Lew Wallace and his defenders

When reading either the official records of the war or the correspondences sent to Grant by Wallace from his former subordinates at the time of Shiloh, one thing becomes clear. Both men and their surrogates were trying to preserve a reputation. Grant had those involved submit official reports to the War Department regarding their actions in the Wallace affair as has already been noted. Wallace admits that the fateful order, the order delivered by Assistant Quarter Master Baxter without signature, has been lost to history, reconstructed from the memory by he and his defenders.

The reports submitted by Grant's staff officers, submitted days after the battle all state that the orders Grant communicated to Wallace were to march by the river road and join the right of the army at Pittsburg Landing. Further, most paint an unflattering picture of Wallace in his attempt to get his division into the fight. Rowley, Grant's right hand according to W. E. Woodward's Meet General Grant was particularly unflattering in his description of Wallace and his state of mind.

How can these statements be reconciled with the remembrances of Wallace's staff officers who encountered both Baxter and Rowley as they executed their errands? Wallace's own aid de camp, a Captain Ross relates in a letter to Wallace penned in 1868 that not only was the order given verbally to him as he encountered Captain Baxter but also the written order shown to him relating Grant's order to "move forward and join General Sherman's right on the Purdy road" forming his line of battle at right angles with the river. He further states that the shortest route to accomplish this was to take the Purdy road to make a junction with the right of Sherman, a distance of about 5 miles versus the route purported to have been given via the River Road, a distance of about 12 miles. The order was not signed but was inferred to have come from Grant given that it was delivered by a staff officer of the commanding general. Ross also relates that Baxter told him, upon inquiry as to how the battle was going, that the enemy was being driven in at every point. At the point that Rowley overtook Wallace's command with Grant's second order to hurry along and the intelligence that Sherman had been pushed back so that to continue on the current course would have been to march onto the field behind the enemy lines unsupported, the distance to counter march and take the River Road was no less than 12 miles total. Rowley's account states that Wallace's division marched as if under no idea of haste or need for speed, a statement countered by Col. Thayer's AG, a Major Strickland of the 15^th Ohio who relates that the brigades made a rapid march then counter march.

One man is lying. One man is either mistaken in recollection or purposeful in deceit as to the true nature of the incident. A now missing order, conflicting statements given by staff officers who have every reason to defend their benefactor and discredit their antagonist, and a host of years gone by with no living eye witness the mystery of why Wallace's division was absent on that first day will never be resolved with any certainty.