The Annals of the Civil War Written by Leading Participants North and South
Alexander Kelly McClure, Ed.

[683] which, of course, is a popular delusion. Certain it is, however, they fought with the desperation of men inflamed with something more stirring than Yankee hatred and Southern patriotism. By three o'clock they were on the move. At daybreak General A. Sidney Johnston said to General Beauregard: “Can it be possible they are not aware of our presence” “It can scarcely be possible,” replied the latter; “they must be laying some plan to entrap us.” General Johnston commanded, with Beauregard second in command. With us the latter was regarded as chief commander, as it was his army that lay at Corinth, and he it was whom we supposed we would have to fight.

General Johnston, after evacuating Nashville, moved his army with all possible dispatch to Corinth, declaring, as a recent biographer of this great military genius asserts, with almost the spirit of prophesy, that the decisive battle in the Southwest would be fought in the neighborhood of Shiloh church. This, the biographer asserts, was not sheer guessing, but the result of clear and close calculation. [General Hurlbut recently informed me that it has only been a few months since he learned, from a son of General Johnston, the real plan of the battle of Shiloh, as arranged by his father.] The united armies of Johnston and Beauregard numbered about fifty thousand men, and constituted the fighting material of the Confederate army, commanded by the most experienced officers-Johnston, Beauregard, Bragg, Hardee, Polk, Cheatham, Breckenridge-and a long list of subordinate commanders, presenting an array of names that ought to infuse confidence in any army. With their united forces it was “determined,” says General Beauregard in his report, “to assume the offensive, and strike a sudden blow at the enemy in position under General Grant, on the west bank of the Tennessee, at Pittsburg, and in the direction of Savannah, before he was reinforced by the enemy under General Buell, then known to be advancing via Columbia. By a rapid and vigorous attack on General Grant, it was expected he would be beaten back into his transports on the river or captured,” etc. The disposition of the forces of General Grant, who, on account of the continued illness of General Smith, and an explanation with General Halleck, was ordered, March 14th, to assume command of the Army of the Tennessee, were as follows: General Sherman occupied the extreme front at Shiloh church; Generals Prentiss and Hurlbut lay on the left-; Generals McClernand and W. H. L. Wallace on the right and rear. The form of4he encampment was a semi-circle with its greater arc on the left. Two roads led from the landing to Corinth, distant twenty miles--one by the way