We left Sherman's brigades maintaining a confused fight, Buckland's about gone, Hildebrand's and McDowell's holding their ground more tenaciously. The firing aroused McClernand's division. At first they supposed it to be a mere skirmish; perhaps even only the irregular discharge of muskets by guards and pickets, to clean out their guns, a practice which, to the disgrace of our discipline be it said, was well high universal and rendered it almost impossible at any time to know whether firing meant anything at all, beyond ordinary disorder of our own soldiers. But the continued rattle of musketry soon undeceived them, and almost as soon the advance of the rebels pouring after Buckland was upon them.

The division, it will be remembered, lay a short distance in the rear, and with one brigade stretching out to the left of Sherman's line. Properly speaking, merely from the location of the camp, McClernand did not belong to the front line at all. Two-thirds of his division were entirely behind Sherman. But as the latter fell back, McClernand had to bear the shock of battle.

His division was composed as follows: First brigade, Colonel Hare commanding, Eighth and Eighteenth Illinois, Eleventh and Thirteenth Iowa; Second brigade, Colonel C. C. Marsh commanding, Eleventh, Twentieth, Forty-eighth and Forty-fifty Illinois, Colonels Ransom, Marsh, Haynie and Smith, (the latter is the "Dead Mine regiment"), Third brigade, Col. Raift commanding, Seventeenth, Twenty-ninth and Forty-ninth Illinois, Lieutenant-Colonel Wood, F rroll and Peter, and Forty-third Illinois, Colonel Marsh. Besides this fine show of experienced troops they had sebartz's, Dresser's, McAllister's and Waterhouse's batteries.

As already stated, McClernand was first called into action shortly after the surprise of Sherman's left brigade (Buckland's)--about seven in the morning--by having to move up his left brigade to support Sherman's retreating left and preserve the line. Then, as Sherman's other brigades fell back, McClernand's moved up and engaged the enemy in support. Gradually the resistance to Hildebrand's brigade, and what was still left to its right of Buckland's, became more confused and irresolute. The line wavered, the men fell back in squads and companies, they failed to rally promptly at the call of their officers. As they retreated the woods behind them became thinner, and there was less protection from the storm of grape that swept as if on blasts of a hurricane among the trees. Lieutenant-Colonel Canfield, commanding the Seventy-Second Ohio, was mortally wounded, and borne dying from the field. Colonel Sullivan, of the Forty-eighth Ohio was wounded, but continued at the head of his men. Company officers fell and were carried away from their men. At one of our wavering retreats, the rebels, by a sudden dash forward, had taken part of Waterhouse's battery, which McClernand had sent them over. Bear's battery, too, was taken, and Taylor's Chicago Light Artillery was so terribly pounded as to be forced to retire with heavy loss. As the troops gave way they came out from the open woods into old fields, completely raked by the enemy's fire. For them all was lost, and away went Buckner's and Hildebrand's brigades, Ohioan and Illinoisans together, to the rear and right, in such order as they might.

McDowell's brigade had fallen back less slowly than its two compliant of the same division, but it was now left entirely alone. It had formed our extreme right, and of course had no support there; its supporting brigades on the left had gone; through the space they had occupied the rebels were pouring; they were in imminent danger of being entirely cut off, and back they fell, too, still further to the right and rear, among the ravines that border Snake creek.

And here, so far as Sunday's fight is concerned, the greater part of Sherman's division passes out of view. The General himself was indefatigable in collecting and reorganizing his men, and a straggling contest was doubtless kept up along portions of his new lines, but with little weight in inclining the scales of battle. The General bore with him one token of the danger to which he had exposed himself — a musket ball through the hand. It was the general expression of all that his escape so lightly was wonderful.--Whatever may be his faults or neglects, none can accuse him of a lack of gallantry and energy when the attack was made on his raw division that memorable Sunday morning.

