The battle of Pittsburg Landing on the 6th and 7th of April, 1862, was
one of the most terrific of the many great battles of the great Civil
war. It has been likened to the battle of Waterloo. Napoleon sought to
destroy the army of Wellington before a junction could be made with
Blucher. Johnston and Beauregard undertook to annihilate the Army of
the Tennessee, under Gen. Grant, before the Army of the Cumberland,
under Buell, could come to his assistance. At the second battle of
Bull Run Gen. Pope claimed that Porter was within sound of his guns,
yet he remained inactive. At Pittsburg Landing it was claimed by
military men that Gen. Buell could have made a junction with Grant
twenty-four hours sooner and thereby saved a terrible loss of life had
he chosen to do so. Both generals were subsequently suspended from
their commands and charges of disloyalty were made against them by
many newspapers in the North. Gen. Porter was tried by court-martial
and dismissed from the service. Many years after this decision was
revoked by congress and the stigma of disloyalty removed from his
name. Gen. Buell was tried by court-martial, but the findings of the
court were never made public. Gen. Grant did not think Gen. Buell
was guilty of the charges against him, and when he became
commander-in-chief of the army in 1864 endeavored to have him restored
to his command, but the war department did not seem inclined to do so.
About two weeks before the battle of Pittsburg Landing Gen. Grant
was suspended from the command of the Army of the Tennessee by Gen.
Halleck, but owing to some delay in the transmission of the order, an
order came from headquarters restoring him to his command before he
knew that he had been suspended. Gen. Grant's success at Fort Henry
and Fort Donelson made his superiors jealous of his popularity. He was
ordered arrested by Gen. McClellan, but the order was held up by the