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[88] but were posted next, from right to left; and McCook, Crittenden, and Nelson's divisions of Buell's army, in the same order, had the left of the new national line.

The battle began on Grant's left and centre, Nelson first striking the enemy, and the great accession to the national strength told at once. The rebels had not known of Buell's arrival,1 but nevertheless had not ventured to attack; Beauregard could bring only twenty thousand men into action on Monday,2 and these became disheartened at the discovery of the national reenforcements; they were fatigued, too, with the tremendous exertions of the day before. Still they fought well; the odds were turned, but they displayed nearly the same desperate obstinacy which had been so marked a trait of many of the national troops of yesterday. Ground was lost and won several times, and the rebel and national dead lay side by side; but the enemy was pushed steadily back, till every inch that had been lost on Sunday

1 ‘I accordingly established my headquarters at the church of Shiloh, in the enemy's encampments, with Major-General Bragg hoping, from news received by a special dispatch, that delays had been encountered by General Buell in his march from Columbia, and that his main force, therefore, could not reach the field of battle, in time to save General Grant's scattered fugitive forces from capture or destruction on the following day. . . About six o'clock on the morning of the 7th of April, however, a hot fire of musketry and artillery opened from the enemy's quarters on our advanced line, assured us of the junction of his forces.’—Beauregard's Report.

2

Our troops, exhausted by days of incessant fatigue, and want of rest, and ranks thinned by killed, wounded, and stragglers, amounting in the whole to nearly half our force, fought bravely, but with the want of that animation and spirit which characterized them the preceding day. Bragg's Report.

Every statement made in this chapter in regard to the force of the rebels, or such of their dispositions as were not from their very nature apparent to the national commanders, is taken from the reports of either Beauregard or Bragg.

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