THE
Beaureqard’s
Headquarters
in Charleston
The Great Creole
(ARN pletures from Basso's “Beauregard, The Great
Creole,” courtesy Charles Seribner's Sons.)
4%
By ELMO SCOTT WATSON
E ORDERED the firing on Fort Sum-
ter and thus furnished the spark
which set off the mighty conflagra-
tion of the greatest civil war in his-
tory. But this “kindliest military
engagement in history, conducted
with the utmost good nature, almost
tenderness, on both sides—a pleas-
ant curtain-raiser which gave no
hint of the grimness to follow” was hailed as a
great victory and he became the idol of a new
nition, the Confederate States of America.
The Confederate congress, In behalf of the
new nation, voted him a resolution of thanks.
The general assembly of South Carolina, the
Scene of his great “victory,” did the same. Citi
zens of his native New Orleans raised funds
to buy a golden sword for him. His admirers
In Montgomery, Ala. the Confederate capital,
decided to buy him a new horse and present it
to him upon his next visit there. He received
more than 250 letters of congratulation and the
manuscripts of five poems written to him.
Then he was ordered to Richmond to confer
with President Jefferson Davis and his progress
north was a triumphal procession with cheering
crowds and blaring bands at every railroad
Junction. Wherever he appeared, the crowds
demanded a speech, Arriving in Richmond, he
“was bustled and shoved and kissed and had to
stand with a scarlet, embarrassed face while a
spindly maiden of forty, to whom forty made no
difference, snipped a button from his coat.”
Three months later two uniformed mobs
fought a battle near Manassas or Bull Run in
Virginia. The uniformed mob which had
marched south, many of them carrying lengths
of rope “to lead a Rebel prisoner back to Wash-
ington,” went back toward that city in a panie-
stricken rout almost unparalleled in history.
The uniformed mob which had marched north,
each man confident of his ability to “whip five
Yankees before breakfast” experienced unex.
pected difficulties in whipping two. But theirs
was the victory, anyway. and after that another
extravaganza of hero
In the South they began naming children
after him. There was talk of making him Pres
ident of the Confederates States of America.
He had to keep an extra supply of coat buttons
In his tent—they snipped them off so fast,
As you have probably already guessed. the
object of all this frenzy was Plerre Gustave
Toutant Beafiregard, a general in the Confeder-
ate army in 1861.
“But,” you say, “if he was such a great hero
then, why do we hear so little of him now?" To
find the answer to that question, turn to 8 new
biography which has just been published by
Charles Scribner's Sons. It is “Beauregard. the
Great Creole,” written by Hamilton Basso, who
bas set about the task of rescuing from ob-
scurity the man once hailed as “one of the
greatest military figures in history.”
In the prologue to his biography, Mr. Basso
says: “Occasionally, in the text-books we came
across his name. But it is only rarely, and then
with a scant line or two they are done with him,
“He has fallen into obscurity, even In the
South where once he was loved and honored as
much as Lee. And so, in writing of him, It has
interested me to seek an explanation of his neg-
lect and effacement. The fault, 1 believe, and
the blame (if there is any blame) is that of the
traditionalists and the myth-makers—all the
Happy Galahads of the Picturesque.”
Mr. Basso then points out that In 1865 when
the Civil war ended, a ruined, a defeated peo-
ple returned to the daily routine of peace-time
life, a changed life in which “they had no pres.
ent and, so far as they could see, no future. All
that was left inviolate was the past.” And the
prostrate South clung desperately to its mem.
ories of the beauty, the chivalry and the romance
that had been In the past.
In the years that followed, myths and legends
began to spring up to form the parts of the
“plantation or Southern tradition” and a part of
that tradition was that of the Civil war gen.
eral. “Here, fortunately, the myth-makers were
pot called upon to exercise their creative in
genuity to any great extent. Their hero was
already made. His name was Robert Edward
Lee. Lee, then, became the legendary hero, He
wis the model the others must measure up to.
A few Bouthern generals, notably Stonewall
Jackson, Albert Sidney Johnston, rad Jeb
Stuart, bore many points of resemblance to Lee.
The tradition, therefore, could Incorporate them
into its dogma.” ’
But Beauregard could not be so Included
worship
in every respect. Then, too, Beauregard was nu
Frenchman and the tradition is essentially An-
glo-Saxon. Add to this the bitter antagonism
that np between President Jefferson
Laure Villere Beauregard
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 in-
terference with his strategy of waging a de-
fengive 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 war which
would 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 had
given a free hand from the outset. There is
no doubt that he had in him the makings of »
great soldier but he seems always to have just
missed success—whether own
shortcomings or because of circumstances over
which he had no control, it is difficult to say.
Beauregard was born on a plantation in Loui
siana 115 years May 28, 1818—when
that state was stili 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 Na.
poleon, and listened to ‘heir 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
Kentuckian named Robert Anderson. A little
over a quarter of a century later the former
student was to order his soldiers to opeh fire
on the fort defended by the former instructor
but he was not present when the fort was sur
rendered. “It would be an unhonorable thing.”
he declared, “to be present at the humiliation
of his friend.”
