He had negroes sent out to him to take the place of teamsters, company cooks and laborers in every capacity, so as to put all his white men into the ranks.

The people, while willing to send their sons to the field, were not willing to part with their negroes.

It is only fair to state that they probably wanted their blacks to raise supplies for the army and for the families left at home.
Beauregard, however, was reinforced by Van Dorn immediately after Shiloh with 17,000 men.

Interior points, less exposed, were also depleted to add to the strength at Corinth.

With these reinforcements and the new regiments, Beauregard had, during the month of May, 1862, a large force on paper, but probably not much over 50,000 effective men.