To return to McClernand's division. I have spoken of his sending up first his left and then his centre brigade to support Sherman, shortly after the surprise. As Sherman fell back, McClernand was compelled to bring in his brigades again to protect his left against the onset of the rebels, who, seeing how he had weakened himself there, and inspired by their recent success over Prentiss, hurled themselves against him with tremendous force. To avoid bringing back these troops, a couple of new regiments, the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Iowa, were brought up; but taking utterly raw troops on the field, under heavy fire, was too severe a trial for them and they gave way in confusion. To meet the attack, then, the whole division made a change of front, and faced along the Corinth road. Here the batteries were placed in position, and till 10 o'clock the rebels were foiled in every attempt to gain the road.

But Sherman having now fallen back there was nothing to prevent the rebels from coming in farther out on the road, and turning McClernand's right. Prompt to seize the advantage, a brigade of them went dashing audaciously through the division's abandoned camp, pushing up the road to come in above McClernand, between him and where Sherman had been. Dresser's battery of rifled guns opened on them as they passed, and with fearful slaughter — not confined, alas! to one side only — drove them back.

But the enemy's reserves were most skillfully handled, and the constant advance of fresh regiments was at last too much for our inferior numbers. Major Eaton, commanding the 18th Illinois, was killed; Col. Haynie was severely wounded; Col. Raith, commanding a brigade, had his leg so shattered that amputation was necessary; Major Nevins, of the 11th Illinois, was wounded; Lieut. Col. Ransom, of the same regiment, was wounded; three of Gen. McClernand's staff--Major Schwartz, Major Stewart, and Lieut. Freeman--were wounded, and carried from the field. Line officers had suffered heavily. The batteries were broken up. Schwartz had lost half his guns, and sixteen horses. Dresser had lost several of his rifled pieces, three caissons and eighteen horses. McAllister had lost half of his twenty-four pound howitzers.

The soldiers fought bravely to the last — let no man question that — but they were at a fearful disadvantage. Gradually they began falling back, more slowly than had Prentiss's regiment, or part of Sherman's, making more determined, because better organized resistance, occasionally rallying and repulsing the enemy in turn for a hundred yards, then being beaten back again, and renewing the retreat to some new position for fresh defence.

By eleven o'clock the division was back in a line with Hurlburt's. It still did some gallant fighting; once its right swept around and drove the enemy for a considerable distance, but again fell back, and at last it brought up near the position of W. H. L. Wallace's division.

We have seen how Prentiss, Sherman and McClernand were driven back; how, fight as fiercely as they would, they still lost ground; how their camps were all in the hands of the enemy; and how this whole front line, for which Hurlburt and Wallace were but the reserves, was gone.

But the fortunes of the isolated brigade of Sherman's division, on the extreme left, must not be forgotten. It was doubly left alone by the Generals. General Grant did not arrive on the field until after nearly all these disasters had crowded upon us, and each Division General had done that which was good in his own eyes, and carried on the battle independent of the rest; but this brigade was even left by its Division General, who was four miles away, doing his best to really his panic-stricken regiments there.

It was commanded by Colonel David Stuart, (of late Chicago divorce case fame, and ex-Congressman) and was composed of the Fifty-fifty Illinois, Lieutenant-Colonel Malmbourg commanding; Seventy-first Ohio, Col-Rodney Mason; the Fifty-fourth Ohio, (Zonaves.) Col. T. K. Smith. It was posted along the circuitous road from Pittsburg Landing, up the river to Hamburg, some two miles from the landing, and near the crossing of Lick Creek, the bluffs on the opposite side of which commanded the position, and stretching on down to join Prentiss's division on its right. In selecting the grounds for the encampment of our army, it seems to have been forgotten that from Corinth an excellent road led direct to Hamburg, a few miles above this left wing of our forces. Within a few days

This clears our entire front line of divisions. The enemy has full possession of all Sherman's, Prentiss's, and McClernand's camps. By ten o'clock our whole front, except Stuart's brigade, had given way, and the burden of the fight was resting on Hurlburt and W. H. L. Wallace. Before twelve Stuart, too, had come back, and for the time absolutely only those two divisions stood between our army and destruction or surrender.

