The Bay State Monthly. Volume 2, No. 6, March, 1885. Various
While on this inquiry, let me add that the report of my being set right after marching upon the wrong road has in it this much truth, and no more. When about a mile from the position which had been occupied by the right of the army (General Sherman's division), Captain Rowley overtook me and told me that you had sent him to hurry me up, and that our lines had been carried by the enemy and the army driven back almost to the river, a very different story from the one brought me by Captain Baxter. Captain Rowley set me right as to the conditions of the battle, not as to the road I was following. Colonel McPherson and Major Rawlins, the other members of your staff, mentioned as having been sent to me, met me after the countermarch, when my command was on the river road moving to Pittsburg Landing.
Concerning the countermarch, I would remark that the condition of the battle, as reported by Captain Rowley, made it prudent, if not necessary. My column was only five thousand men, of all arms. Reflecting upon it now, I am still of the opinion that it did better service the next day in your new line of battle, than it could have done, operating alone and unsupported in the rear of the whole rebel army, where I was certainly taking it, when "set right" by the captain.
Instead of making the change of direction, when it was resolved on, by a countermarch, the result proved that it should have been effected by a general right about. The former manoeuvre was chosen, however, because I was confident of finding a cross road to the river road long before the head of the column doubled upon its foot. [See Colonel Ross' statement of the effort made to accomplish that idea.]
One of the results I confidently anticipated from a reading of the letter submitted, is, that you will be satisfied of the wrong done me (unintentional, I believe), by Colonel Badeau, when, in his book, he describes me as consuming seven hours in marching five miles in the direction of the battle. The march actually performed in that time was not less than fifteen miles, over an execrable dirt road.
Your opinion, as advanced in your letter to the War Office, July, 13, 1863, that General Morgan L. Smith, had he been put in command, could have had the division in the battle by 1 o'clock P.M., is in direct terms, based upon the condition that General Smith received your orders as you supposed them communicated to me. But, suppose he had not received the order as originally given; suppose, on the contrary, the order actually received by him had the effect to send him in another direction from Pittsburg Landing; and suppose that, on approaching his objective, he had found himself in the rear of the whole rebel army, and in his judgment compelled, by that circumstance, together with the bad fortune of our own army, to a further movement of quite ten miles—all of which were terrible realities in my case—I am sure you are too just a man to have held him accountable for the hours, however precious, thus necessarily lost.
With these remarks I place the letters of the officers named in your hands. They will satisfy you, I think, that the exoneration I seek will be a simple act of justice. The many misconceptions which have been attached to my movements on that bloody Sunday, have, it must be confessed, made me extremely sensitive upon the subject. You can imagine, therefore, with what anxiety your reply will be waited.
Colonel Ross to General Wallace:
CHICAGO, January, 25, 1868.
General: Having read the extract from "Badeau's Life of General Grant," as published in the Chicago Tribune, of the twenty-fifth of December, 1867, wherein he refers particularly to the battle of Shiloh, and seeing the gross injustice done you, and the false light in which you are placed before the country and the world, I deem it my duty to make a brief statement of what I know to be the facts in reference to your failure to reach the field of battle in time to take part in the action of Sunday, April 6, 1862.
I will first state the position of your command on that morning. The First Brigade, Colonel M.L. Smith commanding, at Crump's Landing; Second Brigade, Colonel John M. Thayer commanding, two and one-half miles out on the Adamsville road; Third Brigade, Colonel Charles R. Wood commanding, at Adamsville, five miles out from the river. The first intimation you or any of your staff had of the battle was between five and six o'clock, A.M., when my attention was called by one of the men on the boat on which were your headquarters, to the heavy and continued firing in the direction of the camp at Pittsburg Landing. You were at once notified of this, and being satisfied that there was a battle going on, directed me to go at once and order this division to get ready to move at a moment's warning, and to instruct Colonel Wood to move his baggage and camp equipage to the river with the least possible delay, and march his command to the camp of the Second Brigade, midway between his (then) camp and that of the First Brigade, at the river.
After executing your order, as above, I returned to the Landing. Soon after, you, together with your staff, went out to the camp of the second Brigade, when the division had been ordered to concentrate in order to be in position to take either one of two roads, intersecting the Adamsville road from Crump's Landing to Pittsburg Landing; one leading to Pittsburg Landing, the other to the Purdy road from Pittsburg Landing, intersecting it at a point not far from the right of our army under General Sherman, as it was encamped when the battle began.
Before starting for Colonel Thayer's camp, orders were given by you to Captain Lyman, A.Q.M., on your staff, for a horse to be saddled and kept in readiness, in case a messenger should come down the river with orders from General Grant to you.
Now for the order. Badeau says that a staff officer was dispatched to General Wallace with verbal orders for him to march by the nearest road parallel with the river. The order may have been given verbally by General Grant to his staff officer, but was not so delivered to you, nor did it direct you to march by the nearest road parallel with the river. At about 11 o'clock, A.M., while at the camp of Colonel Thayer, I was directed by you to go to Colonel M.L. Smith. I met Captain Baxter, A.Q.M., who stopped me and handed me a paper saying, "I wish you would take this to General Wallace." I took the paper, read it and returned it to him, saying, I could not do so, as I was on my way under orders from General Wallace. At the same time I turned in my saddle, and pointed out a group of horsemen, telling the Captain that you were among them. I went to Colonel Smith, delivered my orders, and returning, met the Captain again. I very distinctly remember that this order directed you to move forward and join General Sherman's right on the Purdy road and form your line of battle at right angles with the river; and then act as circumstances would dictate. Now the shortest possible route by which you could reach the point designated in the order was the one taken, viz: that one leading from Colonel Thayer's camp (on the Adamsville road from Crump's Landing), to the Purdy road (from Pittsburg Landing), a distance of about five miles; whereas the distance to the point to which you was to march as designated in the order, via Pittsburg Landing, would have been at least twelve miles. Perhaps I should here state that this order was not signed by any one, but coming as it did through one of the Staff Officers of the Commanding General, could not be questioned. I would also state in this connection, that when I met Captain Baxter first, I asked him how things were going. He replied that Grant was driving the enemy at all points. Had this been the case, the order as delivered by Captain Baxter would have been all right, as we could then have joined General Sherman as directed therein. Within ten minutes after the receipt of the order, the troops were on the road.
When we were about one mile from where we expected to join General Sherman, we were overtaken by a messenger from General Grant, Captain (since Colonel) Rowley, I believe, who informed you that our troops had been defeated all along the line, and driven back, till the right was within half a mile of the river, and that the road we were on, would, if followed up, lead us into the rear of the enemy. This being the case, it became necessary to find some other way to form a junction with the army. In order to do so, every mounted man attached to your Head-Quarters was dispatched to find, if possible, some way to get round the enemys' left without going back to the starting point, or to find some resident to guide us by the nearest possible route. Finally a man was found who was compelled to act as guide. Nevertheless the march was continued as rapidly as possible, until we joined the right of the army, just after dark, in the position in which it lay when the battle closed for the day. Badeau also says: "General Wallace was set right by Captain (afterwards Colonel) Rowley, and Colonel (afterwards Major General) McPherson, both at the time upon General Grant's staff; that they set him right at 1 o'clock, and it took