The battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburg Landing, has been the latest under scrutiny.  It is not the purpose to consider whether the action of the day was influenced by the arrival of Buel’s army, or by the non-arrival of General Lew Wallace’s division; nor whether General Wallace did, or did not, march by scientific methods, when he moved for the nearest firing.  Among voluminous papers touching the civil war are the copies of original papers received from General Wallace himself, and of present interest.  These papers received notice from the Western press at one time, but seem to demand a more formal record, as essential factors in the better understanding of the Battle of Shiloh.

The following outline is suggested by these documents: 

1st.  That the Federal line of battle, early in the morning, stretched out from Pittsburg Landing nearly to the Purdy Road, with General Sherman’s division on the right, within about a mile of that road.

2nd.  That General Wallace’s division was at Crump’s Landing, not more than five miles from Pittsburg Landing; it being then uncertain which of the two would be the objective of attack.

3d.  That General Grant visited General Wallace at Crump’s Landing and ordered him to hold his command subject to orders, and then steamed onward to Pittsburg Landing.

4th.  That before 6 o’clock, A.M., the sound of firing had led General Wallace to put his command under arms; and he was prepared to move wherever active work should demand, even before he was ordered to be thus ready.

5th.  That he concentrated his brigades, then in three camps, into one mass, at the forks of the Purdy Road and the road to Pittsburg Landing, so that he might take either road, as orders should decide.

6th.  That he understood the original line of battle and the disposition of its divisions, and knew that General Sherman held the right.

7th.  That the order received by him, before 12 o’clock, M., from Captain Baxter, staff officer of General Grant, was in writing; and while pronounced verbally, at first, the form it assumed, when reduced to writing and subsequently delivered to General Wallace, was a direct order to “unite with the right,” and that involved the march on the Purdy Road.

If the verbal order of General Grant to Captain Baxter, to hasten General Wallace’s Division to Pittsburg Landing, was reduced to writing by that officer, after he noticed the early success of the Union Line, he would have shaped the approach of the fresh division to the best possible advantage, to join the army, not the precise Landing, if the army was not there; since General Grant, still being on crutches from a sprained ankle when his horse fell under and upon him, on the fourth, was compelled to depend largely upon staff-officers for judicious action, in exigencies which fell under their eyes, and where his riding was greatly limited.  There is full harmony of events, by giving full credit to all the data which seem, at first, to work conflict.