Still all was not lost. Hurlburt and Wallace began making a most gallant stand; and meantime most of the troops from the three driven divisions were still to some extent available. Many of them had wandered down the river — some as far as Crump's landing, and some even to Savannah. These were brought back again on transports. Lines of guards were extended to prevent skulkers from getting back to the landing, and especially to stop the shrewd dodge among the cravens of taking six or eight able-bodied soldiers to assist some slightly wounded fellow into the hospital; and between this cordon and the rear of the fighting divisions the fragments of regiments were reorganized after a fashion, and sent back to the field. Brigades could not be got together again, much less divisions, but the regiments pieced together from the loose squads that could be gathered and officered, often by men who could find scarcely a solder of their own commands, were hurried to the front, and many of them did good service.

It was fortunate for us that the accidental circumstance that Prentiss's portion of our line had been completely broken sooner than any of the rest, had caused the enemy's onset to veer chiefly to our left. There we were tolerably safe; and at worst, if the rebels drove us to the river on the left flank, the gunboats could come into play. Our weakest point was the right, and to turning this the rebels do not seem to have paid so much attention on Sunday. According to general understanding, in the event of an attack at Pittsburg Landing, Major General Lew Wallace was to come in on our right and flank the rebels by marching across from Crump's Landing below.

Yet, strangely enough, Wallace, though with his divison all drawn up and ready to march anywhere at a moment's notice, was not ordered to Pittsburg Landing till nearly, it not quits, 12 o'clock. Then, through misdirection as to the why to get on the new road, four miles of marching were lost, and its circuitous route made it 12 miles more before they could reach the scene of battle.--Meantime our right was almost wholly unprotected.

Fortunately, as I said, however, the rebels do not seem to have discovered the full extent of this weakness, and their heaviest fighting was done on the centre and left, where we still preserved our line.

Hurlburt's division, it will be remembered, stretched across the Corinth road, facing rather to our left. W. H. L. Wallace's other brigades had gone over to assist McArthur, and the division, thus re-united, steadily closed the line, where Prentiss's division and Stuart's brigade, in their retreat, had left it open. To Hurlburt's right the lines were patched out with the reorganized regiments that had been re-sent to the field. McClernand and Sherman were both there.

Hurlburt had been encamped in the edge nearest the river of a stretch of open fields, backed with heavy timber. Among his troops were the Seventeenth and Twenty-fifth Kentucky, Forty-fourth and Thirty-first Indiana, constituting Lauman's brigade, Third Iowa, Forty-first Illinois, and some others, forming Col. Williams's brigade.

As Prentiss fell back Hurlburt's left aided Wallace in sustaining the rebel onset, and when McClernand gave way the remainder of the division was thrown forward. The position beyond the camps, however, was not a good one, and the division was compelled to fall back through its camp to the thick woods behind. Here, with open fields before them, they could rake the rebel approach.--Nobly did they now stand their ground.--From ten to half-past 3 they held the enemy in check, and through nearly that whole time were actively engaged. Hurlburt himself displayed the most daring and brilliant gallantry, and his example, with that of the brave officers under him, nerved the men to the sternest endurance.

Three times during those long hours the heavy rebel masses on the left charged upon the division, and three times were they repulsed with terrible slaughter. Close, sharp, continuous musketry, whole lines belching fire on the rebels as the leaden storm swept the fields over which they attempted to advance, were too much for rebel discipline, though the bodies left scattered over the fields, even on Monday evening, bore ghastly testimony to the daring with which they had been precipitated towards our lines.

But there is still much in the Napoleonic theory that Providence has a tendency lease to go with the heaviest battalions. The battalions were against us. The rebel generals, too, handled their forces with a skill that extorted admiration in the midst of our sufferings. Repulse was nothing to them; if a rush on our lines failed they took their disordered troops to the rear, and sent up fresh

Let us turn to the fate of Hurburt's companion division — that of Brig. Gen. W. H. L. Wallace, which included the 2d and 7th Iowa 9th and 28th Illinois, and several of the other regiments composing Maj. Gen. Smith's old division. Wallace had also three excellent, batteries — Stone's, Richardson's, and Weber's (all from Missouri)--formerly an artillery battalion, under the general management of Major Cavender.

