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For a long time Beauregard was accused of throwing away the victory because in the evening
after Johnston's death and Beauregard had assumed command he did not send forces forces
on Beauregard's far right that would've been the far Union left right next to the river
'cause the point would've been to cut off the Union army from Pittsburg landing and
the steam boats and drive it back into a bunch of swamp but you're under the impression I
gather that even had Beauregard attempted this it would have failed because of the situation
that had arisen by the time of the early evening the situation was this by the by the evening
and by that I mean it was getting to be twilight uh the Union army had been pushed back as
far as it could go without it going into the river or the swamps uh General Buell had arrived
on the other side of the river and of course uh if the Confederates could've taken the
landing they'd have prevented him from landing and uh simply had Grant to deal with but by
the time all of that occurred the what was left of the Union army had drawn itself up
uh like a rattlesnake uh they had uh a number of big siege guns which these these guns were
taller than a man I mean they weren't the regular twelve pound Napoleon cannons uh they
had been uh designed uh to lay siege to Corinth and they had big you know the balls on them
were about like this big exploding balls so they loaded these things with with what amounted
to buckshot they call it grape shot and canister shot so that they were like a giant shotgun
and they had this just almost hub to hub line of artillery that a Sherman and some of these
other Union commanders had organized Grant by that time those guys who were manning that
line they proved they weren't going to run away this this was the best that the Union
army had left they did have you know ten thousand or maybe fifteen thousand stragglers or deserters
down below the brook but these guys were going to fight it out and the Confederates made
two charges they were both unsuccessful it was just about dark uh Beauregard uh part
of Beauregard's problem was that he was two miles away from this action he didn't he was
at the Shiloh church which is the battlefield is named for a little uh Methodist chapel
called Shiloh which in Hebrew means place of peace of all things but uh he Sherman I
mean uh Beauregard remained back there instead of moving up he was ill uh he he he'd had
an operation on his throat which in those days was a very uh serious thing and so he
wasn't they said he had a high temperature he wasn't feeling well so you can forgive
him for all of that but he he thought look we got Grant cornered look what w'eve done
today we pushed the whole army the Union army back so on captured a whole division we can
finish him off in the morning I'm gonna order the Confederate army to pull back to uh the
old Union encampments and he did and of course this infuriated uh General Bragg General Beau
uh uh um Breckenridge who were there because they thought one more push would do it my
personal opinion is I walked over I looked at it that'd be an awful tough nut to crack
if they had another couple of divisions there maybe it would have been possible but with
the men they had on hand which I'm I'm making a guess they had probably five six thousand
at that point counting the casualties uh I don't know if they could've taken that position
they they it's conceivable they had taken everything else that day but it uh it I I
think that those people who blame Beauregard uh saying he cost us the Civil War and all
that that's a bunch of bs I mean he this guy he he he was fighting as hard as he knew how
to fight he just thought that he could win it the next day but the interesting thing
is that that evening uh Nathan Bedford Forrest whose name appears much later in the Civil
War what he was a colonel and he had the cavalry and he sent a bunch of his people he collected
uh uniforms from dead Union soldiers and he dressed his soldiers in in the uniforms of
the dead uh uh yankees and they went down to the river and they saw Buell coming across
that evening and he went back and tried to report it and he couldn't find anybody to
try to report to there was a huge rain storm number one and you have to understand that
Shiloh is such a dense dark place anyway uh with the woods and everything but he he found
a couple of generals I think he told General Hardy who was a core commander of the Confederates
and Buell was crossing and if you don't stop him now we're gonna lose in the morning and
Hardy Hardy just said you go tell Beauregard well he couldn't find Beauregard and as a
result uh they woke up in the morning Beauregard I Buell's there This excerpt is brought to
you by the Massachusetts School of Law