General Beauregard

WE have before us the military operations of General Beauregard ¹ detailed in two large octavos. A considerable part of each volume consists of an appendix, containing official and other documents, many of them of great interest. There are excellent indices at the end of the second volume, both of the text and the documents. There are two portraits of the subject of the memoir.

Colonel Roman has written a careful and exhaustive biography of his chief. Beauregard, in the preface, indorses all his statements and comments, excepting only his eulogiums upon Beauregard himself. The book is, we are obliged to say, unnecessarily long; there is a good deal of repetition in it, and many episodes, especially those involving the personal differences between General Beauregard and President Davis, are, in our judgment, dwelt upon with needless particularity. But the work is unquestionably a very valuable contribution to the history of the late war; and, from the standpoint of the student, it may well be that, looking at it as in great part consisting of mémoires pour servir, there is no excess either of material or of comment.

No officer in the Confederate service had such a varied experience as Beauregard. From the capture of Fort Sumter to the surrender of Johnston, he was almost constantly in active service, and it was his fortune to be connected with several of the most important and picturesque events of the war. It was under his direction and control that the militia of South Carolina surrounded Fort Sumter with their batteries and compelled its surrender. It was he who, with General Joseph E. Johnston, fought and won the first battle of Bull Run, the cause of so much unfounded rejoicing, and the parent of so much vain confidence. It was he who, with General Albert Sydney Johnston, planned and carried out the brilliant and almost completely successful attack upon Grant’s position at Pittsburg Landing, the first of a series of hard-fought, sanguinary, and indecisive engagements, of which our war furnished so many examples. It was through Beauregard’s indomitable spirit and masterly engineering skill that Fort Sumter and Charleston were so stoutly defended against the ironclads of Admiral Dahlgren and the batteries of General Gillmore. It was due to Beauregard’s obstinate resolution that Petersburg was not taken on the 16th and 17th of June, 1864, and the evacuation of Richmond anticipated by nearly a year. Finally, we find him again associated with Joseph E. Johnston, collecting the scattered and decimated forces of the tottering Confederacy, in the vain hope of arresting Sherman’s march through the Carolinas, until the surrender at Greensboro’ ended the career begun at Sumter and Bull Run. Wherever we see him we find him active, enterprising, daring, in fact, to the verge of rashness; extremely methodical, also, and most industrious. He impresses us as a man devoted to his profession, and simply to his profession. He does not seem to have been hampered by any of those feelings of responsibility, arising from a mingling of the duties of soldier and statesman, which to a greater or less extent undoubtedly influenced the judgment of some of the most prominent generals on either side. Beauregard appears always to have preserved a perfectly clear military head ; he was always capable of advising the most unwelcome measures, when he thought they were demanded by the situation ; to him Richmond, even, and Charleston were only squares on the military chessboard. We shall have occasion to advert to this subject further on. Let us now briefly follow General Beauregard through the war.

