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generosity.
I will not lay claim to the motive to excuse my course.
I observed silence, as it seemed to be the best way to serve the cause and the country.
The facts were not fully known-discontent prevailed, and criticism or condemnation were more likely to augment than to cure the evil.
I refrained, well knowing that heavy censures would fall upon me, but convinced that it was better to endure then for the present, and defer to a more propitious time an investigation of the conduct of the Generals, for in the meantime their services were required and their influence useful — for these reasons, Generals Floyd and Pillow were assigned to duty, as I still felt confidence in their gallantry, their energy, and their devotion to the Confederacy.
Thus I have recurred to the motives by which I have been governed, from a deep personal sense of the friendship and confidence you have always shown me, and from the conviction that they have not been withdrawn from me in adversity.
The test of merit in my profession, with the people, is success. It is a hard rule, but I think it right.
At the reading of the last sentence, the recollection of the injustice done to the hero rushed upon the minds of the hearers, and the scene was morally sublime.
Albert Sidney Johnston was dead, but he was enshrined in the hearts of his countrymen.
The instances of heroic valor in the
battle of Shiloh are abundant.
A chaplain,
Rev. I. T. Tichnor, of the 17th Alabama regiment, in a letter to
Governor Watts, of that State, who at one time commanded the regiment, says:
During this engagement we were under a cross fire on the left wing from three directions.
Under it the boys wavered.
I had been wearied, and was sitting down, but seeing them waver, I sprang to my feet, took off my hat, waved it over my head, walked up and down the line, and, as they say, ‘preached them a sermon.’
I