With him, too, the fight began about ten o'clock, as already described. From that time till four in the afternoon they manfully bore up. The musketry fire was absolutely continuous; there was scarcely a moment that some part of the line was not pouring in their rattling volleys, and the artillery was admirably served, with but little intermission through the entire time.

Once or twice the infantry advanced, attempting to drive the continually increasing enemy; but though they could hold what they had, their numbers were not equal to the task of conquering any more.

Four separate times in turn the rebels attempted to charge on them. Each time the infantry poured in its quickest volleys, the artillery redoubled its exertions, and the rebels retreated with heavy slaughter. The division was eager to remain, even when Hurlburt fell back and the fine fellows with the guns were particularly indignant at not being permitted to pound away. But their supports were gone on either side; to have remained in isolated advance would have been madness. Just as the necessity for retreating was becoming apparent, Gen. Wallace, whose cool, collected bravery had commanded the admiration of all, was, it was thought, mortally wounded, and was borne away from the field. At last the division fell back. Its soldiers claim — justly, I believe — the proud distinction of being the last to yield in the general break of our lines that gloomy Sunday afternoon, which, at half past 4 o'clock, had left most of our army within half a mile of the Landing, with the rebels up to a thousand yards of their position.

Captain Stoke could not resist the temptation of stopping, as he passed what had been Hurlburt's headquarters, to try a few parting shots. He did fine execution, but narrowly escaped losing some guns by having his wheel horses shot down. Capt. Walker did lose a 20-pounder through some breakage in the carriage. It was recovered again on Monday.

We have reached the last act in the tragedy of Sunday. It is half-past 4 o'clock. Our front line of divisions has been lost since half-past 10. Our reserve line is new gone, too. The rebels occupy the camps of every division save that of W. H. L. Wallace. Our whole army is crowded in the region of Wallace's camps and to a circuit of half to two-thirds of a mile around the landing. We have been falling back all day. We can do it no more. The next repulse puts us into the river, and there are not transports enough to cross a single division till the enemy would be upon us.

Lew, Wallace's division might turn the tide for us — it is made of fighting me — but where is it? Why has it not been thundering on the right for three hours past? We do not know yet that it was not ordered up all noon. Buell is coming, but he has been doing it all day and all last week. His advance guard is across the river now, waiting ferriage; but what is an advance guard with sixty thousand victorious foes in front of us?

We have lost nearly all of our camps and camp equipage. We have lost nearly half of our field artillery. We have lost a divison General, and two or three regiments of soldiers as prisoners. We have lost — how dreadfully we are afraid to think — in killed and wounded. The hospitals are full to overflowing. A long ridge bluff is set apart for surgical uses. It is covered with the maimed, the dead and dying. And our men are discouraged by prolonged defeat. Nothing but the most energetic exertion on the part of the officers prevents them from becoming demoralized. Regiments have lost their favorite field officers, companies the Captains whom they always looked to, with that implicit faith the soldier learns, to lead them to battle.

Meantime there is a lull in the firing. For the first time since sunrise you fail to catch the angry rattle of musketry or the heavy booming of the field guns. Either the enemy must be preparing for the grand final rush that is to crown the day's success, and save the Southern Confederacy, or they are puzzled by our last retreat, and are moving cautiously, lost we spring some trap upon them. Let us embrace the opportunity, and look about the landing. We pass the old log house, lately Post-Office, now full of wounded and surgeons, which constitutes the "Pittsburg" part of the landing Gen. Grant and staff are in a group beside it. The General is confident. "We can hold them off till to-morrow; then they'll be exhausted, and we'll go at them with fresh troops" A great crowd is collected around the building, all in uniform, most of them with guns. And yet we are needing troops in the front so sorely!

