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Show lV Lost Soldier of a i -t. .Lost Cause hF1 .Lost Cause JHbfl&f iv. :" v.: J ; -'J Itls, ii i? r? , 1 1 -i I j L J pprs f'J vl,-r 1 in Char eston " " Jlv r : 'ftwj f The Great Creole U ' l4Mh plctDre trom Basso's BeaureSaril, The Crcnt y' fCf I rcole," conrtcsy Charles Scrlbner's Sons.) ' ' 'f'' "V f' i By ELMO SCOTT WATSON M '-' " ' V r E ORDERED the firing on Fort Sum- K 4 ?SK a ? . . j 'X-H Iter and thus furnished the spark & y , v? M I"!1'' f I which set off the mighty conflagra- " S - v L H tion of tne greatest civil war in his- U 3 sV "VS "4 ? i, ir jJ tory. But this "kindliest military C - f N4 . 3 y aV i:::v wffi engagement in history, conducted ' J , 1 5v I?' - jM with the utmost good nature, almost ! j JJ tp- i Xi&F tenderness, on both sides a pleas- tS sw ' , 1' ant curtain-raiser which gave no wr I ii 't ,. of the grimness to follow" was hailed as a V tf I f -' lllf tV;t victory and he became the idol of a new "'Si ' WsiM i in, the Confederate States of America. .: Ve Confederate congress, In behalf of the N. " S ' WS& is:;;' - nation, voted him a resolution of thanks. n. , 1 " r I ' -1 : " general assembly of South Carolina, the S ' f J 1 e of his great "victory," did the same. Citi- - - - . r : v of his native New Orleans raised funds Laure Villere Beaureqard Ik' f 4 a II uy a golden sword for him. His admirers ft 4 laure Villere Beauregard Beauregard after Shiloh ' pictures from Baaao'a "Beauregard, The Great :reole," courtesy Charles Scrllmer's Sons.) " !J By ELMO SCOTT WATSON H ORDERED the firing on Fort Sum- I ter and thus furnished the spark " 13 I which set off the mighty conflagra-13, conflagra-13, I tion of the greatest civil war in his-ffyzZy his-ffyzZy tory. But this "kindliest military i :;v engagement in history, conducted s -" s witl1 tne utmost good nature, almost t j2 tenderness, on both sides a pleas-0: pleas-0: ant curtain-raiser which gave no ii 't ,. of the grimness to follow" was hailed as a tV;t victory and he became the idol of a new i in, the Confederate States of America, i; : ve Confederate congress, in behalf of the ; nation, voted him a resolution of thanks, general assembly of South Carolina, the e of his great "victory," did the same. Citi-of Citi-of his native New Orleans raised funds S uy a golden sword for him. His admirers , , lontgomery, Ala., the Confederate capital, led to buy him a new horse and present it III Im upon his next visit there. He received ! than 250 letters of congratulation and the .iscripts of five poems written to him. en lie was ordered to Richmond to confer President Jefferson Davis and his progress - was a triumphal procession with cheering ;es at Cds and blaring bands at every railroad I of GEion. Wherever he appeared, the crowds .oTs,y, "Ended a speech. Arriving in Richmond, he ling), bustled and shoved and kissed and had to 1 with a scarlet, embarrassed face while a lly maiden of forty, to whom forty made no )3ntre"ce' sninPet a ''utton from his coat." iree months later two uniformed mobs lit a battle near Manassas or Bull Run in 5rNnia' The uniformed mob which had p( lied south, many of them carrying lengths pe "to lead a Rebel prisoner back to Wash-"4 Wash-"4 n," went back toward that city in a panic- 'en rout almost unparalleled in history. uniformed mob which had marched north, man confident of his ability to "whip five "ees before breakfast," experienced unex-I unex-I fed difiiculties In whipping two. But theirs f Itlie victory, anyway, and after that another il f.vaganza of hero worship, fj the South thoy began naming children A . j lilm. There was talk of making him Pres-4 Pres-4 of the Confederates States of America, j ad to keep an extra supply of coat buttons A a tent they snipped them off so fast. you have probably already guessed, the j t of all this frenzy was Pierre Gustave int Beauregard, a general In the Confeder-y Confeder-y rmy In 1801. i ut," you say, "if he was such a great hero why do we hear so little of him now?" To - the answer to that question, turn to a new '" apliy which has just been published by n les Scribner's Sons. It Is "Beauregard, the j t Creole," written by Hamilton Basso, who " set about the task of rescuing from ob- (rty the man once hailed as "one of the r est military figures In history." the prologue to his biography, Mr. Basso v 3 "Occasionally, in the text-books we came Jjsi?' Ms name. But It Is only rarely, and then fa scant line or two they are done with him. n 'lls e has fallen Into obscurity, even In the 3 arnif j wjlore once jle wag 0VC(j an(j honored as i as Lee. And so, In writing of him, It has "istcu' me to seek an explanation of his neg-Qfniul