point at which, by the original orders, Buell was to join was
Savannah, nine miles north along the Tennessee. So Grant had to
keep in touch with both. He had not ignored the advantage of
entrenching. But the best line for entrenching was too far from
good water; and he thought he chose the lesser of two evils when
he devoted the time that might have been used for digging to
drilling instead. His army was raw as an army; many of the men
were still rawer recruits; and, as usual, the recruiting
authorities had sent him several brand-new battalions, which knew
nothing at all, instead of sending the same men as reinforcements
to older battalions that could "learn 'em how." Grant's total
effectives at first were only thirty-three thousand. This made
the odds five to four in favor of Johnston's attack. But the
rejoining of Lew Wallace's division, the great reinforcement by
Buell's troops, and the two ironclad gunboats on the river,
raised Grant's final effective grand total to sixty thousand. The
combined grand totals therefore reached a hundred
thousand--double the totals at Donelson and far exceeding those
at Bull Run.

After a horrible week of cold and wet the sun set clear and calm
on Saturday, the eve of battle. The woods were alive with forty
thousand Confederates all ready for their supreme attack on the
thirty-three thousand Federals on their immediate four-mile
front. Grant's front ran, facing south, between Owl and Lick
Creeks, two tributaries that joined the Tennessee on either side
of Pittsburg Landing. Buell's advance division, under Nelson, was
just across the Tennessee. But Grant was in no hurry to get it
over. His reassuring wire that night to Halleck said: "The main
force of the enemy is at Corinth. I have scarcely the faintest