On the bluffs above the river is a sight that may well make our cheeks tingle with shame for some of our soldiers. There are not less than three thousand skulkers lining the banks. Ask them why don't they go to their places in the line: "Oh, our regiment is all cut to pieces." "Why don't you go to where it is forming again?" "I can't find it," and the hulk looks as if that would be the very last thing he would want to do.

Officers are around among them, trying to hunt up their men, storming, coaxing, commanding — cursing I am afraid. One strange fellow — a Major, if I remember aright — is making a sort of elevated, superfine fourth of July speech to everybody that will listen to him. He means well, certainly: "Men of Kentucky, of Illinois, of Ohio, of Iowa, of Indiana, I implore you, I beg of you, come up now. Help us through two hours more. By all that you hold dear, by the homes that you hope to defend, by the flag you love, by the States you honor, by all your love of country, by all your hatred of treason, I conjure you, come up and do your duty now." And so on for quantity. "That feller's a good speaker." was the only response I heard, and the fellow who gave it nestled most snugly behind his tree as he spoke.

I know well enough the nature of the skulking animal in an army during a battle. I had seen their peformances before, but never on so large a scale — never with such an utter sickness of heart as I looked — as now. Still, I do not believe there was very much more than the average percentage. It was a big army, and the runaways all sought the landing.

Looking across the Tennessee we see a body of cavalry, awaiting transportation over.--They are said to be Buell's advance, yet they have been there an hour or two alone. But suddenly there is a rustle among the runaways. It is, it is! You see the gleaming of the gun-barrels, you catch amid the leaves and undergrowth down the opposite side of the river glimpses of the steady, swinging tramp of trained soldiers. A division of Buell's army is here! And the men who have left their regiments on the field send up three cheers for Buell. They cheering! May it parch their throats, as if they had been breathing the simoon.

Here comes a boat across with a Lieutenant and two or three privates of the Signal Corps. Some orders are instantly given the officer, and as instantly telegraphed to the other side by the mysterious wavings and raisings and droppings of the flags. A steamer comes up with pontoons on board, with which a bridge could be speedily thrown across. Unaccountably enough, to onlookers, she slowly reconnoiters and steams back again. Perhaps, after all, it is better to have no bridge there. It simplifies the question, takes escape out of the count, and leaves it victory or death — to the cowards that slick behind the bluffs as well as to the brave men who peril their lives to do the State some service on the fields beyond. Preparations go rapidly forward for crossing the division (General Nelson's, which has the advance of Buell's army,) on the dozen or so transports that have been tied up along the bank.

We have spent but a few minutes on the bluff, but they are the golden minutes that count for years. Well was it for that driven, defeated, but not disgraced, army of General Grant's, that those minutes were improved. Col. Webster, Chief of Staff, and an artillery officer of no mean ability, had arranged the guns that he could collect, of those that remained to us, in a sort of semi-circle, protecting the landing, and bearing chiefly on our centre and left, by which the rebels were pretty sure to advance. Corps of artillerists to man them were improvised from all the batteries that could be collected. Twenty-two guns in all were placed in position. Two of them were very heavy siege guns, long thirty two's. Where they came from, I do not know; what battery, they belonged to, I have no idea; I only know that they were there, in the right place, half a mile back from the bluff, sweeping the approaches by the left, and by the ridge

Remember the situation. It was half-past

The rebel infantry gained no ground, but the furious cannonading and musketry continued. Suddenly new actors entered on the stage. Our Cincinnati wooden gunboats, the A. C. Taylor and the Lexington, had been all day impatiently chafing for their time to come. The opportunity was theirs. The rebels were attacking on our left, lying where Stuart's brigade had lain on Licking creek in the morning, and stretching thence in on the Hamburg road, and across toward our old centre as road, and across toward our old centre as far as Hurlburt's camps. Steaming up to the mouth of the little creek the boats rounded to. There was the ravine, out through the bluff as if on purpose for their shells.

