Robert Underwood Johnson, Clarence Clough Buell, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War: The Opening Battles. Volume 1.

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[516] any rate substantially on the general line above indicated. The same, in a careless reading, might be presumed of the 46th Illinois, which was immediately on the left of the 43d. The report of that regiment says: “The regiments both on my right and left fell back, but my line did not waver under the fire of the enemy.” But it evidently fell back at last, for the report continues: “After breakfast on Monday morning, still retaining my position on the right of Colonel Marsh's brigade, I moved with him until I reached and went beyond the ground of our last engagement of Sunday, where our pickets were driven in,” etc. It remains now to determine the question of the extreme right of the general line.

General Sherman says, and his statement on that point is sustained by the reports, that Birge's sharp-shooters were immediately on his right and constituted the extreme right of the line. The official report of that regiment shows that during the afternoon it occupied a “position near Colonel McArthur's headquarters” in an open field. Its camp was in its rear along the opposite or east side of the River road. This would fix General Sherman's right at the cross-roads near McArthur's headquarters. It is more than a mile from the Snake Creek bridge. Other evidence confirms these positions. The official reports of Lew Wallace's division show that he marched along the River road from the bridge, and formed in line of battle, facing Tillman's Creek in front of the camp of Birge's sharp-shooters and the 81st Ohio, the right of the division being in front of the latter, and the left in front of the former; and that it came in actual contact with the “sharp-shooters,” who occupied their camp that night and received the new-comers with cheers. This is clearly and more circumstantially explained by General Force in his book entitled From Fort Henry to Corinth, page 163. He was present and commanded the right regiment of Lew Wallace's division on that occasion. The position thus assigned to Wallace must have taken his left well up to the cross-road at McArthur's headquarters, and covered the entire field toward the north; for the distance from the cross-road to the right of the camp of the 81st Ohio was only half a mile.

It is particularly to be observed that in no report, either from Sherman's division or from Lew Wallace's, is there any mention of actual contact or of any definite proximity of these two divisions on the evening of the 6th, or earlier than 10 o'clock on the morning of the 7th. The inference is, that at the time of Wallace's arrival and subsequently, no part of Sherman's division was on the River road, or anywhere along the heights of Tillman's Creek north of McArthur's headquarters. General Sherman, in his report, says: “General Wallace arrived from Crump's Landing shortly after dark and formed his line to my right and rear.” That relative position could only exist by assuming that Sherman's command was on the road leading to the landing east of McArthur's headquarters, and nearly at right angles with Wallace,--a supposition which is strengthened by the condition indicated in Sherman's revised map, that Birge's sharp-shooters were on his right — not entirely in his front, as they would have been if his front had been on the River road. It is also sustained by General Buckland's statement in the