A Review by Colonel Wm. Allan, formerly Chief of Ordnance Second corps, A. N. V.
This book contains much of interest and value.
General Beauregard was one of the highest officers in rank in the
Confederate service, and was concerned in many important operations during the civil war. Indeed, few officers on either side had an experience more varied and extensive.
The narrative throws light on many of the great junctures of that struggle, and is enriched by a mass of official documents, many of which are here published for the first time.
Though there is no little diffuseness and repetition in the book, the arrangement is clear and the style easy and attractive.
The care and
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labor shown in the preparation, as well as the mass of valuable materials it contains, render this book indispensable to the student of the history of the war.
We regret that we cannot go farther in praise of this book, but its whole tone, temper and manner of composition forbid it. Its faults are too glaring to be overlooked.
The chief sufferer from its publication is likely to be
General Beauregard himself, and it had been better for his reputation if he had assumed less directly the responsibility for
Colonel Roman's work.
The book is not so much a history of
General Beauregard's career as it is a fulsome panegyric of him, an overstrained and often disingenuous defence of everything he did, or did not do, during the war, and an unfair and ill-natured critique upon the conduct of his superiors.
We believe there is not a single superior officer of
General Beauregard that is not disparaged in this book, and accused of damaging, at one time or another, the cause of which
General Beauregard is represented as the only ever wise and ever unselfish defender.
The object of our author's special hostility is
Mr. Davis, but the
Confederate Secretaries of War, the chiefs of the war bureaus in
Richmond, and
Generals Cooper,
Lee,
A. S. Johnston,
J. E. Johnston, besides many of lower rank, come in for their share of criticism — a criticism often ill-judged, in most cases partial, and nearly always truculent.
The author's mode of dealing with history is illustrated by his account of the
first battle of Manassas.
The facts in regard to this are simple.
In July, 1861, the Confederate Government had two principal bodies of troops, hastily collected, to oppose the invasion of
Virginia, threatened by the as hastily gathered levies of the
Federal Government.
The larger of these, under
General Beauregard, held the line of
Bull Run, and in its front was the principal Federal army under
General McDowell.
Beauregard's force was being augmented by new regiments as fast as they could be armed and equipped out of the meagre supplies the
South could then command, and by the middle of July numbered about 20,000 men. The other Confederate army, of about 10,000 men, under
General J. E. Johnston, was opposing
General Patterson's advance into the Shenandoah Valley.
Besides these,
General Holmes had a small force on the lower Potomac.
Both of the larger bodies were greatly inferior to the
Federal forces opposing them.
McDowell had about 35,000 men and
Patterson about 20,000.
As
McDowell's was the principal Federal army, it was pretty clear that the first serious advance would be made by it. It was also evident that the Confederate forces at
Manassas would
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not grow fast enough to place it on an equality with the army in its front, and therefore
General Beauregard suggested the expediency of uniting the forces of
Johnston and
Holmes with his own for a sudden attack upon the
Federal armies in succession.
This proposal
Beauregard submitted through one of his staff to
Mr. Davis on the night of July 14.
Generals Cooper and
Lee were called in conference by
Mr. Davis.
The plan required that
General Johnston, who was seventy-five miles away, should leave 5,000 men to hold
Patterson in check, and rapidly join
Beauregard with 20,000.
This would double the
Confederate force at
Manassas and make it superior to
McDowell, who was to be attacked and beaten.
Then
Johnston was to return with his own and 10,000 of
Beauregard's men and overwhelm
Patterson.
Beauregard thought a week would suffice for this, after which
Johnston was to reinforce
Garnett in
West Virginia and destroy
McClellan.
Then
Johnston's and
Garnett's forces were to cross the
Potomac and attack
Washington in rear, while
Beauregard assailed it in front.
This scheme was rejected as impracticable by all present at the conference, because: 1,
Johnston had hardly 10,000 men, instead of 25,000, which
Beauregard's plan assumed; 2.
McDowell's army was too close to
Washington to permit of its being crushed in the way indicated.
If pressed, it could readily fall back to that city and its reserves.
Another reason
General Beauregard might himself have added: neither of the Confederate armies was supplied with transportation or stores sufficient for the complicated movements mapped out.
On July 17, the third day after this conference,
McDowell advanced, and
Beauregard telegraphed the fact and asked for reinforcements.
Johnston was then ordered to join him if practicable with his effective force, and
Holmes was also sent up. Next day occurred
Tyler's attempt at Mitchell's Ford, ending in a Federal repulse.