After his reduction of Fort Sumter, with which we will not detain the reader, we find Beauregard in command of the main body of the Confederate forces at Manassas Junction, and Joseph E. Johnston in command of the troops in the Shenandoah Valley. The principal Federal army, under McDowell, lay in front of Beauregard. Patterson, in the Valley, confronted Johnston. The enemy had adopted, under the advice of General Lee, a strictly defensive policy. Beauregard, on the other hand, advised, as early as the 12th of June, that Johnston should unite his forces with the main body, and that an effort should be made to capture Alexandria and Arlington Heights. But this suggestion was not received by the President with favor, and things went on in the same way for another month, when it became evident that the national forces intended taking the offensive at an early day, and equally plain, at least to General Beauregard, that the advance would be made against his army at Manassas, and not against Johnston’s in the Shenandoah Valley. Me therefore recommended the immediate transfer of the latter force to the main army. He sent an aide to Richmond on July 14th to represent the danger of a Federal advance with overwhelming numbers, and to urge that he should be reinforced by the bulk of Johnston’s army. As soon as this should be done, he proposed to take the offensive against the Federals in front of Washington. But Davis and Lee declined to act upon the suggestion. They may, as Colonel Roman claims, have been wrong ; but it strikes us as probable that the extremely sanguine hue which Beauregard gave to his project, and the predictions of unlimited success which he authorized his aide to make to the President and General Lee, — such as “exterminating” Scott and McDowell, “driving them into the Potomac,” then going to the Valley and “destroying ” Patterson, and after this had been achieved reinforcing Garnett in West Virginia and defeating McClellan, and finally crossing into Maryland, “ arousing the people ” and attacking Washington, — probably had a good deal to do with their hesitation to take the first step which Beauregard proposed, the transfer to the army at Manassas of the bulk of that in the Valley. In fact, Beauregard’s imagination, while it often enabled him to foresee the movements of the enemy with really astonishing accuracy, and to find ways and means of counteracting them, was generally allowed too prominent a place in his projects. Beauregard had a great deal of the sanguine and excitable nature of a Frenchman about him; and this quality, together with his never failing and always expressed belief that the course which he advocated would be followed by complete and overwhelming success, undoubtedly jarred upon the nerves of the elderly Anglo-Saxon military men, Davis. Lee, Johnston, and the rest with whom he had to do, and created in their minds a feeling of distrust, which most of our readers will not fail to understand, and even, to a certain extent, to sympathize with. Still, there can be no doubt that Mr. Davis and his advisers allowed their prejudices to carry them too far. Beauregard, in his advice to them at this time, as afterwards on other and also important occasions, was supplying a want which none of them could supply. In imagination, in enterprise, in daring, he was their superior. His suggestions were, moreover, the suggestions of a trained military mind, in possession of all the facts of the case that could be at that time ascertained; and so far as concerned the first step that he recommended, — that the bulk of Johnston’s forces should be at once transferred to his own command, — he was not only right, but the peril against which he was urging them to provide was even more imminent than any one then supposed.

Beauregard’s advice, as we have seen, was given on Sunday, the 14th. On Tuesday, the 16th, McDowell began his march. On the 17th he occupied Fairfax Court House. Not till then was Johnston ordered to join Beauregard, and no part of his troops arrived till the 20th. A portion, as is well known, came up on Sunday afternoon, the 21st, while the battle was in full progress ; and had McDowell been able to adhere to his original plan of attacking the enemy’s right, at Blackburn’s and Mitchell’s Fords, and below them, the battle must have taken place before a single regiment of Johnston’s command had reached Manassas Junction, or Beauregard must have fallen back without a fight, which is perhaps more probable.

It appears that the idea of a pursuit of the Federal forces after the rout at Bull Run was never entertained, either by Davis, Johnston, or Beauregard; the want of transportation rendered it out of the question. But about the last of September, 1861, both Johnston and Beauregard strongly urged that the strength of the army should be raised to sixty thousand men, and that the war should be carried into Maryland. The plan was to cross at Edwards’s or Conrad’s Ferry, and then to march on Washington; relying on the greater cohesion and élan of the Southern army to defeat the then raw troops of General McClellan. But Mr. Davis refused his assent, and the project was abandoned.

We next find Beauregard sent to the West, where Albert Sydney Johnston had suffered serious reverses. Forts Henry and Donelson had been taken, with many guns and thousands of prisoners. The States of Kentucky and Tennessee had been nearly abandoned ; the Mississippi had been opened as far as Island No. 10 ; the Confederate forces had been widely separated. In this state of things, Johnston and Beauregard conceived the brilliant plan of reuniting at the earliest moment the wings of the army; calling up all outlying detachments and all possible reinforcements, and attacking the Federal army under Grant before it could be augmented by the forces of Buell. We do not care to discuss the question how the merit of this plan is to be apportioned. Suffice it to say that both commanders entered heartily into it, and that their daring scheme for the rehabilitation of the Confederate cause in the West was gallantly supported by their troops. The battle of Shiloh, fought on April 6-7, 1862, was a battle of the old-fashioned kind,—a pitched battle; and, after the advantage which the Confederates derived from their surprise of our army had been exhausted, it was a very hard-fought battle. It was a new experience to the troops on both sides, and was an education in itself.

Beauregard has been criticised for not having accomplished more on the first day ; but we fail to see that anything more was possible.

