Wounded

27th Ill. Vol.......................... 11 47

80th Ill. Vol......................... 9 27

31st Ill. Vol.......................... 10 70

22d Ill. Vol........................... 23 74

7th Iowa Vol........................... 26 93

Cavalry and Artillery................. 1 11

Total.................................. 80 322

While Gen. Grant and the officers and men under him regarded the
affair as a great victory, and deservedly plumed themselves upon their
achievements that day, there was a decidedly different opinion taken
in the North, and the matter has been the subject of more or less sharp
criticism ever since. It was pronounced by the McClellan-Halleck school
of military men as a useless waste of men in gaining no object, and
probably the most charitable of Gen. Grant's critics could find no
better excuse for him than that he was like the man in the Bible who had
bought two yoke of oxen and wanted to go and try them. All this did not
disturb the equanimity of Gen. Grant and his men in the least. He
knew he had accomplished what he had set out to do, to give Gen. Polk
something else to occupy his mind than capturing Oglesby or reinforcing
Thompson and Price.

269

Col. Oglesby made his way unmolested back to Cairo. Polk was probably
beginning to think that he would have quite enough to do to stay in
Columbus, and his dreams as to St. Louis were dissipated.

Gen. Grant's men knew that they had met their enemies on equal terms in
the open field, and had driven them, whether they were in their front or
rear, and so they were content.

The Confederates of course proclaimed a great victory, and made the
most of it. Albert Sidney Johnston enthusiastically congratulated Polk,
Jefferson Davis did the same, and the Confederate Congress passed
a resolution of thanks to Maj.-Gen. Polk and Brig.-Gens. Pillow and
Cheatham and the officers and soldiers under their commands.

The battle was the occasion of still further increasing the bitterness
between Polk and his insubordinate subordinate, Gideon J. Pillow, who
resigned his commission, and sent to the Confederate War Department a
long and bitter complaint against Gen. Polk, a large part of which was
taken up with charges against his superior for non