There was not one
of these left standing unpierced by bullets. The smaller ones were all
cut down.
Contrary to all my experience up to that time, and to the experience of
the army I was then commanding, we were on the defensive. We were
without intrenchments or defensive advantages of any sort, and more than
half the army engaged the first day was without experience or even drill
as soldiers. The officers with them, except the division commanders and
possibly two or three of the brigade commanders, were equally
inexperienced in war. The result was a Union victory that gave the men
who achieved it great confidence in themselves ever after.
The enemy fought bravely, but they had started out to defeat and destroy
an army and capture a position. They failed in both, with very heavy
loss in killed and wounded, and must have gone back discouraged and
convinced that the "Yankee" was not an enemy to be despised.
After the battle I gave verbal instructions to division commanders to
let the regiments send out parties to bury their own dead, and to detail
parties, under commissioned officers from each division, to bury the
Confederate dead in their respective fronts and to report the numbers so
buried. The latter part of these instructions was not carried out by
all; but they were by those sent from Sherman's division, and by some of
the parties sent out by McClernand.
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