The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1889-04-25
SHILOH AGAIN.
BusIPs Army Entitled to a Share in the

BueII's Army Entitled to q Share in the Victory.
EDITOR NATIONAL tribune: have been
reader of your paper for several years, and can
say that no other paper interests me so much.
Many vexing questions and points in dispute
have been settled or cleared up through the
constant sitting that is going on in your col
umns. And SO, I say, let the sitting go on as
long as living witnesses remain, to the end
that nothing but the clean wheat may find
its way into the great history of the civil war
that is yet to be written. am often mortified
at some of the comrades for disposition they
show to exalt their own particular regiments
or army TO the detriment of others equally as
meTitorious.
Now it is just possible that some of these same
boosters get into print occasionally, and though
Comrade L. L. Lee may think he has taken
some of that boastful spirit out of certain par
ties, there is one he has evidently never tried
his hand on-himself. for instance. Comrade
Lee may get tired reading how =" BuelPs
Army saved the day at Shiloh" but if he was
there on Sunday, April 6, 1862, at about p. m,
and saw Buell's advance land, and, headed by
the Seth Ind, force its way through covering
mob of stragglers that lined the bluffs as far as
the eye could reach, and move forward, take
its place in line, and under fire of the enemy
! say if he saw all this, land it is a matter of
history,) I'll bet mess of army beans against
his latest production that he wasn't tired of
seeing help come. 1t is possible Grants army
might have been victorious without help from
Buell. but the latter appearing on the scene at
the very crisis Of the battle certainly acted as
an inspiration to an army that was driven back
and hard pressed at all points 1t even gave
courage to many of those same stragglers that
so fOndly Rugged the banks Of the Tennessee,
and large numbers found their places and took
part IN the final struggle on Monday. And the
same cause that inspired our friends of the
Army of the Tennessee, depressed and discOur-
aged the enemy. If Grants army was match
for them alone, and gave them all they could
do on Sunday, how was it that they fought so
stubbornly with at least four fresh divisions
hurled against them on Monday? All day at
that?
No, Comrade Lee it can be demonstrated to
all tairminded men that Buells army was an
important factor at Shiloh Don't belittle
their services. You were glad enough at the
time, no doubt. Don't say, as you did in an
article last Fall on this same subject of Shiloh.
that mot man of Buell's army was killed on
Sunday" because that is a mistake. The truth
OF history is against you. l know that Gen.
Ammen's Brigade, of Nelson's Division, was
engaged Sunday evening. l know that at least
one man was killed in the 36th Ind. on that
evening, and several wounded. have not the
report at hand showing the loss in the brigade
on that evening, but know enough to disprove
the statement that mot man of BuelPs army
was killed on Sunday"
Gen. Sherman, in his Memoirs, gives the
losses of each army as follows: Grants army,
10,050; Buell's army, 2,167; which is probably
near the truth He also adds that these fig
ures are about the measure Of the fighting
done by each army" According to this Buell.
did a little more than one-ffth of the fighting
Might not that fifth have been the weight that
turned the scale in our favor? The old hymn
truthfully saws.