Thanks for sharing this. "The mistake he made was allowing somebody else to direct the order of march…" implies that person — the somebody else — did a bad job, while Johnston could have done better if he had done it himself.
I consider it an underhanded slap to both generals, the one doing the delegating and the one being delegated to. But the one delegated to was the one who messed up…
I just don't see any offense in the comment. I think the author is making a controversy where there was not any. Davis says Johnston, who was the commanding general, erred in turning over time-table and movement of his troops to a subordinate. In other words, he should have taken care of all that himself... because
he was the commanding general and was responsible for it; and all the unit commanders were answerable to him. All the units of the army were answerable to him. Instead, as we are told, by the time he expected to attack, on the 5th, his troops were not in position, which was an unpleasant surprise he should have been aware of.
Staff officer William M. Polk with the army recalled of General Beauregard's assigned role:
General Bragg was, besides his corps command, charged with serving as the army's "chief of staff."
In carrying out the march, Beauregard and Bragg, and the corps commanders, were left to their own devices as regards getting to Shiloh, which they were ordered to reach by April 5. From W.M. Polk:
...
Gen. Johnston did not survive more than 24 hours after the April 5 meetings so no official report on his part was produced, which might or might not have levelled blame on any of his subordinates who failed to fulfill his orders for some inexcusable reason. But how would he, even were he to level blame on Beauregard, a subordinate, when he himself had ordered him to supervise the subject for him? Beauregard held no command with the army, so was not ultimately responsible for it or its movements until the moment of Johnston's death on the afternoon of April 6.
Prior to that time it was Johnston's and not Beauregard's army.
For example, the Confederate Army regulations of 1862 state the movement of troops is the responsibility of the commanding general. That his second takes his place at the head of the troops only when he is indisposed...
But in Johnston's case, he had ordered his junior, Beauregard, to both draft and execute the marching orders, though Beauregard held no command in the army, and his instructions were not official until approved and written out by the army's chief of Staff (Bragg).
The Confederate regulations note that in difficult marches, like that to Shiloh, the mode of handling the situations...
By most accounts General Johnston was personally tireless on the march... encouraging the troops, instructing officers, etc., but his
subordinates and their staff officers could have done that. From his son William Preston Johnston:
Also, from the Confederate regulations, the troops on the march were to remain silent and not fire their guns, etc.
And again we are told again that Johnston concerned himself personally about the violation of this regulation, again, rather than leaving it to subordinate unit commanders...
General Beauregard had dealt with command issues before, the previous summer at Manassas. Once General Joe Johnston was on the scene, Beauregard was subordinate, and had to have his significant changes to orders approved before he could carry them out...
At Shiloh, the situation was different. Gen. Beauregard held no command, and could only give orders in the name of, and with the approval of, his commander, A.S. Johnston.
Only death relieved Gen. Johnston as the commander of the forces which marched to and entered the battle, and the responsibility for the same. That responsibility includes what Davis describes as his error in not providing a single head for the subject of the army's movement, but leaving it to subordinates who either had no command authority by which to enforce them, including Beauregard as second in command (as if a glorified adjutant), or Bragg as chief of staff.
And Bragg, as a corps commander, on the 4th, had employed his office as chief of staff, to impede the movement of the troops in an attempt to correct for delays in his own corps' movements...
Besides holding by Hardee's movement by instruction in Johnston and Beauregard's name, as Chief of Staff, Gen. Bragg as corps commander delayed his own corps, blocking the road of Polk's corps for a time into the next day.
As can be seen, Gen. Bragg did not seek approval of this modification from either Johnston or Beauregard before issuing the order delaying the march in their name (as army chief of staff) and secondly, even if Beauregard, who was responsible for the march timeline by Johnston's orders, had instantly objected, he was not in command of the army... Johnston was, and Bragg was only answerable to the latter as both corps commander and chief of staff.
General Beauregard, whom Johnston had ordered to conduct the march according to the orders, was really put out about all this, according to Gen. Polk, who joined Bragg and Beauregard in consultation the next day...
It was at that time, on the 5th, when Beauregard and the corps commanders were somewhat squabbling about the failure to get into position on time, and what to do about it, that Johnston finally (but too late to redeem the critical lost time) exercised his authority as head of the army to interject, and render the subject meaningless, by ordering a delay in the attack until the next morning, per his staff officer William Preston:
General Johnston ordered an attack order for dawn the next day, which replaced the standing orders since the 2nd to attack on the 5th, and rendering the subject in controversy, the failure to abide the marching orders, moot... in spite of the fearful battle order, Col. Roman says the subordinates were rendered in a good mood by the erasure of the errors in the march...
Bringing the