Gen. Beauregard has entitled himself to the gratitude and admiration of the country by his magnificent defence of
Charleston.
Under his auspices it has withstood triumphantly such a combination of naval and military engineering as was never before brought to bear upon any fortified place.--The defence of
Charleston stands without a parallel.
The boasted skill of the best engineer in the United States army, the terrific armaments with which his fortifications were supplied, and the naval monsters which cooperated with the land forces, have for more than four months expended all their power upon the
Palmetto city, and still its flag floats in proud defiance, and the New York
Times now virtually admits that
Charleston cannot be taken!
What a lame and impotent conclusion of all the gigantic efforts and prodigious vaporings of the vindictive foe!
What!
Charleston cannot be taken!
The hot bed of the rebellion!
The nest of treason!
The accursed city!
For nearly three years the object over whose attainment Yankee malice has gloated, and which it has rained fire and iron upon day and night, in an incessant storm, for four months? Where is your
Swamp Angel?
Where is your
Greek fire?
Where are your monitors?
Where is your
Gilmore?
And, after all, to find out that
Charleston cannot be taken.
That even
Fort Sumter cannot be taken!
That all the enormous mass of iron hurled upon it has only made it stronger and, more impregnable!
We can almost hear the
Yankees gnashing their teeth and yelling in impotent rage as
Charleston looks serenely down upon the baffled malice of these fiends in the shape of men.
Good reasons have these wretches to hate the name of
Beauregard!
He has been their evil genius from first to last.
The
Swamp Angel has had to succumb to the Guardian Angel of
Charleston, and looks up at his master as
Lucifer may be supposed to have looked up at the purer and more powerful spirit who hurled him headlong from the battlements of Heaven to his proper place From the time the first gun was fired at
Fort Sumter to the present hour
Beauregard has inflicted such mortal blows upon Yankee pride and vanity that they can never forgive him till the crack of doom.
Fort Sumter, which with a few feeble guns he snatched from the
Yankees in two days, they have not been able to regain with the most powerful armaments in the world in four months. At
Manassas he punctured the grandest military gas-bag of the age, and sounded the key-note of the grand march of Southern victories.--All honor to the glorious soldier!
In the grand galaxy of Southern heroes his star will shine forever in unsurpassed brightness and majesty.
Let
Charleston rejoice, but let her never relax her vigilance.
The Yankee serpent is scotched, not killed.
The price of her security is eternal watchfulness.
Providence has signally rescued her from the malice of the invader, let her prove herself worthy of that interposition by continuing to work out her own salvation with redoubled energy and eyes that never sleep.
