I think myself warranted now in asserting upon the credit of the three officers just named, as well as my own, that by the terms of the order, as it was delivered to me, the object of my march was not Pittsburg Landing, as you intended, but the right of the army, resting, when the battle opened in the morning, at a point quite three miles out from the landing, on the road to Purdy.
As a general principle it must be admitted that when you entrusted the order to a proper messenger for delivery to me, your responsibility ceased; but, I turn and ask you, appealing to your experience and justice, how am I held responsible for the execution of an order if it never reached me; or, if it reached me, conveying an idea radically different from that originally given? Of necessity, I was accountable for the execution of the order, only as it was received, and if it was not received in a form to convey your true design, but was promptly executed, neither of us are responsible for the result. It was not your mistake, nor was it mine.
Having established the purport, at least, of the order as it came to my hand, the next inquiry is: "Did I proceed to execute it, and how?"
On these heads all the letters on file are applicable. They show, as I think, that I took measures anticipatory to the order you gave me, personally, in your passage up the river to the battle-field, viz: to hold myself in readiness to march in any direction; that my brigades were ordered to concentrate at the place most proper and convenient for a prompt execution of the orders, whatever they might be, because it was at the junction of two roads, one leading to Pittsburg Landing, the other to the right of the army. To one of these points, it may be added, I was sure of being ultimately sent, if the exigencies of the battle required the presence of my command. They show, that after you parted from me, going up the river, I took measures to forward your messenger to me instantly upon his arrival (see Colonel Ross' letters), then rode to the place of concentration, and waited impatiently and anxiously the expected instructions; that they came to hand about 12 o'clock (my own remembrance is 11:30 A.M.), and that the officer who brought them, also brought the news that you were driving the enemy all along the line. (See letters of General Knefler and Colonel Ross.) Up to that time, therefore, I was certainly blameless.
But let me ask you to stop here, and consider the effect on my mind and subsequent movements, of the information, thus reliably obtained, that the battle was won. What inducement could I have had to march away from or linger on the road to a victory? Upon the hypothesis that the good news was true, how could I have imagined, (had there been so much as a doubt as to the intent of the order received,) a necessity for my command at Pittsburg Landing?
But, proceeding. The letters further establish, that, immediately upon receiving the order, I put my column en route, to execute it.
Now comes the questions. Did I take the right road to effect the junction with the right of the army, or one leading to Purdy, away from the battle? Pertinent to these inquiries, General Knefler says, that the road chosen for the movement had been patrolled and picketted by my cavalry. By their report, if by nothing else, I must have been posted as to its terminus. In corroboration of this assertion please notice that General Macaulay, General Strickland, General Thayer and General Knefler, all allude to the fact that the head of the column was approaching, not going away from the firing, when the countermarch took place. Consider, further, that the most imperative necessities of my situation, isolated as I had been from the main army, were, to know all the communications with that army, and to keep them clear, and in order for rapid movement. Not only did I know the road, but every step my division took from the initial point of the march up to the moment of the change of direction, was, as is well known to every soldier in the column, a step nearer to the firing and therefore a step nearer to the battle. While on this inquiry, let me add that the report of my being set right after marching upon the wrong road has in it this much truth, and no more. When about a mile from the position which had been occupied by the right of the army (General Sherman's division), Captain Rowley overtook me and told me that you had sent him to hurry me up, and that our lines had been carried by the enemy and the army driven back almost to the river, a very different story from the one brought me by Captain Baxter. Captain Rowley set me right as to the conditions of the battle, not as to the road I was following. Colonel McPherson and Major Rawlins, the other members of your staff, mentioned as having been sent to me, met me after the countermarch, when my command was on the river road moving to Pittsburg Landing.
Concerning the countermarch, I would remark that the condition of the battle, as reported by Captain Rowley, made it prudent, if not necessary. My column was only five thousand men, of all arms. Reflecting upon it now, I am still of the opinion that it did better service the next day in your new line of battle, than it could have done, operating alone and unsupported in the rear of the whole rebel army, where I was certainly taking it, when "set right" by the captain.
Instead of making the change of direction, when it was resolved on, by a countermarch, the result proved that it should have been effected by a general right about. The former manoeuvre was chosen, however, because I was confident of finding a cross road to the river road long before the head of the column doubled upon its foot. [See Colonel Ross' statement of the effort made to accomplish that idea.]
One of the results I confidently anticipated from a reading of the letter submitted, is, that you will be satisfied of the wrong done me (unintentional, I believe), by Colonel Badeau, when, in his book, he describes me as consuming seven hours in marching five miles in the direction of the battle. The march actually performed in that time was not less than fifteen miles, over an execrable dirt road.
Your opinion, as advanced in your letter to the War Office, July, 13, 1863, that General Morgan L. Smith, had he been put in command, could have had the division in the battle by 1 o'clock P.M., is in direct terms, based upon the condition that General Smith received your orders as you supposed them communicated to me. But, suppose he had not received the order as originally given; suppose, on the contrary, the order actually received by him had the effect to send him in another direction from Pittsburg Landing; and suppose that, on approaching his objective, he had found himself in the rear of the whole rebel army, and in his judgment compelled, by that circumstance, together with the bad fortune of our own army, to a further movement of quite ten milesall of which were terrible realities in my caseI am sure you are too just a man to have held him accountable for the hours, however precious, thus necessarily lost.
With these remarks I place the letters of the officers named in your hands. They will satisfy you, I think, that the exoneration I seek will be a simple act of justice. The many misconceptions which have been attached to my movements on that bloody Sunday, have, it must be confessed, made me extremely sensitive upon the subject. You can imagine, therefore, with what anxiety your reply will be waited.
Very respectfully your friend,LEW WALLACE.To GENERAL U.S. GRANT, WASHINGTON CITY.Colonel Ross to General Wallace:
CHICAGO, January, 25, 1868.
General: Having read the extract from "Badeau's Life of General Grant," as published in the Chicago Tribune, of the twenty-fifth of December, 1867, wherein he refers particularly to the battle of Shiloh, and seeing the gross injustice done you, and the false light in which you are placed before the country and the world, I deem it my duty to make a brief statement of what I know to be the facts in reference to your failure to reach the field of battle in time to take part in the action of Sunday, April 6, 1862.