John Dimitry , A. M., Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 10.1, Louisiana
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

Misapprehension had done its utmost to defame greatness. It had, with its strongly-feeble hands, dragged Johnston from the exalted place gained by his great qualities, to make him pass as a marked man through the valley of humiliation. Praise is due to those uncorrupted instincts of men, however, which lead them with clarified vision nobly to weigh maligned reputation on juster weights than those for the mass. It is these instincts which, lifting up that lofty fame and tenderly preserving it from wrong, have placed it, restored to grandeur, upon a pedestal far overtopping that from which Detraction, with its thousand mouths of clamor, had for a space pulled it down.

For a time, Beauregard planned to hold Corinth for strategic purposes, it being of great natural strength. The troops were at first kept busy fortifying. While Beauregard was doing this, Halleck was advancing, with tantalizing deliberation, at the head of 105,000 men from Pittsburg Landing. General Grant was second in command. Pope, always ambitious to be prompt, showed himself over-hasty. He had moved on the 18th, eager to anticipate Halleck's slowness. At the village of Farmington he drove off an insignificant Confederate force and occupied it. Here he was, for all practical purposes, separated from Halleck and Buell. This furnished Beauregard with a plan. He quickly resolved, by an attack in force, to cut Pope off from his base. Van Dorn was to move by his right flank, and to keep on moving until his center should be opposite Pope's left. Van Dorn understood the plan, but through inefficient guides failed to get into position at the hour fixed for the flanking. In spite of this, the engagement soon became spirited. Van Dorn, once in line, opened his work with his usual vigor. In this movement he was aided by the simultaneous advance