Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 9.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[183] did not move east by Mickie's till about 2 P. M. We saw the last of Withers's about 11. Now here was an interval of three hours, and here we have the delay in the formation of the troops of which we write. Now who was responsible? Polk who was in place and under orders, waiting for Ruggles to march to his front, from the Monterey road, where General Bragg said he would be, or Ruggles who was out of place?

We see from Anderson's report [page 271, Official Reports Battles C. S, A., Vol. I] that on the night of the 4th, General Bragg in his tent developed to the division and brigade commanders the plan of battle for the coming day. “By this plan Ruggles was to form on the left of the second line of battle.” General Ruggles, therefore, knew positively on the night of the 4th that he had to be in front of Polk, for Polk was a a part of the reserve.

He gives us to understand that he struck Clark's rear at 7 A. M. Now much light will be thrown upon this subject if the General will tell us plainly what he was doing from that hour till 3 P. M., when Anderson gives us to understand the division took up its march for the line of battle; or, if he chooses, 12 1/2 P. M., when Munford says he found him in Polk's rear.

Does the General mean to say that he found it impossible to pass Clark's two brigades in all that time--five-and-a-half hours by one statement, eight by the other. If he does, I refer him to Anderson's report, and to the very paragraph in it, which he quotes on page 59. This, with an extract from Mumford, he uses to prove that the troops in his front were Clark's. Anderson says, when he took his place in column, at 3 P. M., marching in the direction of Shiloh, he found the road blocked with brigades, wagons and artillery, almost up to the point where his line was to be formed; yet he passed them in an hour, getting to his point about 4.

He did it by leaving the road, and marching parallel through the woods. Will the General tell us, if this was accomplished in the afternoon, why it could not have been done in the morning. The country around Mickie's was quite as favorable to such a movement as that in the immediate rear of the line. Accepting General Ruggles's statement that he was in rear of Polk on the morning of the 5th, I have to say that, had he moved with the same celerity before 11 A. M., as he seems to have done after 3 P. M., he could have completed his line by 1, Polk his by 2, and the army might have begun the battle that afternoon.