On the 16th we disembarked and marched out about ten miles toward Corinth to a place called Monterey or Pea Ridge, where the rebels had a cavalry regiment, which, of course, decamped on our approach, but from the people we learned that trains were bringing large masses of men from every direction into Corinth. —Page 228, Vol. I.It might be supposed that such knowledge would have made General Sherman very watchful when he afterward encamped at Shiloh. And yet with this important fact ascertained, when he took position there, instead of camping in line of battle, he stationed three of his brigades a mile and a half from Hurlbut's division, and the fourth over two miles from the rest. Other divisions, as they arrived, selected
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the roads over which an enemy must approach; and while not technically in command of the entire camp, in the absence of General Grant, whose headquarters were at Savannah, some twelve miles distant, he was constantly treated, trusted, and consulted by General Grant, as if he were the senior officer at the front.
General Sherman, holding steadily till the last, and against all evidence, to the belief that no immediate attack was probable, by impressing his convictions upon General Grant, misled the latter as to the real condition of affairs along the front, and thus did the author of the Memoirs become primarily responsible for the surprise.
The records disclose both the blindness which prevailed as to the real situation, and where the responsibility for it mainly rested, and some comparison of these, with the statements of the Memoirs, will set the case in a clear light.
On the 14th of March General C. F. Smith, then in command at Savannah previous to the arrival of General Grant, ‘instructed me’—writes General Sherman—‘to disembark my own division and that of General Hurlbut at Pittsburgh Landing; to take positions well back, and to leave room for his whole army; telling me that he would soon come up in person, and move out in force to make the lodgment on the railroad contemplated by General Halleck's orders.’
Cincinnati: Wilstach, Baldwin & Co. 1875.
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