Alfred Roman, The military operations of General Beauregard in the war between the states, 1861 to 1865

[301] by the fire of the gunboats lying in its mouth. Over this ground, divided and thickly wooded, a continuous line of battle was impracticable. General Beauregard, seeing that nothing but a concerted and well-supported attack, in heavy mass, could, that evening, strike the finishing blow by which the enemy would be crushed, ordered the corps commanders, on the right and left, to make a hasty reorganization of the troops under their control, for a combined onslaught, while he, at the centre, should organize reinforcements for the line of attack in his immediate front. He caused all fragmentary bodies and stragglers, in his vicinity, to be brought up from the rear, and formed into such organizations as the emergency allowed, and they were thus carried forward to swell the line of battle.

The troops, however, were not pressed to the front in combined attack, as ordered, but in a series of disjointed assaults, with but little support from the batteries, many of which were allowed to remain inactive in the rear.¹ These assaults were easily broken, and with slaughter, by the formidable weight of metal which girded the Federal position, supported by a still heavy force of infantry, reinforced by some of General Buell's troops, while the shells of the gunboats swept the long ravine which our different commands had to cross in assailing the bluff, and which formed their only rallying cover from the fire in front. The troops, moreover, were greatly disorganized; the commands were cut up and intermingled, and regimental organization was greatly confused. The corps commanders, then as throughout the day, continued to give examples of personal courage, but exhaustion and hunger nullified