Beauregard's report apparently caused the
Confederate authorities to think that
McDowell had been severely checked, for next day (19th)
Beauregard was telegraphed as follows: ‘We have no intelligence from
General Johnston.
If the enemy in front of you has abandoned an immediate attack, and
General Johnston has not moved, you had better withdraw the call upon him, so that he may be left to his full discretion.’ * * *
Beauregard, seeing that the
Federal army in front was only perfecting its plans for attack, of course did not stop
Johnston, who reached
Manassas on the 20th, followed by his troops during that night and the next day. As
Johnston had merely eluded
Patterson, who must soon learn of his movement,
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both Confederate
Generals felt that no time was to be lost in fighting
McDowell.
Johnston was senior, and in command, but, having no time to learn the country or disposition of the troops, adopted
Beauregard's plan of attacking
McDowell at
Centreville next day (21st). The aggressive movements of the
Federals early on the 21st prevented the execution of this plan.
Beauregard then proposed to check
McDowell's movement against the left by attacking with the
Confederate right.
This, too, was approved and adopted, but the orders sent by
General Beauregard failed to reach the
Confederate right in time.
Meantime
McDowell had turned the
Confederate left and was pressing back with overwhelming force the troops there stationed.
All plans of aggression were now abandoned in order to resist
McDowell's attack, and a battle, unforeseen in character, location and disposition of troops, ensued.
Both
Generals hastened to the point of danger and exerted themselves successfully to stay the progress of the
Federals.
Johnston then left
Beauregard in command of the troops engaged, and, taking a position with reference to the whole field, devoted himself to hastening forward reinforcements.
These came up so promptly that
Beauregard, taking advantage of the check which
Jackson's stubborn stand had wrought, was soon able to resume the offensive, and within a short time the
Federals were not only defeated but routed and driven with fearful panic across
Bull Run.
Mr. Davis reached the field after the battle was over, and that night, when the panic of the
Federal army had become partially known, was anxious for an immediate advance toward
Washington.
Both
Generals thought this inadvisable, so great was the exhaustion and confusion in the
Confederate ranks produced by the battle, and so inadequate the stock of supplies and transportation then available.
On the night of the 22d, at another conference, the
Generals declared it was impracticable to cross the
Potomac or to advance at once on
Washington in the wake of the defeated army.
Mr. Davis seems to have been satisfied with the propriety of this judgment, and the idea was abandoned.
Such are the facts.
Let us see what
Colonel Roman makes of them.
On the rather slim basis of the reduction of
Fort Sumter,
General Beauregard's skill and reputation are spoken of in the most extravagant terms.
He then describes the proposal of July 14 as a stroke of genius, and says: ‘A high tribunal, composed of the
President,
Generals Cooper and
Lee, took upon itself to check and render barren the strategic powers so greatly developed in
General Beauregard,
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and in which the immortal
Jackson alone is acknowledged to have been his peer.’
Over and over again, with tiresome iteration, are
Davis,
Cooper and
Lee denounced for not committing themselves without hesitation to a scheme utterly impracticable as
Beauregard put it, since it assumed nearly three times as many troops with
Johnston as he actually had. Had the troops been at hand, half-drilled, inexperienced, badly equipped, with insufficient transportation, as they were, the chances of success would not have been more than one in one hundred, and there is nothing in
General Beauregard's subsequent career to lead to the conviction that he was the man to seize that single chance.
Again, the dispatch of the 19th is tortured to mean a withdrawal of assent to the union of
Johnston and
Beauregard, and the latter is highly praised for pocketing the dispatch and thus insuring the junction of the two forces, while
Mr. Davis is unsparingly condemned for sending it. The dispatch shows for itself.
Johnston was not to be stopped unless
McDowell had abandoned his immediate attack, and even then discretion was left with
Johnston (the
senior officer) as to his movements.
McDowell had not abandoned his attack, and therefore
Beauregard did simply his duty in holding the dispatch.
Colonel Roman goes on to say:
‘We assert it as an incontrovertible truth, fully proved by later events, that the
President of the
Confederacy, by neglecting to compel his
Quartermaster-General to procure the transportation which could have been easily procured more than a month before the
battle of Manassas; by refusing, as early as the 13th of June, to assent to
General Beauregard's urgent request that authority should be given to concentrate our forces at the proper moment at
Manassas Junction; by again refusing, on the 15th of July, to allow him to execute his bold, offensive plans against the enemy, the certain result of which would have been the taking of
Washington—that the
President of the
Confederacy, by thus persisting in these three lamentable errors,
lost the South her independence.’
It is hard to know how to characterize this wild statement seriously.
