I was dismounted at the time, and General Buell made of me a good many significant inquiries about matters and things generally.

By the aid of a manuscript map made by myself, I pointed out to him our positions as they had been in the morning, and our then positions; I also explained that my right then covered the bridge over Snake Creek by which we had all day been expecting Lew Wallace; that McClernand was on my left, Hurlbut on his left, and so on.

But Buell said he had come up from the landing, and had not seen our men, of whose existence in fact he seemed to doubt.

I insisted that I had five thousand good men still left in line, and thought that McClernand had as many more, and that with what was left of Hurlbut's, W.H.L.

Wallace's, and Prentiss's divisions, we ought to have eighteen thousand men fit for battle.