neg-Qfniul enracement. The fault, I believe, and ilame (If there Is any blame) Is that of the 'tionalists and the myth-makers all tire if:, iy Calahads of the ricturosque." Basso then points out that In lSGo when i Divil war ended, a ruined, a defeated peo-1 peo-1 ; cturned to the daily routine of peace-time , n changed life In which "they had no pres-y pres-y nd, so far as they could see, no future. All whs left Inviolate was the past." And the rate South clung desperately to Its mem-of mem-of the beauty, the chivalry and the romance had been In the past. ;the years that followed, myths and legends s.n to spring up to form the pnrts of the i?;iitntIon or Southern tradition" and a part of , tradition was that of the Civil war gen-"Here, gen-"Here, fortunately, the myth-makers were f '1,1 called upon to exorcise their creative In-rJ,"j".v In-rJ,"j".v to any preat extent. Their hero was made. Ills name was Robert Edward X Lee, then, became the legendary hero. He iltlie model the others must measure up to. Southern generals, notably Stonewall .son, Albert Sidney Johnston, and Jeb aa.'.-'rt' 1,ore many points of resemblance to Lee. ;f tradition, therefore, could Incorporate them iy I", Ms dogma." ii'iS i nenuregnrd could not be so Included, ii ' one tiling, he and Lee were totally unlike 2i''w.v respect. Then, too, Beauregard was a (.clunan and the tradition Is essentially An-ruC An-ruC K'tixon. Add to this the bitter antagonism rera; sprang up Detweell president Jefferson Davis and Beauregard early in the war. More than one historian has pointed out how Davis suffered from the delusion that he was a great military strategist and he would brook no interference in-terference with his strategy of waging a defensive de-fensive war and trying to defend every part of the far-flung empire of the South. In contrast to this attitude was Beauregard's desire for a concentration of the Confederate forces In the vitally important places and the waging of a smashing offensive war which would decide the issue as quickly as possible. One of the most Interesting "ifs" of the Civil war Is what might have happened if this Creole, reared In the Napoleonic tradition, had been given a free hand from the outset. There is no doubt that he had in him the makings of a great soldier but he seems always to have just missed success whether because of his own shortcomings or because of circumstances over which he had no control, it is difficult to say. Beauregard was born on a plantation in Louisiana Loui-siana just 115 years ago May 28, 1818 when that state was still more French than American. From the first he had a passion for guns, for horses, for everything military. So when he was sent to school in New York, conducted by the brothers, Peugnet, two ex-captains of Napoleon, Na-poleon, and listened to their tales of the great campaigns In which they had fought under the Little Corporal, this passion was only Intensified. The natural result was an appointment to the United States Military academy at West Point in 1834. One of his Instructors there was a Kentucklan named Robert Anderson. A little over a quarter of a century later the former student was to order his soldiers to open fire on the fort defended by the former Instructor but he was not present when the fort was surrendered. sur-rendered. "It would be an unhonorable thing," he declared, "to be present at the humiliation of his friend." In 1S38 Beauregard was graduated from West Point, second In a class of 45. One of his classmates class-mates was named Irvin McDowell. And 23 years later Irvin McDowell and Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard were to be commanders of the opposing forces when Bull Run creek In Virginia Vir-ginia received Its bloody baptism. After graduation Beauregard, a lieutenant In the engineers corps, first helped In the construction construc-tion of Fort Adams In Rhode Island. Then he was sent to take charge of an engineering project proj-ect at Barataria bay. So he came back to his own Creole country. There he met and fell In love with the lovely Laure Villere and when they were married two of the most distlngushed families in Louisiana were united. Then came the Mexican war and during that conflict he was twice brevetted for gallant and meritorious service, first as a captain, for his gallantry at Contreras and Churubusco, and again as a major for bravery In the battle of Chaultcpec. He returned to New Orleans as a local hero and was presented with a golden sword. But the years which followed were dull and uneventful ones and Beauregard was rapidly rapid-ly slipping Into obscurity. Then by pulling certain wires he succeeded in getting himself appointed as commandant