He saw in the flash of the firing that the Southern ranks were thin, very thin, and he knew that there was no break in their own advance.
Now the sanguine Northern generals planned the entire destruction of the Southern army.

There was only one road by which Beauregard could retreat to Corinth.

A whole Northern division rushed in to block the way.
Sherman, in his advance, came again to the ground around the little Methodist chapel of Shiloh which he had defended so well the day before, and crowded his whole force upon the Southern line at that point.

Once more the primitive church in the woods looked down upon one of the most sanguinary conflicts of the whole war.

If Sherman could break through the Southern line here Beauregard's whole army would be lost.
But the Southern soldiers were capable of another and a mighty effort.
Their generals saw the danger and acted with their usual promptness and decision.