A small battle may easily resemble a great battle in partial outlines. Thus it happened that Breckinridge's attack on Williams, at Baton Rouge, was marked by features resembling somewhat Albert Sidney Johnston's surprise of Grant at Shiloh. It was about 4:30 a. m. when each of the Confederate armies burst into attack. At Shiloh the Federals were driven pell-mell by our troops from camp to camp, as at Baton Rouge they were forced back by us from encampment to encampment. At Shiloh the camps were mostly in the woods; at Baton Rouge they were mostly in the suburbs of the town. At Shiloh the nearest camp to the Tennessee was that in which Prentiss and his fighting brigade were captured; at Baton Rouge the last encampment through which the enemy was driven was near to the Mississippi. It was a mere difference of entourage. From both rivers, danger, before the fight was on, had vaguely threatened. In the Tennessee had been gunboats, waiting to bite; in the Mississippi were other gunboats, now biting hard!
It was now 10 a. m. Beauregard, at Corinth, had satirically asked Lovell, regarding Vicksburg: ‘Will the Arkansas also be just one week too late, like the Mississippi?’ Breckinridge, never ceasing to vex, was hard at work putting the same query to himself. He knew that the Arkansas had failed at the heroic rendezvous. Why had
