the brunt
of the battle at the time. To obey the order he would have had to pull
out from the front of the enemy and march back as far as McClernand had
to advance to get into battle and substantially over the same ground.
Of course I did not permit Hovey to obey the order of his intermediate
superior.

We had in this battle about 15,000 men absolutely engaged. This
excludes those that did not get up, all of McClernand's command except
Hovey. Our loss was 410 killed, 1,844 wounded and 187 missing. Hovey
alone lost 1,200 killed, wounded and missing--more than one-third of his
division.

Had McClernand come up with reasonable promptness, or had I known the
ground as I did afterwards, I cannot see how Pemberton could have
escaped with any organized force. As it was he lost over three thousand
killed and wounded and about three thousand captured in battle and in
pursuit. Loring's division, which was the right of Pemberton's line,
was cut off from the retreating army and never got back into Vicksburg.
Pemberton himself fell back that night to the Big Black River. His
troops did not stop before midnight and many of them left before the
general retreat commenced, and no doubt a good part of them returned to
their homes. Logan alone captured 1,300 prisoners and eleven guns.
Hovey captured 300 under fire and about 700 in all, exclusive of 500
sick and wounded whom he paroled, thus making 1,200.

McPherson joined in the advance as soon as his men could fill their
cartridge-boxes, leaving one brigade to guard our wounded. The pursuit
was continued as long as it was light enough to see the road. The night
of the 16th of May found McPherson's command bivouacked from two to six
miles west of the battlefield, along the line of the road to Vicksburg.
Carr and Osterhaus were at Edward's station, and Blair was about three
miles south-east; Hovey remained on the field where his troops had
fought so bravely and bled so freely. Much war material abandoned by
the enemy was picked up on the battle-field, among it thirty pieces of
artillery. I pushed through the advancing column with my staff and kept
in advance until after night. Finding ourselves alone we stopped and
took possession of a vacant house. As no troops came up we moved back a
mile or more until we met the head of the column just going into bivouac
on the road. We had no tents, so we occupied the porch of a house which
had been taken for a rebel hospital and which