was overpowered and fell back to the support of the
brigade.

According to General Bragg's report, Johnston's line of battle, after
marching less than a mile beyond the scene of the first attack made by
the three companies of the Twenty-fifth Missouri, came upon the
strengthened National pickets, which he calls advanced posts. These fell
back fighting. The army advanced steadily another mile, pushing back the
fighting pickets, and then encountered the National troops "in strong
force almost along the entire line. His batteries were posted on
eminences, with strong infantry supports. Finding the first line was now
unequal to the work before it, being weakened by extension, and
necessarily broken by the nature of the ground, I ordered my whole force
to move up steadily and promptly to its support."

Thus opened the battle of Shiloh. A combat made up of numberless
separate encounters of detached portions of broken lines, continually
shifting position and changing direction in the forest and across
ravines, filling an entire day, is almost incapable of a connected
narrative. As the first shock of the meeting lines of battle was near
the right of the National line, an intelligible account may be given by
describing the action of the divisions of Grant's army separately,
beginning with the right, or Sherman's.

The direction of General Johnston's advance was such as to bring him
first in contact with Sherman's left and Prentiss's right. To preserve
even an approximate alignment of a line of battle of two miles front,
marching with artillery, through wet forest, over rough, yet soft
ground, with regiments in column doubled on the centre, the advance was
necessarily slow. The reports show that portions of the second line,
instead of keeping the prescribed distance of eight hundred yards in
rear of the first, overtook it, and had to halt to regain the distance.
The National pickets, posted a mile in front of the camps, were struck
about half-past six o'clock Colonel J. Thompson, aide-de-camp to General
Beauregard, in his report to his chief, says: "The first cannon was
discharged on our left at seven o'clock, which was followed by a rapid
discharge of musketry. About 7.30 I rode forward with Colonel Jordan to
the front, to ascertain how the battle was going. Then I learned from
General Johnston that General Hardee's line was within half a mile of
the enemy's camps, and bore from General Johnston a message that he
advised sen