Here we found much ammunition for field-pieces, which was destroyed; also two caissons, and a general hospital, with about two hundred and eighty Confederate wounded, and about fifty of our own wounded men.  Not having the means of bringing them off, Colonel Dickey, by my orders, took a surrender, signed by the medical director (Lyle) and by all the attending surgeons, and a pledge to report themselves to you as prisoners of war; also a pledge that our wounded should be carefully attended to, and surrendered to us to-morrow as soon as ambulances could go out.  I inclose this written document, and request that you cause wagons or ambulances for our wounded to be sent to-morrow, and that wagons’ be sent to bring in the many tents belonging to us which are pitched along the road for four miles out.  I did not destroy them, because I knew the enemy could not move them.  The roads are very bad, and are strewed with abandoned wagons, ambulances, and limber-boxes.  The enemy has succeeded in carrying off the guns, but has crippled his batteries by abandoning the hind limber-boxes of at least twenty caissons.  I am satisfied the enemy’s infantry and artillery passed Lick Creek this morning, traveling all of last night, and that he left to his rear all his cavalry, which has protected his retreat; but signs of confusion and disorder mark the whole road.  The check sustained by us at the fallen timber delayed our advance, so that night came upon us before the wounded were provided for and the dead buried, and our troops being fagged out by three days’ hard fighting, exposure, and privation, I ordered them back to their camps, where they now are.

I have the honor to be, your obedient servant,

W.T.  Sherman
Brigadier-General commanding Division.

General Grant did not make an official report of the battle of Shiloh, but all its incidents and events were covered by the reports of division commanders and Subordinates.  Probably no single battle of the war gave rise to such wild and damaging reports.  It was publicly asserted at the North that our army was taken completely by surprise; that the rebels caught us in our tents; bayoneted the men in their beds; that General Grant was drunk; that Buell’s opportune arrival saved the Army of the Tennessee from utter annihilation, etc.  These reports were in a measure sustained by the published opinions of Generals Buell, Nelson, and others, who had reached the steamboat-landing from the east, just before nightfall of the 6th, when there was a large crowd of frightened, stampeded men, who clamored and declared that our army was all destroyed and beaten.  Personally I saw General Grant, who with his staff visited me about 10 a.m. of the 6th, when we were desperately engaged.  But we had checked the headlong assault of our enemy, and then held our ground.  This gave him great satisfaction, and he told me that things did not look as well over on the left.  He also