Eager to avenge the death of their commanding General (now known to have been killed a couple of hours before,) and to complete the victory they believed to be within their grasp, the rebels had incautiously ventured within reach of their most dreaded antagonists, as broadside after broadside of seven-inch shells and sixty-four-pound shot soon taught them. This was a foe they had hardly counted on, and the unexpected fire in flank and rear sadly disconcerted their well laid plans. The boats fired admirably, and with a rapidity that was astonishing. Our twenty-two land guns kept up their stormy thunder; and thus, amid a crash and roar, and scream of shells and demon-like hiss of Minnie balls, that Sabbath evening wore away. We held the enemy at bay; it was enough. The prospect for the morrow was foreboding; but sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. We had plenty of evil that day — of course, therefore, the text was applicable. Before dark the 36th Indiana, from Nelson's advance brigade, had crossed, advanced into line with Grant's forces at the double-quick, and had put in fourteen rounds as an earnest of what should be forthcoming on the morrow.

The enemy suddenly slackened his fire. His grand object had been defeated; he had not finished his task in a day; but there is evidence that officers and men alike shared the confidence that their morning assault would be final.

As the sounds of battle died away and division Generals drew off their men, Buell had arrived and Lew. Wallace had been heard from. Both would be ready by morning, and council of war was held, and it was decided that as soon as possible after daybreak we should attack the enemy, now snugly quartered in our camps. Lew Wallace who was coming in on the new road from Crump's Lancing, and crossing Snake creek just above the Illinois Wallace's (W. H. L.) camps, was to take the right and sweep back toward the position from which Sherman had been driven on Sunday morning. Nelson was to take the extreme left. Buell promised to put in Tom Crittenden next to Nelson, and McCock next to him by a seasonable hour in the morning. The gap between McCook and Lew. Wallace was to be filled with the reorganized divisions of Grant's old army; Hurlburt coming next to McCook, then McClernand, and Sherman closing the gap between McClernand and Lew. Wallace.

Stealthily the troops crept to their new positions and lay down in line of battle on their arms. All through the night Buell's men were marching up from Savannah to the point opposite Pittsburg Landing and being ferried across, or were coming up on transports. By an hour after dark Wallace had his division in. Through the misdirection he had received, he had started on the Snake Creek road proper, which would have brought him in on the enemy's rear, miles from support, and where he would have been gobbled at a mouthful. Getting back to the right road had delayed him. He at once ascertained the position of certain rebel batteries which lay in front of him on the right, that threatened absolutely to bar his advance in the morning, and selected positions for a couple of his batteries from which they could silence the one he dreaded. Placing these in position and arranging his brigades for support took him till one o'clock in the morning. Then his wearied men lay down to snatch a few hours of sleep before entering into the Valley of the Shadow of Death on the morrow.

By nine o'clock all was hushed near the landing. The host of combatants that three hours before had been deep in the work of human destruction had all sunk silently to earth, "the wearied to sleep, the wounded to die." The stars looked out upon the scene, and all breathed the natural quiet and calm of a Sabbath evening. But presently there came a flash that spread like sheet lightning over the ripples of the river current, and the roar of a heavy naval gun went echoing up and down the bluffs, through the unnatural stillness of the night, Others speedily followed. By the flash you could just discern the black outline of the piratical-looking hull, and see how the gunboat gracefully settled into the water at the recoil; the smoke soon cast up a thin veil that seemed only to soften and sweeten the scene; from the woods away inland you caught faintly the muffled explosion of the shell, like the knell of the spirit that was taking its flight.

We knew nothing then of the effect of this gunboat cannonading, which was vigorously kept up till early morning, and it only served to remind us the more vividly of the day's disasters, of the fact that half a mile off lay a victorious enemy, commanded by the most dashing of their Generals, and of the question one scarcely dared to ask himself, "What to-morrow?" We were defeated; our dead and dying were around us; days could hardly sum up our losses.

[The writer closes his description with a quotation from what he calls a "grand refrain of Whittier's," written after the battle of Manassas. We have already devoted enough space for one day to the Yankee correspondent, who, whatever else may be said of him, is candid enough to admit an overwhelming defeat, with a considerable display of cowardice among the "National" troops. We have the account of Monday's battle, some extracts from which we may give hereafter.]