In 1838 Beauregard was graduated from West
Point, second in a class of 45. One of his class
mates was named Irvin McDowell, And 28
years later Irvin McDowell and Pierre Gustave
Toutant Beauregard were to be commanders of
the opposing forces when Bull Run creek In Vir-
ginia received its bloody baptism.
After graduation Beauregard, a lieutenant in
the engineers corps, first helped In the construe
tion of Fort Adams in Ihode Island. Then he
was sent to take charge of ad engineering 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 distingushed
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
Chaultepec. 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 rapid.
ly slipping Into obscurity.
Then by pulling certain wires he succeeded
in getting himself appointed as commandant at
West Point. This was two days after Lincoln's
election in 1860 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 Loui-
#iana, thus establishing a record for briefness
in the time which any officer held that post.
Louisiana seceded and Beauregard, the engl.
neer, who had prepared and presented a com-
prehensive program for She Gettin = the Mis
siesippl river passage was to Montgomery
for a special meeting with Provisional President
offensive
decide
the Napoleonic tradition, been
his
because of
Just ago
i
eaureqard softer Shiloh
and said he would be gone a fortnizht. He
kone four
During those four years he rose to the height
of hizx military ar
Within a short
definitely “in bad” with
of war, He w
ment of the West as second in cot
Johnston, At the
Landing a bullet
the command
with certain
annihilated
was
years"
tion and sank to the depths,
Manassas he was
Davis and the secretary
Ben jamit sent to the
bert S ney
or Pittsburg
Johnston
Beauregard
when he
he ordered
and devolved
But
have
the fighting
victory in
could Gsrant’s army,
stopped. He retreated
to Corinth leaving Grant in possession
After Shiloh the whisperings against 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
Halleck might
fact, he was relieved of his command and sue
have Despite this
ceeded by Gen
“peta”
The iliness which bad troubled him since the
beginning of the war made a long leave of ab-
sence necessary and after he had somewhat re
Charleston seain, ‘here he
sisted a Federal attack aimed at this “breeding
place of secession. In 1864 he was serving un-
of Grant around Richmond.
beat off an attack which
nine more months
surrendered, there was a dramatic meeting be
tween Davis and Beauregard, Davis was plead.
ing for a continuance of the war.
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 peo-
ple. But In the years that followed the hero
worship, even in Loulsiana, faded. There was
the matter of the Louisiana lottery. the zam-
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 whose greatness of name would lend
character and dignity to the lottery and 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. Plerre 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 18008 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 lliness 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 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 polgnant
with the ghosts of men in weath 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 quiet and
the censing of his heart and the peaceful com
ing of the - i
4B by Western Newspaper Union)
i .
akg
By EMILY POST
Author of “Etiquette, the Blue Book of
Social Usage,” "The Personality
of a House,” Etc.
THE “COMING OUT” OF A
DEBUTANTE
In other days a “coming out purty”
was not only of vital Importance to
the debutante for whom it was giv-
en, and to her Triends but of
interest to society as a whole, which
own
the debutante’'s soclal qualifications
Uo put horse shows and dog shows,
country fairs and debuts in the san
entegory Is perhaps
illusion, but it
the truth,
A dance,
Include only
the
destroying to
is not at all
instead of a ball,
the intimate
hostess, nll the
tantes and younger
This would mean that
is “presented” only to
best friends, to whom
nusly well nnd to the
of her own age.
season's debuy
dancing
her
she Is obvi
known, giris
In other days the socinl success of
a debutante
degree upon the approval or
hostesses who
dinners and to git in their oper;
If they did not
left her more
boxes approve
or less marooned. To
The
other debutantes is
not exist dehutnnte
liked by
ever mothers
the
ywhere, Even the
debutantes (Jet ale:
HI
COYOTES A MENACE
Coyotes in the upper reaches of the
Cascade mountains sare becoming
more and more wolf like every year.
says Boyd Hildebrand, Okanogan,
Wash., widely known coyote and econ
gar hunter. He asserts that the coy-
otes, driven high into the mountains
by man's encroachment on their do
main, are traveling in packs. Their
depredations will result in a 25 per
cent decrease of the deer fawn ere p
this year. Hildebrand urges employ
ment of competent hunters to eradi
cate the coyotes,
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or more. And
none but her own friends,
both girls and boya
Zives a theater
with supper
aflterwurds, or gives a
dinner at
limit to
to be
the nn:
Us suppose that
to introduce
# Ble
little
the type of
given and no exsaction
nihor of
her mother wants
her formally w=
giving a party at all! Nothing
Fuge impler, 1 more onveniently
thout
could
pro : She need merel; mye the
dar
card
send this ecard a small en
her own on an ord nary s iting
and
velope,
are
ex
i wed dresses
n the after At an
there is no
[sn
dance
pour
wenr
only
» other hand, it is
vention be
h hosi ess,
A debutante tea is the
} On
all rules of
those of local
merely that
ances it is
thbors
oOn
cust
under us
than to
do, attempt
is innovations
they happen to be
Paris, or London, or New
the
to beauty,
& 1922. by Emily Post
the
York-—un
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The dental mechanic takes an In. |
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