s
victorious subordinate to return to the trenches on the right.

As Buckner was reluctantly returning to the old lines he encountered
Floyd.

"Where are you going?" the Commander-in-Chief demanded.

"I am ordered back to the entrenchments--"

"You think it wise to walk back into the trap we've just escaped from?"

"I do not!" was the short answer. "We are outnumbered three to one. We
can not hold our connections open in the face of such an army backed by
gunboats and transports which can bring reenforcements daily. The road
is open, we should save our army by an immediate juncture with Albert
Sidney Johnston before Nashville."

"I agree with you," Floyd replied. "Hold your troops until I consult
with Pillow."

While Floyd and Pillow wrangled, Grant dashed on the scene. He had not
been present during the battle. The wounded Commodore had begged him for
a consultation on board his flagship five miles below.

When Grant reached the field he met a sight that should have dismayed
him and sent his shattered army to the shelter of the gunboats and a
hasty retreat down the Cumberland to a place of safety.

McClernand had been crushed and his disorganized troops thrown back in
confusion in front of the entrenchments of the Confederate right. His
troops had been on the field for five days and five nights drenched in
snow, sleet, mud, ice and water. The field was strewn with the dead and
wounded. Great red splotches of frozen blood marked the ground in all
directions. Beneath the sheltering pines where the white, smooth snow
lay unbroken by the tramp of heavy feet and the crush of artillery,
crimson streams could be seen everywhere. For two miles the ground was
covered with the mangled dead, dying, and freezing. Smashed artillery
and dead horses lay in heaps. In the retreat the heavy wheels of the
artillery had rolled over the bodies of the dead and wounded, crushing
and mangling many beyond recognition.

No general ever gazed upon a more ghastly scene than that which greeted
the eye of U. S. Grant in this moment of his life's supreme crisis. The
suffering of his wounded who had fought with the desperation of madness
to save themselves from the cold, had left its mark on their stark,
white faces. The ice had pressed a death mask on the convulsed features
and held them in the moment of agony. They looked up into his face now,
the shining eyes, gaping mouths, clenched fists, and crooked twisted
limbs.

McClernand's ra