That the
Quartermaster and Commissary, as well as all other departments of the Confederate Government and army, were new and in many respects inefficient, was certainly the case; but probably no country without any military establishment or central government, and peopled by citizens untrained to war for generations, ever acted with greater energy than did the
South in the three months between the opening of the war and the
battle of Manassas in raising and supplying armies.
The victory of
Manassas is itself one of the best
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proofs of this.
General Beauregard is entitled to a large share of credit for this remarkable victory, and we think this has been accorded to him; but it must have been under some malign star that he allowed his biographer to make such claims as we have quoted.
There is no better commentary to be found upon the claim that
General Beauregard was prevented from taking
Washington and thus perhaps ending the war, than in
Beauregard's own action after
Manassas.
Colonel Roman's claim is that if
Johnston had been ordered to join
Beauregard on July 15th,
McDowell would have been overthrown, and next
Patterson, and next, perhaps,
McClellan, and that then
Washington might have fallen before the
Confederates advancing on both sides of the
Potomac.
Well,
Johnston was ordered to join
Beauregard with his whole force on July 17, and eluding
Patterson with great skill he reached
Manassas in time to secure a victory over
McDowell, a victory one of the most thorough and complete upon record.
This was in accordance with
General Beauregard's programme.
What then became of the rest of that plan?
We do not hear that
Beauregard urged the return of
Johnston to demolish
Patterson and
McClellan, and
Colonel Roman informs us distinctly that
Beauregard opposed any advance on
Washington at the time and declared it impracticable.
Now, no one can show that
General Beauregard could have reasonably expected more favorable conditions, had
Johnston joined him two days earlier, than were actually at the command of the
Confederate leaders after their victory.
Yet he saw then that it was impossible to carry out the scheme he had proposed.
It would be perhaps unkind and unfair to
Beauregard to say he ought to have seen this before the proposition was made, but surely, to speak of
Colonel Roman's course as unkind and unfair, in bitterly denouncing
Beauregard's superiors twenty years after the above facts became known, is to characterize that course but mildly.
Our author continues in the same strain in regard to
Beauregard's position on the field of
Manassas, about which there is no proper room to doubt.
He was second in command under
Johnston, who adopted his plans until
McDowell's advance checkmated them, when each in his sphere did his best to secure success—Beauregard as commander of the troops engaged, and
Johnston as commander-in-chief.
After the battle
Johnston was strongly opposed to advancing, and so, too, was
Beauregard for a time.
But
Colonel Roman, through many pages, labors to prove that
Johnston had nothing to do with the
battle of Manassas except to act as a dead weight upon
Beauregard.
A similar tone pervades the whole book.
When
General Beauregard
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is sent to the
West, he finds everything wrong in
General A. S. Johnston's department.
The line of defence has been badly chosen, the works to strengthen it have been laid out without judgment, the vital importance of the defence of the
Cumberland and
Tennessee rivers has not been foreseen or properly provided for.
General Beauregard promptly proposes a plan of operations to counteract these blunders.
It is not adopted, and hence follow, in his opinion, the fall of
Donelson and the subsequent disasters of the
Confederates.
Again, it is
General Beauregard who, in spite of the indifference or opposition of his Government, and without the aid of his commanding officer, collects and organizes an army at
Corinth, urges and finally induces
General Johnston to unite his forces with it, and plans and does everything about the
battle of Shiloh—except to fight it.
General Beauregard is made to stand out as a solitary rock in a sea of incompetency and petty jealousy.
Yet when the chief command devolved upon
Beauregard, by the death of
Johnston, he no doubt realized more fully how much easier it was to criticize the shortcomings of others than to master the tremendous difficulties which beset the Confederate Government and its
Generals in the field.
A great victory was just within the grasp of the
Confederates.
It was allowed to slip away from them.
Next day the tables were turned, and
Beauregard was forced to retire to
Corinth.
Weeks followed, during which not a single stroke by the
Confederates checked the onward progress of the
Federal arms in the
West.
Beauregard's strategy consisted in waiting at
Corinth until the advance of the
Federal army made a retreat necessary.
He then fell back to
Tupelo.
Again we find it impossible to sympathize with the violent attacks made upon the
Confederate administration in connection with the controversies in which
General Beauregard's ideas of official propriety sometimes involved him. Most remarkable, however, is the complaint made about his removal from command after his retreat from
Corinth.
The Confederate army had just fallen back before overwhelming forces, the
Mississippi seemed about to fall into Federal hands.
It was the first of June, when the
Union armies might be expected to push their advantage with increasing vigor.
