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contingencies of war; but the distant control of details must ignore many of the actual conditions of a contest.
Strategists who, whether a week or a year beforehand and leagues away, plan other people's battles for them, may engage in the business of prophecy, whose issues are soon forgotten, but not safely or successfully in the responsible work of high military command.
General Johnston's ability to divest himself of this propensity to intermeddle with matters that belonged strictly to his subordinates, even though they were unlucky, will be recognized as a merit by any soldier who has had the misfortune to serve with his hands tied, under a superior who imagined himself omniscient.
Buckner says:
The enemy were comparatively quiet in front of my position during the 14th.
On the morning of that day I was summoned to a council of general officers, in which it was decided unanimously, in view of the arrival of heavy reinforcements of the enemy below, to make an immediate attack upon their right, in order to open our communications with Charlotte in the direction of Nashville.
It was urged that this attack should be made at once, before the disembarkation of the enemy's reenforcements-supposed to be about 15,000 men. I proposed with my division to cover the retreat of the army, should the sortie prove successful.
I made the necessary dispositions preparatory to executing the movement; but early in the afternoon the order was countermanded by General Floyd, at the instance, as I afterward learned, of General Pillow, who, after drawing out his troops for the attack, thought it too late for the attempt.
Neither
General Floyd nor
General Pillow alludes to this council; but it is evident that the foregoing statement is substantially correct, as
General Pillow, having arranged the preliminaries for an attack, actually led his men out, and afterward withdrew them.
Colonel W. E. Baldwin, commanding the Second Brigade, says in his report, March 12, 1862:
About noon, General Pillow directed the left wing to be formed in the open ground to the left and rear of our position in the lines, for the purpose, apparently, of attacking the enemy's right.
My command, to which the Twentieth Mississippi, Major Brown, was temporarily attached, constituted the advance, in the following order: first, the Twenty-sixth Mississippi; second, the Twenty-sixth Tennessee; third, the Twentieth Mississippi.
Formed in column by platoon, we advanced in a road leading from a point about two hundred yards from the left of our trenches, and approaching nearly perpendicularly the enemy's right.
We had proceeded not more than one-fourth of a mile, when General Pillow ordered a countermarch, saying it was too late in the day to accomplish anything, and we returned to our former position in the lines.
Major William M. Brown, who commanded the Twentieth Mississippi in this brigade, mentions ten o'clock as the hour when he received the order to form his regiment.
He says :
By the time we had advanced one hundred yards, a private of Company D was shot down, showing that the enemy was close at hand.
We continued the