at West Tolnt. This was two days after Lincoln's election In 1SGO and when It seemed certain that Louisiana would secede from the Union. On his way to New York Beauregard stopped off In Washington to explain to his superior officers that should Louisiana withdraw from the Union he must follow his state. The result was that he was superintendent at West Point for only five days, when he was ordered back to Louisiana, Loui-siana, thus establishing a record for briefness In the time which any officer held that post. Louisiana seceded and Beauregard, the engineer, engi-neer, who had prepared and presented a comprehensive com-prehensive program for the defense of the Mississippi Mis-sissippi river passage was called to Montgomery for a special meeting with Provisional President Jefferson Davis. "He kissed his wife good-by and said he would be gone a fortnight. He was gone four years." During those four years he rose to the height of his military ambition and sank to the depths. Within a short time after Manassas he was definitely "in bad" with Davis and the secretary of war, Benjamin. He was sent to the Department Depart-ment of the West as second in command to Albert Al-bert Sidney Johnston. At the Battle of Shiloh or Pittsburg Landing a bullet struck down Johnston and the command devolved upon Beauregard. But with certain victory In sight, when he could have annihilated Grant's army, he ordered the fighting stopped. He retreated to Corinth leaving Grant in possession. After Shiloh the whisperings against Beauregard Beaure-gard began. There began to be doubts as to the greatness of the hero of Sumter and the victor of Manassas. But he did score a victory of sorts in his skillful evacution of Corinth when Halleck might have crushed him. Despite this fact, he was relieved of his command and succeeded suc-ceeded by Gen. Braxton Bragg, one of Davis' "pets." The illness which had troubled him since the beginning of the war made a long leave of absence ab-sence necessary and after he had somewhat regained re-gained his health he was placed in command at Charleston again. There he successfully resisted re-sisted a Federal attack aimed at this "breeding place of secession." In 1864 he was serving under un-der Lee in resisting the sledge hammer strokes of Grant around Richmond. At Petersburg he beat off an attack which saved Richmond for nine more months. A year later, after Lee had surrendered, there was a dramatic meeting between be-tween Davis and Beauregard. Davis was pleading plead-ing for a continuance of the war. But Beauregard Beaure-gard and Gen. Joseph Johnston told him plainly that It was no use to struggle longer against the inevitable. So Johnston surrendered to Sherman and the war was over. With only $1.15 in his pocket Beauregard started back to Louisiana. In New Orleans he found himself still a hero to his people. peo-ple. But In the years that followed the hero-worship, hero-worship, even In Louisiana, faded. There was the matter of the Louisiana lottery, the gambling gam-bling scheme which was so bitterly assailed as a menace to the morals and character of the nation. Its directors needed the association of some man whoso greatness of name would lend character and dignity to the lottery and certify cer-tify to the fairness of the drawings. Finally they got such names, two of them. One was Gen. Jubal A. Early and the other was Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard. "The South was astonished, a little shocked . . . and made apologies for her distinguished sons. . . . But though it apologized for him and tried to forget his association with the octopus, it never really forgave him. It was not the thing for a Civil war general to do." Came the ISPOs. The Civil war was becoming a dim memory. Most of the great figures in It were dead. Only a few lingered on, among them the Great Creole. In his seventy-fifth year the old Illness assailed him. "He felt as if knives were sticking in his throat; he could feel the pulse of fever behind his eyes. Sometimes, In the evening, his officers would come to his quarters quar-ters to cheer him up. The fire leaped and roared, and those who liked whisky had a nip or two, and Stuart sang in his great booming voice. . . . Perhaps, as he went up the stairs, the echo of Stuart's song went softly Into his darkened room, perhaps the dark was poignant with the ghosts of men in weathered gray. And perhaps as he fell asleep, there was the past again, and the days of golden glory, when his name was a banner In the Southern sun. Or perhaps there was nothing . . . only q-jjet and the ceasing of his heart and the peaceful coming com-ing of the end." j (S by Western Newspaper Union.) |