General Albert Sidney Johnston, who commanded the Confederate forces at the beginning of the battle, was disabled by a wound on the afternoon of the first day.  This wound, as I understood afterwards, was not necessarily fatal, or even dangerous.  But he was a man who would not abandon what he deemed an important trust in the face of danger and consequently continued in the saddle, commanding, until so exhausted by the loss of blood that he had to be taken from his horse, and soon after died.  The news was not long in reaching our side and I suppose was quite an encouragement to the National soldiers.

I had known Johnston slightly in the Mexican war and later as an officer in the regular army.  He was a man of high character and ability.  His contemporaries at West Point, and officers generally who came to know him personally later and who remained on our side, expected him to prove the most formidable man to meet that the Confederacy would produce.

I once wrote that nothing occurred in his brief command of an army to prove or disprove the high estimate that had been placed upon his military ability; but after studying the orders and dispatches of Johnston I am compelled to materially modify my views of that officer’s qualifications as a soldier.  My judgment now is that he was vacillating and undecided in his actions.

All the disasters in Kentucky and Tennessee were so discouraging to the authorities in Richmond that Jefferson Davis wrote an unofficial letter to Johnston expressing his own anxiety and that of the public, and saying that he had made such defence as was dictated by long friendship, but that in the absence of a report he needed facts.  The letter was not a reprimand in direct terms, but it was evidently as much felt as though it had been one.  General Johnston raised another army as rapidly as he could, and fortified or strongly intrenched at Corinth.  He knew the National troops were preparing to attack him in his chosen position.  But he had evidently become so disturbed at the results of his operations that he resolved to strike out in an offensive campaign which would restore all that was lost, and if successful accomplish still more.  We have the authority of his son and biographer for saying that his plan was to attack the forces at Shiloh and crush them; then to cross the Tennessee and destroy the army of Buell, and push the war across the Ohio River.  The design was a bold one; but we have the same authority for saying that in the execution Johnston showed vacillation and indecision.  He left Corinth on the 2d of April and was not ready to attack until the 6th.  The distance his army had to march was less than twenty miles.  Beauregard, his second in command, was opposed to the attack for two reasons:  first, he thought, if let alone the National troops would attack the Confederates in their intrenchments; second, we were in ground of our own choosing and would necessarily