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April, 1862.

The battle of Pittsburg Landing, or Shiloh as it is sometimes called, was fought on the 6th and 7th of April. It was a contest which has scarcely been surpassed for manhood, pluck, endurance, and heroism. In proportion to the numbers engaged the loss in killed and wounded was as great as that of any battle of the war. The disasters to the Rebel cause in Tennessee moved Davis to hurry reinforcements to Corinth, which was the new base of Johnston's operations. Beauregard was sent into the department. He had the reputation of being a great commander, because he commanded the Rebel batteries in the attack on Sumter, and had received the glory of winning the victory at Bull Run. Time is the test of honor. Men, like the stars, have their hours of rising and setting. He was in the zenith of his fame.

Albert Sydney Johnston was still in command, but he was induced to move from Corinth to Pittsburg Landing and attack Grant before Buell, who was slowly moving across the country from Nashville, could join him.

Buell marched with great deliberation. He even gave express orders that there should be six miles' space between the divisions of his army. The position at Pittsburg Landing was chosen by General Smith, as being a convenient base for a movement upon Corinth. It had some natural advantages for defence—Lick Creek and a ravine above the Landing—but nothing was done towards erecting barricades or breastworks. There are writers who maintain that the attack of the Rebels was expected; but if expected, would not prudence have dictated the slashing of trees, the erection of breastworks, and a regular disposition of the forces? On Friday and Saturday the Rebel cavalry appeared in our front, but were easily driven back towards Corinth.

Nothing was done towards strengthening the line; no orders were issued in anticipation of a battle till the pickets were attacked on Sunday morning, while the troops were cooking their coffee, and while many of the officers were in bed.

Pittsburg is the nearest point to Corinth on the river. The road winds up the bank, passes along the edge of a deep ravine, leading southwest. It forks a half-mile from the Landing, the left-hand path leading to Hamburg up the river, and the main road leading to Shiloh Church, four miles from the Landing. The accompanying sketch of the church was taken the week after the battle, with the head-quarter tents of General Sherman around it. Its architecture is exceedingly primitive. It is a fair type of the inertness of the people of that region at the time. It is about twenty-five or thirty feet square, built of logs, without pulpit or pews, with rude benches for seats. Once it was chinked with clay, but the rains have washed out the mortar, and the wind comes in through all the crevices. It is thoroughly ventilated. It would make a good corn-crib for an Illinois farmer.

A brook meanders through the forest, furnishing water for the worshipping assemblies. South of the church, and across the brook, is a clearing—an old farm-house where Beauregard wrote his despatch to Jeff Davis on Sunday night, announcing a great victory. There are other little clearings, which have been long under cultivation. The people were too indolent to make new openings in the forest, where centuries of mould had accumulated. The country was but little further advanced than when Daniel Boone passed through the Cumberland Gap. Civilization came and made a beginning; but the blight of slavery was there. How the tillage and culture of New England or Ohio would crown those swells of land with sheaves of grain! What corn and clover fields, pastures of honeysuckle, gardens of roses! Within four miles of one of the most beautiful rivers in the world—in a country needing only industry to make it a paradise—the mourning dove filled the air with its plaintive notes in the depths of an almost unbroken forest, while the few people, shiftless and destitute of the comforts of civilization, knew no better than to fight against their own best interests.

The majority of the poor whites of the South are very ignorant. Few of them have ever attended school. In Tennessee, by the census of 1850, there were more than seventy thousand native-born American adults who could not read. Not one half of the prisoners captured at Donelson could read or write. While the army was lying before Corinth, I visited a Mississippi school-house—a log building chinked with mud, covered with long split oak shingles. It had a huge fireplace, built of stones, and a chimney laid up with sticks and mud. There were openings for two windows, but frames, sash, and glass all were wanting. There was no floor but the beaten earth—no desks. Stakes were driven into the ground, upon which slabs of oak were laid for seats. The teacher's desk was a large dry-goods box.

The State of North Carolina, with a white population of five hundred and fifty-three thousand, had eighty thousand native whites, over twenty years of age, who had never attended school. In the State of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, five States having a population of two million six hundred and seventy thousand, there were two hundred and sixty-two thousand native-born Americans, over twenty years of age, unable to read or write!

It will be no easy matter to awaken aspirations in the minds of this class. They have been so long inert, so long taught to believe that labor is degrading, that rapid progress of Southern society cannot be expected immediately, unless emigration infuses a new vitality into the community.

Ignorance was on the increase throughout the South. Public schools were of little value where they existed, and the county was so sparsely settled in many places there were not scholars enough to form one. The school fund arising from the sale of public lands was often appropriated to other uses. In Arkansas it had been squandered by worthless officials. The planters and wealthy farmers employed teachers in their families. Before the war, thousands of young ladies from the North were thus engaged. They sat at the planter's table and associated with his daughters; but, however intelligent, refined, or agreeable they might be, they were not admitted as their equals in society. Such teaching as they received, although the teacher might be faithful, was of little account. The children, proud and haughty, daily hearing of the inferiority of the people of the North, were not always disposed to receive instruction, much less to submit to correction, at the hands of a "Yankee schoolma'am." To be chivalrous, courteous, high-minded, and generous toward woman has ever been the boast of the men of the South; but, during the months immediately preceding the outbreak of the Rebellion, insulting and abusive language was freely uttered in the presence of Northern ladies. There was rudeness not only of language, but in some instances of action. The young bloods of the aristocracy, learning to crow as they heard the old cocks, not unfrequently rose in rebellion against the authority of the teacher. Especially was this the case with teachers employed in the public schools. A Yankee schoolmaster or schoolmistress was one who could be insulted with impunity; and so bitter was the hatred, that, weeks before the first gun was fired at Sumter, Northern teachers were forced to leave their schools and retire from the Confederacy.

A Mississippi school-house.

To General Sherman more than to any division commander is credit due for the victory at Pittsburg Landing. When the first volley of musketry reverberated through the forest on Sunday morning he leaped into his saddle. He was conspicuous everywhere, riding along the lines regardless of the bullets which riddled his clothes. Early in the battle he was wounded in the wrist, but wrapping a bandage round his arm, continued in the field. Three horses were shot under him. He was a conspicuous mark for the Rebel riflemen. His fearless example was inspiring to the men. And so through the long hours of the day he was able to hold his position by the church, till the giving way of Prentiss and Hurlburt, nearer the river, made it necessary to fall back. Here Grant first exhibited those qualities of character which have made him the great military commander of the age. "We will beat them yet. They can't pass this ravine," were his words of encouragement as he selected the final line, leading to the landing. The contest was virtually decided at five o'clock on Sunday afternoon, when Breckenridge attempted to cross the gorge near the river and was hurled back with great loss. Johnston and Beauregard made a great mistake in attacking at a point within reach of the gunboats. Had they come in on the Purdy road, between Shiloh Church and Crump's Landing, in all human probability there would have been a far different record for the historians of the future. Had they attacked northwest of the church instead of south of it, they would have taken Grant in reverse, and forced him to change the whole front of his army; they would have had no ravine to cross, would have been beyond reach of the gunboats, and would have stood a fair chance of cutting off Lewis Wallace, who was at Crump's Landing, from all connection with the main army.

The defeat of the Rebels was decisive, and yet Beauregard sent the following despatch to Richmond:—