who had his
headquarters at Savannah, was in command of the army, but it was Sherman who
chose Pittsburg Landing as the concentrating point and made the dispositions.
We drilled and trained all day every day, march and countermarch until we
thought we'd drop, improving the time while waiting for Buell's army to arrive
from Nashville. When he joined, we would be seventy-five thousand. Then the
Army of the Tennessee and the Army of the Ohio, combined under Halleck, would
march against the Rebels down at Corinth. There wasn’t a soldier who did not
realize the strategic possibilities of the situation, and everyone was
confident of the outcome.
    We felt good. When the war began a year ago, all the
newspapers carried reprints of speeches by Confederate orators, calling us
Northern scum and mercenaries and various other fancy names and boasting that
Southern soldiers were better men than we were, ten to one. Then Bull Run
came—a disgrace that bit deeper than talk. That was when we began to realize we
had a war on our hands, and we buckled down to win it.
    Belmont and Fishing Creek and Donelson showed what we could
do. We pushed them back through Kentucky and Tennessee, taking city after city
and giving them every chance to turn and fight. They never did. If they were
worth ten to one of us, they certainly didn’t show it. Now we were within an
easy march of Mississippi, one of the fire-eater States, first to leave the
Union after South Carolina, and still they wouldn’t turn and stand and fight.
    Of course
there is nothing to do but drill drill drill but I’ve did not come down here on a picnic anyway.
God forbid — it’s not my notion of a picnic grounds. Everyone feels that the
sooner we move against them the better, because when we move we’re going to
beat them and end this War. It’s come a long way since Bull Run — we have taken
our time & built a big fine army, the Finest ever was. For the past half
year we have beat them where ever they would stop for Battle & I believe
this next will wind it up in the West.
    Then General Smith skinned his leg on the sharp edge of a
rowboat seat, and it became so badly infected he had to be relieved. Halleck
put Grant back in command; he had found that the anonymous letter was untrue
along with some other scandal about the mishandling of captured goods at
Donelson. We cheered when we heard that Grant was back. He kept his
headquarters where Smith's had been, at a big brick house in Savannah, nine
miles down the Tennessee and on the opposite bank, overlooking the river. We
saw him daily, for he came up by steamboat every morning and returned every
night. The men liked being in his army. Fighting under Grant meant winning
victories.
    He was a young general, not yet forty, a little below
average height, with lank brown hair and an unkempt beard. His shoulders sloped
and this gave him a slouchy look that was emphasized by the private's