--A correspondent of the Mobile
Register corrects the impression that once prevailed, that
Gen. A. S. Johnston, laboring under the sting of unjust reproof and denunciation, freshly sacrificed himself at the
battle of Shiloh.
He says:
‘
This was not so. I remember well being with him one evening at
Murfreesboro', after the retreat from
Nashville, when in the course of conversation.
I urged that he should in justice to himself make an explanation to the people. "Ah, my dear friend," he repined, "I cannot correspond with the people.
What the people want is a battle and a victory.
That is the best explanation I can make.
I require no vindication.
I trust that to the future. " Noble, glorious, self-sacrificing heart!
He required no newspaper vindication, because he was conscious that he had taken the only course to save his little army.
If there was censure deserved, the people wold find out in the future where it should rest.
Thus the great, magnanimous, and chivalrous
Johnston bared his head to the storm of anathema and denunciation without a murmur of complaint, or any attempt to shield himself from its fury.
Under these feelings, then, and under these circumstances, when on the battle field of
Shiloh he was as calm and unperturbed as a summer morning.
Feeling no sting of consequence, no remorse, there was neither desperation, rashness, nor imprudence in his acts.
He sat calmly on his horse, watching with his eagle eye the "doubtful scenes of war." When he saw our lines waver, knowing that it was the critical moment when victory or defeat must follow, then it was he dashed forward, rallied his soldiers, and lad them in a glorious charge, upon which victory followed, but
Johnston fell, Had this success but been followed up, our victory would have been perfect, the enemy's defeat crashing.
Thus
Gen. Sidney Johnston did not sacrifice himself, as has been unjustly said, to recover from the cloud under which it was supposed his star was obscured by the condemnation of the people; but it was because he felt it was his duty, and the occasion demanded that he should make the effort to tern the tide of battle for his army; and a sense of duty alone impelled him to risk his life in leading a charge which he knew must prove victorious — There was neither rashness nor desperation in the act, much less a morbid sensibility to prove to the world that he was a brave man. Let our countrymen, then, do justice to his memory.
Let our Government profit by the sacrifice.
’
