Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 1.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[535] which was at Pittsburg Landing, which rested at the left on Lick Creek near its mouth, and at the right on Owl Creek, and which had a radius of from four to six kilometres. Upon a second line of heights, in advance of the last elevations which command Pittsburg Landing, were posted the divisions of Hurlbut on the left and of W. H. Wallace on the right. But the fault of these arrangements was a small matter compared with the neglect of all the precautions with which the Federal army should have surrounded itself. Not a shovelful of earth had been thrown up in those three weeks to fortify either the Federal camps or the approaches to the depot of Pittsburg Landing. The tall trees of the forest, in the midst of which the army was established, had not even been cut down to construct abatis and guard against an unforeseen attack. The very position of the camps exposed them to all kind of surprises. In short, the surrounding country had not been reconnoitred. The cavalry, still greatly inexperienced, instead of moving about and constantly searching the thick forest which separated the Federals from their adversaries, was assembled near the river, and for three weeks had only made a single reconnaissance, of no consequence whatever. Each general would send out his pickets at random without connecting them with those of his neighbors; and the divisions of Sherman and Prentiss, which had charge of the matter, being the newest in the army, this service was very poorly performed. The men had the bad habit of firing their muskets in the air on being relieved, so that it was impossible to be warned in time of the approach of the enemy.

Generals and soldiers were alike novices. Grant was not accustomed to handling a large army. He was ignorant of the importance of entrenchments, of which he was afterwards to make such great use. Sherman, who displayed so much foresight in his subsequent campaigns, did not appear to possess as yet that vigilance which became one of his prominent military qualities. Notwithstanding the reports of deserters and fugitive negroes, no one had been able to form an idea of the movements by which seventy thousand of the enemy were being massed at Corinth. Even Halleck, in his central office at St. Louis, was indulging in the same illusions as his subordinates, and, thinking himself able to