The conflict began on Sunday, April 6, and lasted all day.  There was not much plan about it; the troops went at each other somewhat indiscriminately and did simple stubborn fighting.  The Federals lost much ground all along their line, and were crowded back towards the river.  Some say that the Confederates closed that day on the way to victory; but General Grant says that he felt assured of winning on Monday, and that he instructed all his division commanders to open with an assault in the morning.  The doubt, if doubt there was, was settled by the arrival of General Buell, whose fresh forces, coming in as good an hour as the Prussians came at Waterloo, were put in during the evening upon the Federal left.  On Sunday the Confederates had greatly outnumbered the Federals, but this reinforcement reversed the proportions, so that on Monday the Federals were in the greater force.  Again the conflict was fierce and obstinate, but again the greater numbers whipped the smaller, and by afternoon the Confederates were in full retreat.  Shiloh, says General Grant, “was the severest battle fought at the West during the war, and but few in the East equaled it for hard, determined fighting.”  It ended in a complete Union victory.  General A.S.  Johnston was killed and Beauregard retreated to Corinth, while the North first exulted because he was compelled to do so, and then grumbled because he was allowed to do so.  It was soon said that Grant had been surprised, that he was entitled to no credit for winning clumsily a battle which he had not expected to fight, and that he was blameworthy for not following up the retreating foe more sharply.  The discussion survives among those quarrels of the war in which the disputants have fought over again the contested field, with harmless fierceness, and without any especial result.  Congress took up the dispute, and did a vast deal of talking, in the course of which there occurred one sensible remark.  This was made by Mr. Richardson of Illinois, who said that the armies would get along much better if the Riot Act could be read, and the members of Congress dispersed and sent home.

General Grant found that General Halleck was even more obstinately in the way of his winning any success than were the Confederates themselves.  As commander of the department, Halleck now conceived that it was his fair privilege to do the visible taking of that conspicuous prize which his lieutenant had brought within sure reach.  Accordingly, on April 11, he arrived and assumed command for the purpose of moving on Corinth.  Still he was sedulous in his endeavors to neglect, suppress, and even insult General Grant, whom he put nominally second in command, but practically reduced to insignificance, until Grant, finding his position “unendurable,” asked to be relieved.  This conduct on the part of Halleck has of course been attributed to jealousy; but more probably it was due chiefly to the personal prejudice of a dull man, perhaps a little stimulated by a natural desire