"...and a hard fought battle it was."

On April 10, 1862, four days after watching his Company E, 23rd Missouri Volunteer Infantry be decimated in the Hornet's Nest at the Battle of Shiloh, Captain Archibald Montgomery wrote home to his family:

Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee. April 10, 1862.

Our expected battle is over. It came off Sunday and Monday last, and a hard fought battle it was. It lasted two days and two nights, but we shipped them. Our regiment was led out on Sunday morning in front of the hottest part of the field. We fought till evening, when the Secesh overpowered [our] regiment and some others, and took them prisoners. They, however, took only a part of our regiment. There were some out of every company who made their escape. I escaped with about forty of my company, forty of my men being taken prisoners. I found only two of my men killed -- Riley Roberts and James K. Allen. The wounded are William Watkins, badly; Harrison Hanly, very badly; William Heath, slightly; J.P. Rupe and William Lowe, in the thighs. The names of some of my men captured are Lt. Simms, Lt. Brown, John Martin, T. Brown, William Burris, F. Cummins, W. Chapman, W. Daniel, J. Daniel, J.G. Daniel, T. Daniel, R. Gray, C. Howry, J. Harper, W. Lear, M. Millspaw, J. Miller, T. Murphy, J. Noah, J. Parkerson, F.M. Rice, W. Vincent, J. Van Meter, and R. Watson.

This has been a bloody battle. Our regiment lost twenty-six killed and sixty wounded, that we know of. Our colonel was killed and our major taken prisoner. I have command of the regiment. You see we are in a bad fix, and I can't tell what we will do or where we will go. The army is still burying the dead; the bodies lay over a space of four miles square. We went out today and buried our dead; seventeen in one pit.

 
Source: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~moharris/montgomeryletter.html