Every division in his command had more than their fair share of these untried soldiers, a situation that any senior commander had to take seriously. None of the division commanders knew how these men would react the first time they confronted the enemy. With so many new volunteers arriving at the encampments, Grant made the decision to take some of that pressure away from the five existing divisions of his army. Those divisions, under Sherman, Lew Wallace, Stephen Hurlbut, John McClernand, and the injured Smith, whose troops were now under William Wallace, were to be supplemented by the addition of a new division altogether. On March 26, Grant received approval from Halleck to create a sixth division under his command, led by Benjamin Prentiss. Prentiss was not a West Pointer but had caught the eye of the army’s high command during the Mexican War, serving primarily under Zachary Taylor. Months before, as the Confederates solidified their lines across Tennessee and Kentucky, Grant had placed Prentiss in command of the fortifications at Cairo, Illinois, at the crucial junction of the Mississippi and the Ohio rivers.
