Halleck was still at St. Louis; and
through the indecision of his further orders, through the slowness of
Buell's march, and through the unexplained inattention of Grant, the
Union armies narrowly escaped a serious disaster, which, however, the
determined courage of the troops and subordinate officers turned into a
most important victory.
The "golden opportunity" so earnestly pointed out by Halleck, while not
entirely lost, was nevertheless seriously diminished by the hesitation
and delay of the Union commanders to agree upon some plan of effective
cooeperation. When, at the fall of Fort Donelson the Confederates
retreated from Nashville toward Chattanooga, and from Columbus toward
Jackson, a swift advance by the Tennessee River could have kept them
separated; but as that open highway was not promptly followed in force,
the flying Confederate detachments found abundant leisure to form a
junction.
Grant reached Savannah, on the east bank of the Tennessee River, about
the middle of March, and in a few days began massing troops at Pittsburg
Landing, six miles farther south, on the west bank of the Tennessee;
still keeping his headquarters at Savannah, to await the arrival of
Buell and his army. During the next two weeks he reported several times
that the enemy was concentrating at Corinth, Mississippi, an important
railroad crossing twenty miles from Pittsburg Landing, the estimate of
their number varying from forty to eighty thousand.
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