Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 1.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[547] the woods, constantly separated from their leaders, the soldiers who desire to continue the fight—and these constitute the immense majority—meet again within the narrow space in which the army has been contracted, and hasten to fill the intervals of the line already engaged. This line, however, is too short to cover all the space comprised between the Crump's Landing road and the banks of the Tennessee. Two fortunate circumstances enable Grant to prolong this line on the left, along the last hills which terminate above the river, and to raise a formidable obstacle upon that point, the loss of which would involve that of his whole army. On one hand, a deep ravine filled with thick brushwood covers the whole front of those hills on the side where the right of the Confederates, which, according to their plan, always advances first, is to approach; and on the other hand, an unexpected piece of good fortune has caused the park of siege artillery recently landed to be placed in that position, when nobody supposed that a battle would have to be fought so near the depots of the army. The heavy guns of which it was composed were entrusted to a simple guard incapable of serving them; but an officer of Grant's staff, Colonel Webster, conceives the happy idea of hastily collecting together all the cannoneers he can find who have lost their guns, and puts them in charge of this new park of artillery, which he places in battery together with a few field-pieces that have escaped the disaster. The fate of the day depends upon the preservation of these heights, whence the enemy could have commanded Pittsburg Landing. Webster has not acted one moment too soon, for the Confederates are about to make a desperate effort against the positions he defends.

But the death of Johnston has already produced its effect among them. Their three lines are confused into one, and in this amalgamation of all the corps their several chiefs command, each on his own responsibility, the troops they meet, without any concert of action. They have divided the field of battle among themselves, Polk taking the left, Hardee the centre, and Bragg the right; but this improvised arrangement cannot remedy the disorder which has been introduced into their ranks. Bragg, who has found at the right wing three generals each acting according to his own inspirations, can only unite two brigades from his own