"
Food and coffee were served to the men, and while the rain was still
falling they formed in line and awaited the dawn. The desire to
retrieve their fortunes was as strong among the farmer lads as it was
among the officers who took care to spread among them the statement that
Buell's army alone was as numerous as the Southern force, and probably
more numerous since their enemy must have sustained terrible losses.
Thus they stood patiently, while the rain thinned and the sun at last
showed a red edge through floating clouds.
They waited yet a little while longer, and then the boom of a heavy gun
in the forest told them that the enemy was advancing to begin the battle
afresh. Again it was the Southern army that attacked, although it was
no surprise now. Yet Beauregard and his generals were still sanguine
of completing the victory. Their scouts and skirmishers had failed to
discover that the entire army of Buell also was now in front of them.
Bragg was gathering his division on the left to hurl it like a
thunderbolt upon Grant's shattered brigades. Hardee and the bishop-
general were in the center, and Breckinridge led the right. But as they
moved forward to attack the Union troops came out to meet them. Nelson
had occupied the high ground between Lick and Owl Creeks, and his and
the Southern troops met in a fierce clash shortly after dawn.
Beauregard, drawn by the firing at that point, and noticing the courage
and tenacity with which the Northern troops held their ground, sending
in volley after volley, divined at once that these were not the beaten
troops of the day before, but new men.
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