orce at Shiloh, fifteen miles northeast, on the Tennessee
River.

Writing "A. S. Johnston, 3d April, 62, _en avant_" on his pocket
map of Tennessee, the Confederate leader, anguished by the bitter
criticism with which his unavoidable retreat had been assailed, cast
the die for an immediate attack on Grant before slow Halleck reinforced
or ready Buell joined him. Johnston's lieutenants, Beauregard and
Bragg, had obtained ten days for reorganization; and their commands
were as ready as raw forces could be made in an extreme emergency.
They hoped to be joined by Van Dorn, whose beaten army was working
east from Pea Ridge. But on the second they heard that Buell was
approaching Grant from Nashville; and on the third Johnston's advanced
guard began to move off. Van Dorn arrived too late.

The march, which it was hoped to complete on the fourth, was not
completed till the fifth. The roads were ankle-deep in clinging
mud, the country densely wooded and full of bogs and marshes. The
forty thousand men were not yet seasoned; and, though full of
enthusiasm, they neither knew nor had time to learn march discipline.
Moreover, Johnston allowed his own proper plan of attacking in
columns of corps to be changed by Beauregard into a three-line
attack, each line being formed by one complete corps. This meant
certain and perhaps disastrous confusion. For in an attack by columns
of corps the firing line would always be reinforced by successive
lines of the same corps; while attacking by lines of corps meant
that the leading corps would first be mixed up with the second,
and then both with the third.

In the meantime Grant was busier with his own pressing problems
of organization for an advance than with any idea of resisting
attack. He lacked the prevision of Winfield Scott and Lee, both of
whom expected from the first that the war would last for years. His
own expectation up to this had been that the South would collapse
after the first smashing blow, and that its western armies were
now about to be dealt such a blow. He was not unmindful of all
precautions; for he knew the Confederates were stirring on his
front. Yet he went downstream to Savannah without making sure that
his army was really safe at Shiloh.

Pittsburg Landing was at the base of the Shiloh position. But the
point at which, by the original orders, Buell was to join was Savannah,
nine miles north along the Tennessee. So Grant had to keep in touch
with both. He had no