Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 1

But the battle was fought with McPherson's command and Hovey's division of the Thirteenth corps, Grant directing all of Hovey's movements himself, in the absence of McClernand.¹ Immediately after the retreat began, Ransom arrived on the field, where the main battle had been fought; and Blair also was up, in time to engage in the pursuit. McClernand's delay was occasioned by an excess of caution; the country he marched through was broken and densely wooded, as well as unknown to him, and a comparatively small force of the enemy had detained him. While he was developing and manoeuvring, instead of attacking, the battle was fought elsewhere. Fifteen thousand men thus lingered under his command, in the vicinity of the field, though moving on roads converging to the front. The force opposed to him was probably not greater than six or seven thousand. The rebels were not intrenched, and a good soldier would at once have tested their opposition, especially after the peremptory orders of his chief, and within sound of a critical battle, not three miles off. Even during the pursuit, when the beaten enemy came headlong across his front, McClernand, supposing this an assault, developed his troops, and prepared to receive a flank attack from the pell-mell fugitives.²

Grant had, in Hovey and McPherson's command, about fifteen thousand men engaged: every man in the three divisions was under fire. This hardest-fought battle of the campaign cost him four hundred and twenty-six men killed, eighteen hundred and