reconciling memories with the incidents of
the day, with no discredit to any.

15th. That every theory of supporting an advanced line, from reserves
sent forward from the base, must so bend to facts, that it may be the
best thing possible, to strengthen the right of a successful line, even
to overlapping and turning the enemy; and that such a movement has the
emphatic endorsement of standard critics, and marked experience; while a
formal movement to the rear, in order to move to the front and the
right, as if on parade, would, under conditions such as presented to
General Wallace, have been, simply, to wear out his men in marching,
with small chance for taking any part in the assumed pursuit of a
defeated enemy.

16th. That it is an unsound way of dealing with the facts of history, to
gauge the responsibilities of officers and men, of small experience, by
the rules which apply to the same officers and men after their
experience has matured; and that, when the battle of Shiloh took place,
and citizen regiments took part, with very slight knowledge of arms, it
was equally true, that the officers themselves, both regular and
volunteer, were proportionately unfamiliar with battle action on a large
scale, and that, as a matter of fact, the Generals and Colonels, for the
most part, had never seen a batallion drill, unless at West Point, much
less drilled more than a company; and their conduct and opinions, in
1861-2, are not to be measured by the ripened experience of the years
succeeding and succeeding years of reflection.

And finally, that the orders, movements, and results of the sixth day of
April, 1862, must be judged by their relations to the passing hours and
issues of that day, as practical men would act under changing
conditions, and not by any formal order, which, however appropriate at
one time, would, at any other time, defeat the work in hand. The Rules
of Evidence, recognized by Civil and Military Courts alike, are but
expressions of sound judgment of past experience; and Military Science,
so called, has no other basis than that which belongs to the wise use of
means to ends in all applied science and in all human endeavor.
Whenever, therefore, the conduct of a battle is consistent with the
conditions, as at the time understood, it is not exactly just to measure
it by the terms of any instructions inconsistent with those
conditions;--so that while an order to march to Pittsburg Landing became
necessary upon