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[589] position, well backed by artillery, and held with great resolution, they repulsed a series of uncombined assaults made against them. Here General Bragg was directing operations in person; and it was here that, after Hindman had suffered severely in several ineffectual efforts, Gibson's brigade of Bragg's own corps was employed in four unavailing assaults, when finding himself unable to carry the position, General Bragg, as he reports, desisted from any further attempt, leaving that part of the field in charge of a staff-officer with authority to act in his name, and going farther to the right to find that General Johnston was dead. However, having previously learned, from his aide-de-camp, Colonel Urquhart, that Adjutant-General Jordan was near by, he requested that officer, through Colonel Urquhart, to collect and employ some of our troops to turn the left of the position that obstructed his advance toward the river, as just described. Upon that service Colonel Jordan, in a few moments, employed Statham's brigade, which was fortunately found near by, resting at ordered arms, General Breckinridge, to whom the order was given, being with it at the time. This happened, be it noted, at 2:30 P. M., or about the moment that General Johnston was bleeding to death in the covert of a deep ravine a very short distance from Statham's brigade, in the immediate rear of which it was that his wound had been inflicted.1 General Breckinridge quickly became engaged with the enemy in his front, covered by a thick underbrush that edged an open field over which the Confederate advance was made. The conflict was sharp for a few moments, but the Federals had to give way. 2 About this time, under my orders, Cheatham came up with his Second Brigade on the left of Breckinridge. Moreover, a few moments later, or as early as 3 P. M., Withers, of Bragg's corps, having found that his adversary (Stuart's brigade) which had so long occupied him on the extreme right had disappeared toward Pittsburg Landing, and having moved across the intervening ravines and ridges with his division to where the sound of artillery and musketry showed the main battle was now raging,--was brought opportunely into cooperation with Cheatham's and Breckinridge's operations directly upon Hurlbut's left flank — a movement which Hurlbut resisted stoutly until, justly apprehensive of being cut off, he fell back, after 4 P. M., upon Pittsburg Landing.3 This left Prentiss's left flank exposed; Wallace, whose unflinching handling of his division had done so much to keep the Federal army from being driven to the river-side by midday, now also, to
1 General Johnston was not wounded while leading a charge, as has been so frequently asserted, but while several hundred yards in the rear of Statham's brigade after it had made a successful advance, and during the absence of Governor Harris of his staff, whom he had dispatched to Colonel Statham, some two hundred yards distant, with orders to charge and take a Federal battery on his left. (See letter of Isham G. Harris, April 13th, 1876, p. 537, Vol. I. The military operations of General Beauregard. )-G. T. B.
2 Colonel W. P. Johnston has sought to make it appear that immediately upon the death of his father [see page 565], and in consequence of that event, there was in effect a lull in the operations on the Confederate right of which General Johnston had hitherto been the soul — a lull of an hour; whereas it is manifest there cannot have been a cessation of the operations of General Breckinridge's troops for more than fifteen minutes at most,--the only troops whom General Johnston had been directing in any way since 11 A. M.-G. T. B.
3 This saved him from sharing the fate of Prentiss, for the strength of the Confederate force that had now been brought to bear upon the remains of Wallace's, Hurlbut's, and Prentiss's divisions was sufficient to assure their environment and capture.-G. T. B.
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