ng Prentiss and Wallace entirely isolated,
these two commanders consulted and resolved to hold their position at
all hazards, and keep the enemy from passing on to the landing. But when
they became enveloped, almost encircled, the enemy having passed behind
them toward the landing and were closing upon the Corinth road in their
rear, Wallace ordered his command to retire and cut a way through.
Tuttle gave the order to his brigade, which faced about to the rear and
opened fire on the forces closing behind. The Second and Seventh Iowa,
led by Colonel Tuttle, charged, cut their way through, and marched to
the landing. The Twelfth and Fourteenth Iowa, lingering with the Eighth
Iowa to cover the retreat of Hickenlooper's battery, were too late, and
found themselves walled in. Colonel Baldwin, who had succeeded to the
command of the other brigade when Colonel Sweeney was wounded, brought
off part of his command; but two of his regiments, the Fifty-eighth
Illinois as well as the Eighth Iowa, were securely enclosed. Wallace
fell mortally wounded. Groups and squads of Prentiss' men succeeded in
making their way out before the circle wholly closed. Prentiss, with the
remaining fragments of the two divisions, facing the fire that
surrounded them, made a desperate struggle. But further resistance was
hopeless and was useless. Prentiss, having never swerved from the
position he was ordered to hold, having lost everything but honor,
surrendered the little band. According to his report, made after his
return from captivity, the number from both divisions surrendered with
him was 2,200. The statements vary as to the precise hour of the
surrender, and as to what command surrendered last. Colonel Shaw, of
the Fourteenth Iowa, who fought toward the rear before surrendering,
says that at the time he yielded he compared watches with his captor,
and both agreed it was about a quarter to six; he adds that the Eighth
and Twelfth Iowa and Fifty-eighth Illinois surrendered at about the same
time, and that the ground where they surrendered is about the spot
marked by three black dots in the fork of the Purdy and the Lower
Corinth roads, on Colonel George Thom's map of the field.

HURLBUT'S DIVISION.

It remains to describe the combat on the National left, where Hurlbut
with two of his brigades, supporting Stuart's isolated brigade of
Sherman's division and aided by two regiments of McArthur's brigade of
W.H.L. Wallace's division, resisted a pa