At this juncture, without conference, and without any notice beyond a telegraphic dispatch to his Government,
General Beauregard proposed to leave his army, on a surgeon's certificate, to seek rest and recuperation at a distant watering-place.
General Bragg, the next officer in rank, had been ordered elsewhere by his Government, but
General Beauregard retained him, turned over the command to him,
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and actually left his post for the purpose indicated.
The Richmond authorities promptly relieved
Beauregard and placed
Bragg permanently in command.
It is hard to see how so intelligent a soldier as
Colonel Roman can complain of this, but he does.
General Beauregard's sickness was not sudden or unforseen.
It was a trouble he had been suffering from for months.
Either he was fit to command his army or he was not. If not, no injustice was done.
But in either case, the
Richmond authorities should have been informed, and the step of turning over the command to the next in rank not entered upon without conference with and approval by them.
It will be hard to convince anyone that at the first of June, and in the circumstances that then surrounded the western army,
General Beauregard was justified on the plea of ill-health and that his presence was not important, in leaving his post for a contemplated absence of some weeks without waiting to learn the views of his Government.
Colonel Roman's book is so filled with indiscriminate praise of
General Beauregard, and indiscriminate blame of nearly everybody else, that we are apt to lose sight of
General Beauregard's really brilliant achievements.
It is far more pleasant to contemplate these than to read
Colonel Roman's incessant criticisms of distinguished Confederates, whose sacrifices for the land of their birth were not less costly, whose conduct was not less unselfish, whose patriotism was as devoted, whose aims were as high, whose courage was as marked as
General Beauregard's, and whose ability and skill were certainly not inferior to those of the distinguished
Louisianian.
General Beauregard was assigned to the command of
South Carolina and
Georgia in September, 1862, his most important duty being the defence of
Charleston.
Here
General Beauregard had a field eminently adapted to his talents.
A most skillful and accomplished engineer, he not only displayed ability of the highest order in this memorable defence, but exhibited astonishing fertility of resource and tenacity of purpose.
At the end of January, 1863, the Confederate gunboats made such a descent upon the blockading squadron as to cripple it and drive it off for the time.
Early in April the Federal fleet, under
Dupont, made the first grand attack upon
Fort Sumter, but was beaten off with terrible loss.
Again in July a most formidable armament, equipped with the best means at the command of the
Federal Government, and under one of the best engineers in the old army,
General Gillmore, began a most determined and protracted attack upon the defences of
Charleston.
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With comparatively slender means
Beauregard completely baffled and kept at bay the prodigious armament with which the
Federal Government sought to reduce the ‘cradle of secession.’
For nearly six months his works sustained a fire which has rarely, if ever, been excelled in persistence and weight of metal.
When
Fort Sumter had become simply a heap of rubbish he continued to hold it and to defeat every attempt on the part of his assailants to capture it. At the end of the year the
Federals gave up in despair, and the
Confederate flag continued to float over
Fort Sumter until
Sherman's march northwards from
Savannah, in the early part of 1865, compelled the evacuation of the city.
There is probably in modern warfare no more splendid instance of a skilful and determined defence than that of
Charleston, and it will ever remain a noble testimony to the ability of
Beauregard.
In the
Spring of 1864,
General Beauregard was called from
Charleston, with a large part of his forces, to
Richmond and
Petersburg, to take part in the defence of the
Confederate Capital.
Here,
General Beauregard's achievements were such as to add deservedly to his reputation.
He saved the
Southern approaches to
Richmond and, perhaps, that city itself, by defeating and ‘bottling up’ Butler at
Bermuda Hundred.
But his greatest feat in this campaign was his defence of
Petersburg on June the 15th, 16th, and 17th.
General Grant managed his crossing of the
James so well as to deceive
General Lee for some days and to keep him in ignorance of his real design.
In this way
Grant succeeded in throwing a large part of the
Federal army against
Petersburg, before
General Lee reached there with the advance of his army on June 18.
Beauregard meantime held the defences of
Petersburg, and made a brilliant and tenacious struggle for them.
He managed his small force with such skill and courage as to keep back the half of the
Federal army, and though forced from his advanced positions he saved the city, and placed his troops on the lines which the Army of Northern Virginia was to defend with such wonderful pluck for more than nine months thereafter.
We have not space to follow
General Beauregard's career in the
West in connection with
Hood's disastrous campaign, or his operations in
Sherman's front in the spring of 1865, until
General J. E. Johnston was placed in command.
There was nothing done on either of these fields, however, that could add to the reputation which
General Beauregard won at
Charleston and
Petersburg.
