Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 230, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 September 1913 — sTORIE CAMP AND WAIF [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

sTORIE CAMP AND WAIF

DEATH OF GEN. A. S. JOHNSTON Member of the Eighteenth Missouri ' Writes Account in Front of Hornets’ Nest. ’ > An article appeared in your paper, Of April 6, entitled ‘Shiloh Fifty Years Ago Today,’ which repeats, indirectly, certain erroneous reports which were circulated at the time when Generan Prentiss and his brigade were confined in a Confederate prison and had no opportunity to correct the error, hence it was not till after they were released from their seven months’ prison life that they had an opportunity to cause the truth to be published, writes Louis Benecke of Compp.py H, Eighteenth Missouri, in the Kansas City Star. • The point is this: Those who retreated from the early morning battlefield and did not ’stop till they reached the river reported General Prentiss' brigade had been taken prisoners early in the day. I suppose their statement was based upon the fact that they did ot see anything of Prentiss’ men, because they had gone to the rear, while Prentiss remained in front. The fact is, Prentiss’ brigade took possession of a washed-out public road circling the side of a slight elevation, from which advantageous position repeated assaults by a superior Confederate force were repulsed till 4:30 in .the afternoon. It was not till fired upon from the side and rear, which compelled a of position, and it was but a little while afterwards, when thus completely surrounded, that this brigade surrendered. , All persons who participated and have personal knowledge of the actual occurrences of that day have known that if General Prentiss’ position, better known as the “Hornet's Nest,” had not prevented the Confederates from moving forward to the Pittsburg Landing, that then the disorganized trobps who were at the landing, as well as the immense ordnance, quartermaster and commissary stores at the same place, would have been captured, and there is no telling what the final results of the campaign might have been. It was in front of the Hornets’ Nest that Gen. Sidney Johnston was shot, and this was at a time he and a half dozen officers were reconnoitering, not while leading his troops on a charge, as your article stated, and it was a single rifle-shot by one William Wegner of the Eighteenth Missouri that caused a sudden rush of the squad of officers to one of them and a hasty retreat back to where the Confederates were. We hiad orders not to shbot_till the enemy wm near (our ammunition ran short), and it was after a repulse during a temporary lull when the several Confederate officers on horseback were seep advancing towards our line, evidently trying to locate us as we were lying down in the washedout road with only our heads exposed, when Sergeant William Wegner (a sharpshooter) took aim and fired at the group of officers. For firing his rifle he was then and there reprimanded. This was in the afternoon about two or three o’clock. Later on in the evening after our Surrender we learned that General Johnston was wotfnded about that time while far in advance of his line reconnoitering the field to ascertain, why the repeated-as-saults made upon us failed and caused such terrible loss of life. Now, your article dismissed or passed General Prentiss’ most important action of that battle with the following words: "Prentiss was not so fortunate: he, with 2,900 of his men, was captured.” It is not right to misrepresent or slightingly pass by the most important part of the first day's battle of Shiloh, and I trust that you will set the record straight.