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[305] stated, till night had closed in upon him; and as he and Jackson fell back in the darkness, the latter's regiments became separated from each other,1 and he from them, and so remained during the night and the following day. The withdrawal of the troops, as a general thing, was attended with disorder, by reason of the dark woods and broken character of the country. ‘It was eight o'clock at night,’ says General Anderson, in his report, ‘before we had reached a bivouac, near General Bragg's headquarters, and in the darkness of the night the 20th Louisiana, and portions of the 17th Louisiana, and Confederate Guards, got separated from that portion of the command in which I was, and encamped on other ground.’2

Colonel Forrest's cavalry was picketed along Wallace's and Hurlbut's camps, while another regiment of cavalry was posted to protect the left flank, and guard the approaches from the Snake Creek bridge, exposed to Lew. Wallace's fresh force of eight thousand men. General Hardee's corps and General Breckinridge's division withdrew to McClernand's camps, and General Bragg's corps, with one (Clark's) division of General Polk's corps, rested in those of Sherman. Through a misunderstanding of orders, on the part of General Polk, his other (Cheatham's) division was sent back about three miles and a half, to its bivouac of the previous night.3

General Bragg and, later in the evening, the other corps commanders visited General Beauregard's headquarters, in General Sherran's camps, and reported orally their operations of the day. All were elated and congratulatory over the success of the day, and the expectations of the morrow.4 The results, indeed, were great

1 Jackson's Report, ‘Confederate Reports of Battles,’ p. 266.

2 ‘Confederate Reports of Battles,’ p. 305.

3 General Cheatham says, in his Report: ‘At the close of the day, a part of my command remained on the field, and a portion returned to our encampment of the night previous.’ In a letter to General Beauregard, dated Nashville, Tenn., November 27th, 1876, General Cheatham uses the following language: ‘At dusk, on the evening of the 6th, I was on the extreme left of our army, near the river. I recollect that General Cleburne's division was on my right. The second brigade of my division (Stephens's), with a portion of Johnson's (my first), retired to our camp of the night previous—Saturday night. This camp was near General Polk's headquarters, where the enemy's cavalry horses were killed by our artillery, on Friday, and several miles—at least three—in front of Mickey's.’

4 Colonel Jacob Thompson's letter, in Appendix.

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