took care to spread among them the statement that Buell's
army alone was as numerous as the Southern force, and probably more
numerous since their enemy must have sustained terrible losses. Thus
they stood patiently, while the rain thinned and the sun at last showed
a red edge through floating clouds.

They waited yet a little while longer, and then the boom of a heavy gun
in the forest told them that the enemy was advancing to begin the battle
afresh. Again it was the Southern army that attacked, although it was
no surprise now. Yet Beauregard and his generals were still sanguine
of completing the victory. Their scouts and skirmishers had failed to
discover that the entire army of Buell also was now in front of them.

Bragg was gathering his division on the left to hurl it like
a thunderbolt upon Grant's shattered brigades. Hardee and the
bishop-general were in the center, and Breckinridge led the right. But
as they moved forward to attack the Union troops came out to meet them.
Nelson had occupied the high ground between Lick and Owl Creeks, and his
and the Southern troops met in a fierce clash shortly after dawn.

Beauregard, drawn by the firing at that point, and noticing the courage
and tenacity with which the Northern troops held their ground, sending
in volley after volley, divined at once that these were not the beaten
troops of the day before, but new men. This swarthy general, volatile
and dramatic, nevertheless had great penetration. He understood on the
instant a fact that his soldiers did not comprehend until later. He knew
that the whole army of Buell was now before him.

For the moment it was Beauregard and Buell who were the protagonists,
instead of Grant and Johnston as on the day before. The Southern leader
gathered all his forces and hurled them upon Nelson. Weary though the
Southern soldiers were, their attack was made with utmost fire and
vigor. A long and furious combat ensued. A Southern division under
Cheatham rushed to the help of their fellows. Buell's forces were driven
in again and again, and only his heavy batteries enabled him to regain
his lost ground.

Buell led splendid troops that he had trained long and rigidly, and they
had not been in the conflict the day before. Fresh and with unbroken
ranks, not a man wounded or missing, they had entered the battle and
both Grant and Buell, as well as their division commanders, expected an
easy victory where the Army of the Ohio stood.

Buell