[
322]
Before the close of the action the advance of General T. J. Wood's division (two brigades of Buell's corps) arrived in time to take part in the action.
My force was too much fatigued from two days hard fighting and exposure in the open air to a drenching rain during the intervening night, to pursue immediately.
Night closed in cloudy and with a heavy rain, making the roads impracticable for artillery by the next morning.
General Sherman, however, followed the enemy, finding that the main part of the army had retreated in good order.
But
General Sherman, in his report, uses the following language:
At the time of recovering our camps (about four o'clock P. M.) our men were so fatigued that we could not follow the retreating masses of the enemy.
And
General Buell says, in his report:
Two brigades of General Wood's division arrived just at the close of the battle; but only one, that of Colonel Wagner, in time to participate actively in the pursuit, which it continued for about a mile, and until halted by my order.
If any pursuit beyond the Shiloh meeting-house was made by the
Federals on the afternoon of the 7th, it must have been made very cautiously, for the
Confederates were not at all disturbed in their slow and quiet retreat.
General Breckinridge, commanding the reserve, bivouacked for the night near the former headquarters of
Generals Johnston and
Beauregard, on the night of the 5th, at about one and a half miles from the battle-field.
The next morning (on the 8th) he fell back to a position only three miles farther to the rear, where he remained undisturbed for several days, with the cavalry thrown out well to the front, in close proximity to the
Federal lines.
On the morning of the 8th,
General Sherman, with two brigades and some cavalry, advanced to reconnoitre, on the lower Corinth road, while
General Wood, with two brigades, reconnoitred on the upper road.
On arriving at
General Breckinridge's bivouac of the preceding night they found our cavalry pickets in position, and pursued them for about half a mile with a regiment of cavalry and one of infantry.
At that point
Colonel Forrest appeared, and charged the enemy with a part of his forces, a company of
Wirt Adams's regiment, a squadron of the 8th Texas, and some Kentuckians, under
Captain John Morgan, amounting in all to about three hundred and fifty troopers.
The Federals were thrown into great confusion, and routed; ‘althoughh,’ says
General Sherman,