Meanwhile, I entreat my friends not to trouble themselves about refuting the slanders and calumnies aimed against me. Alcibiades, on a certain occasion, resorted to an extraordinary method to occupy the minds of his traducers-let, then, that synopsis answer the same purpose for me in this instance. If certain minds cannot understand the difference between patriotism, the highest civic virtue, and office-seeking, the lowest civic occupation, I pity them from the bottom of my heart. Suffice it to say, that I prefer the respect and esteem of my countrymen to the admiration and envy of the world. I hope, for the sake of our cause and country, to be able, with the assistance of kind Providence, to answer my calumniators with new victories over our national enemies; but I have nothing to ask of the country, Government, or any friends, except to afford me all the aid they can in the great struggle we are now engaged upon. I am not either a candidate, nor do I desire to be a candidate, for any civil office in the gift of the people or Executive. The aim of my ambition, after having cast my mite in the defence of our sacred cause, and assisted, to the best of my ability, in securing our rights and independence as a nation, is to retire to private life, my means then permitting, never again to leave my home, unless to fight anew the battles of my country. Respectfully, your most obedient servant, P. G. T. BEAUREGARD. The statements of this letter were undoubtedly just. But it must be confessed that its publication was ill-advised; that there was a theatrical circumstance and tone about it that displeased many people; and that its effect was to aggravate a quarrel which was in all respects deplorable, and which did much to scandalize the Confederacy. CHAPTER XXI. Gen. Beauregard transferred to command in West Tennessee.-His order about "the bells."-He concentrates the Confederate forces at Corinth.-Battle of Shiloh.-A "lost opportunity."-Retreat to Tupelo.-He obtains a sick furlough.-President Davis deprives him of his command.-Official persecution of Gen. Beauregard.— Violent declarations of the President.-Gen. Beauregard in retirement.-A private letter on the war. nessee. IN January, 1862, Gen. Beauregard was ordered to West TenAfter the evacuation of Columbus, he was employed in fortifying Island No. 10, which was captured four days after he left there; urged as he was, by the rapid and serious movements of the Federal troops on the Tennessee River, to take command of the forces to oppose the enemy's progress in that direction. It was about this time Gen. Beauregard issued his famous order about bells to be moulded into cannon-an incident that furnished a good deal of poetry in the war. The following was his appeal to "the planters of the Mississippi Valley: HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE MISSISSIPPI, More than once a people fighting with an enemy less ruthless than yours; for imperilled rights not more dear and sacred than yours; for homes and a land not more worthy of resolute and unconquerable men than yours; and for interests of far less magnitude than you have now at stake, have not hesitated to melt and mould into cannon the precious bells surmounting their houses of God, which had called generations to prayer. The priesthood have ever sanctioned and consecrated the conversion, in the hour of their nation's need, as one holy and acceptable in the sight of God. We want cannon as greatly as any people who ever, as history tells you, melted their church-bells to supply them; and I, your General, intrusted with the command of the army embodied of your sons, your kinsmen and your neighbours, do now call on you to send your plantation-bells to the nearest railroad dépot, subject to my order, to be melted into cannon for the defence of your plantations. Who will not cheerfully and promptly send me his bells under such circumstances? Be of good cheer; but time is precious.* P. G. T. BEAUREGARD, The serious train of Confederate disasters in the West that, commencing with Fort Donelson, had opened the Mississippi and its tributaries, and carried the war to the Southern bank of the Tennessee, was now approaching another crisis. At the suggestion of Gen. Beauregard, troops were concentrated at Corinth, Mississippi. Imbued with a high sense of the cardinal principle in war-concentration-a principle illustrated by the military history of all wars, Gen. Beauregard sought to swell his inadequate force in all possible ways. He called on Gens. Bragg and Lovell for their disposable troops. Lovell had already, under orders of Gen. A. S. Johnston, detached for Corinth a fine brigade under Gen. Ruggles, with certain other troops, in all quite 5,000 men, choice troops of all arms. Gen. Bragg referred the matter to the War Department, by whom positive orders were declined, and the responsibility was left to him. He determined to withdraw his main force from Pensacola and Mobile, and join Gen. Beauregard, which he did in person at Jackson, Tennessee, about the 1st March, 1862. Gen. Van Dorn, also, was strenuously urged by Gen. Beauregard to transfer his whole command to the east bank of the Mississippi, and was already in motion to form the junction before the battle of Shiloh. The Governors of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, had also been called on by Gen. Beauregard for 5,000 men respectively, or as many as could be sent to him. Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, whose army was now falling back along the Nashville and Chattanooga railroad, was requested *The witty Louisville Journal had the following commentary: "The rebels can well afford to give up all their church-bells, cow-bells, and dinnerbells to Beauregard, for they never go to church now, their cows have been all taken by foraging parties, and they have no dinners to be summoned to.' by Gen. Beauregard to send froward to Corinth one or two of his brigades. That judicious commander sent a brigade at once, and announced his determination to make a junction, with his whole force, at Corinth, which, in the main, was effected by the last of March, 1862. The Confederate army here now consisted of1. Gen. Polk's army corps (infantry and artillery), 2. Gen. Bragg's army corps, consisting of his original command from Pensacola and Mobile, and Lovell's quota, with the new levies from Louisiana (infantry and artillery), 3. The Army of Kentucky, now subdivided into Hardee's army corps and reserve division, under Breckenridge, (infantry and artillery), 4. Untrained cavalry, distributed with the three corps, 9,136 13,589 13,228 35,953 With this force it was determined to advance upon Grant's army, which had obtained a position near Pittsburg, and, if possible, overwhelm it before it could be reinforced by Buell, who was advancing for that purpose by rapid marches from Nashville, by the way of Columbus. The plans of the battle were drawn up entirely by Gen. Beauregard and approved by Gen. Johnston. The action lasted two days, the 6th and 7th April. Gen. Beauregard, who wrote his official reports with great animation, has given so graphic a description of the conflict, that we readily copy portions of it in the general narrative. He says: "Thirty minutes after 5 o'clock A.M., our lines and columns were in motion, all animated evidently by a promising spirit. The first line was engaged at once, but advanced steadily, followed in due order, with equal resolution and steadiness, by the other lines, which were brought up successively into action, with rare skill, judgment, and gallantry, by the several corps commanders, as the enemy made a stand, and with his masses rallied for a struggle for his encampments. Like an Alpine avalanche our troops moved forward, despite the determined resistance of the enemy, until six o'clock P.M., when we were in possession of all his encampments between Owl and Lick creeks, but one. Nearly all of his artillery was taken, about thirty flags, colours, and standards, over three thousand prisoners, including a division commander (Gen. Prentiss) and several brigade commanders, thousands of small-arms, an immense supply of subsistence, forage, and munitions of war, and a large amount of means of transportation-all the substantial fruits of a complete victory. * * * "It was after six o'clock in the evening when the enemy's last position was carried, and his forces finally broke and sought refuge behind a commanding eminence, covering the Pittsburg Landing, not more than half a mile distant, and under the guns of the gunboats, which opened on our eager columns a fierce and annoying fire with shot and shell of the heaviest description." It was here that Gen. Beauregard unfortunately closed the battle for the day, and lost, we must confess, the most brilliant opportu nity of his military life. The shattered forces of the enemy were within a circuit of less than a mile around Pittsburg Landing. There was time to complete the victory; one effort more, and the routed, dispirited, and disorganized mass would have been driven into the river. It was known by Gen. Beauregard that Buell was in close vicinity, and that in a short time his army would reinforce that of Grant. But the last supreme effort to destroy Grant, and render the march of Buell futile, was not made. Gen. Beauregard, influenced by the disorganized condition of his troops, whom he describes as jaded, but eager to gather the spoils of the field already won, refrained from attacking, and sent orders to the brigades, which were actually preparing in the darkness of the evening for one last effort, to withdraw. Night accomplished the junction of Buell's forces with Grant, and decided Beauregard's lost opportunity. The next day is thus described in Gen. Beauregard's official report: "About six o'clock on the morning of the 7th April, a hot fire of musketry and artillery opened from the enemy's quarter on our advanced line, assured me of the junction of his forces, and soon the battle raged with a fury which satisfied me I was attacked by a largely superiour force **** Again and again our troops were brought to the charge, invariably to win the position at issue, invariably to drive back their foe. But hour by hour, thus opposed to an enemy constantly reinforced, our ranks were perceptibly thinned under the unceasing, withering fire of the enemy; and by twelve meridian, eighteen |