ch, arriving too late to participate in the battle on April 6. Grant's fivedivisions had to do all the fighting that first day at Shiloh.Johnston went personally to the front on the Confederate right to rally exhaustedtroops by his presence. There in midafternoon he was hit in the leg by a bullet that severedan artery and caused him to bleed to death. The South would anguish the loss of Johnstonwho was one of its ablest commanders.Beauregard took command and tried to keep up the momentum of the attack. Bythis time Confederates had driven back the Union right and left two miles from theirstarting point. In the center, though, Prentiss with the remaining fragments of his divisionand parts of two others had formed a hard knot of resistance along a country road that therebels called the hornet's nest. Grant had ordered Prentiss to "maintain that position at allhazards." Southern commanders launched a dozen separate assaults against it. Although18,000 Confederates closed in on Prentiss's 4,500 men, the uncoordinated nature of rebelattacks enabled the Yanks to repel each of them. The southerners finally pounded thehornet's nest with sixty-two field guns and surrounded it with infantry. Prentisssurrendered his 2,200survivors at 5:30, an hour before sunset. Their tough andcourageous stand had bought time for Grant to post the remainder of his army along thePittsburg Landing ridge. Lew Wallace's lost division was arriving and Buell's lead brigade was crossing theriver as Beauregard decided he would not authorize a final assault in the gatheringtwilight. He sensed that his own army was disorganized and fought out.On April 7 Buell and Grant put 25,000 fresh troops into action alongside 15,000battered survivors who had fought the first day. The number of Beauregard's effectivetroops, due to casualties and straggling, now stood at about 25,000. Grant never waveredin his determination to counterattack.Across the lines Beauregard had sent a victory te...
