the mouths of men, who had been held to their
bloody work by these bright exemplars. Wherever the bullets were
thickest, there the generals were found--forgetful of safety, and ever
crying--"Come!"

Governor Harris had done good service as volunteer aid to General
Johnston; and Governor George M. Johnson, of Kentucky, had gone into
the battle as a private and had sealed his devotion to the cause with
his blood. Cheatham and Bushrod Johnson bore bloody marks of the part
they took; while Breckinridge, who had already won undying fame, added
to his reputation for coolness, daring, and tenacity, by the excellence
with which he covered the rear of the army on its retreat to Corinth.

The results of the battle of Shiloh--while they gave fresh cause for
national pride--were dispiriting and saddening. It seemed as though the
most strenuous efforts to marshal fine armies--and the evacuation of
city after city to concentrate troops--were only to result in an
indiscriminate killing, and no more; as if the fairest opportunities
for a crushing blow to the enemy were ever to be lost by error, or
delay.

The death of General Johnston, too--seemingly so unnecessary from the
nature of his wound--caused a still deeper depression; and the public
voice, which had not hesitated to murmur against him during the
eventful weeks before the battle, now rose with universal acclaim to
canonize him when dead. It cried out loudly that, had he lived through
the day of Shiloh, the result would have been different.

It must be the duty of impartial history to give unbiased judgment on
these mooted points; but the popular verdict, at the time, was that
Beauregard had wasted the precious moment for giving the _coup-de-grace_.
The pursuit of the Federals stopped at six o'clock; and if, said people
and press, he had pushed on for the hour of daylight still left him,
nothing could possibly have followed but the annihilation, or
capitulation, of Grant's army.

On the other hand, Beauregard's defenders replied that the army was so
reduced by the terrible struggle of twelve hours--and more by
straggling after the rich spoils of the captured camp--as to render
further advance madness. And in addition to this, it was claimed that
he relied on the information of a most trusty scout--none other than
Colonel John Morgan--that Buell's advance could not possibly reach the
river within twenty-four hours. Of course, in that event, it was far
better generalship t