Corinth, a very important railway and strategic centre, to which Beauregard retreated after the battle, was held against Halleck and his greatly superior force until May 30th, when Beauregard drew off his army in excellent order and condition. His health now requiring attention, he was relieved from duty. We find him next at Charleston, where he arrived in September of the same year. Here he was already well known and highly thought of; and here, too, was a chance for him to display those resources of engineering art which he possessed in so great a degree. The autumn and winter were occupied in providing for the assaults which were sure to be made in the ensuing spring. Beauregard’s activity, industry, and skill were never displayed on a better field. Finally the long-expected blow was delivered. On April 7, 1863, Admiral Dupont, with a fleet of ironclads, attacked Fort Sumter; but after some hours of gallant and determined fighting the ships were obliged to confess themselves beaten by the forts.

Two months after this event General Gillmore superseded General Hunter in charge of the land operations against Charleston. We observe that General Beauregard considers that his plan of attack was faulty. “ It was fortunate,” says Colonel Roman, speaking the views of General Beauregard, “ that, shortly afterwards, the new commanding general, in whose daring and engineering ability the North greatly relied, preferred making his attack by Morris Island, instead of on the broad and weak front of James Island, where he might have penetrated our long, attenuated lines, and taken Charleston in flank and rear. Nothing then could have prevented Sumter from falling ; for there can be no doubt that General Gillmore would have immediately increased the armament at and around Fort Johnson, and have thus completely commanded the interior harbor. The possession of Charleston and of all the South Carolina sea-coast would have followed as a necessary sequence.” It is not for us to decide between two such authorities, but merely to state the different views. That Gillmore’s opponent should entertain the view that his plan was a faulty one in its conception is certainly an interesting fact. Whether General Gillmore did or did not adopt the proper line of attack, it is undeniable that Beauregard foiled him in his efforts to take Sumter and to capture Charleston. Sumter, its batteries silenced, was, it is true, reduced to something very much resembling a pile of stones and rubbish; but the Confederate flag on the flagstaff on its summit was daily saluted, night and morning, until the march of Sherman through South Carolina forced the evacuation of Charleston and its forts. And the book before us gives an interesting account of the marvelous daring and the equally marvelous engineering skill and fertility of resource by which the cradle of secession was for so long a period defended against its powerful antagonists.

By the spring of 1864 the Federal operations against Charleston had virtually ceased. It was considered impracticable to effect anything further without the aid of a more powerful land force ; and the plans of the government contemplated the employment in Virginia of General Gillmore himself, and of a large portion of the troops which he had been commanding in the department of the South. In April Beauregard was also ordered to Virginia, to assist in the defense of Richmond.

General Grant, who had recently been placed at the head of all the armies of the United States, had determined to accompany the Army of the Potomac in its march from the Rapidan upon Richmond. He had also prepared an auxiliary expedition under General Butler, which should land at Bermuda Hundred, a point on the river James about half-way between Petersburg and Richmond, and which should take possession of the railroad between those cities, which runs south from Richmond, near to and following for a few miles the course of the river. Having acquired this important position, Butler was to capture Richmond or Petersburg, as he might find most feasible.

Of all this, nothing, of course, was known at Richmond. But the somewhat ostentatious reorganization of the Ninth corps, at Annapolis, awakened the suspicions of General Beauregard. He scented danger in the air. He felt sure that the Federal generals intended to make a bold and vigorous campaign, and he was fully alive to the exposed condition of Petersburg and Richmond. But at this moment, just on the eve of the campaign, just when the Confederate government should have been completing their preparations for the defense of the capital and its approaches, he finds they have denuded Petersburg of troops in an ill-advised attempt to recapture Newbern, North Carolina. On the 22d of April, 1864, he arrived at Weldon ; on the 25th he urged upon General Bragg, then commanding the forces of the Confederacy under the supervision of President Davis, the probability of an immediate attack upon Richmond and Petersburg, and the danger of scattering the forces of the department. But his representations were of no avail. Full of the project of repossessing themselves of the coast of North Carolina, the administration disregarded Beauregard’s advice, until, on the 4th of May, Butler, with thirty thousand men, had landed at Bermuda Hundred. Then, indeed, there was a hurried concentration. From Plymouth and the Neuse, from Wilmington and from Charleston, troops were hurried up to Richmond “with the greatest dispatch.” “ There was,” as Davis said in his telegram of May 4th, “ not an hour to lose.”

Fortunately for the Confederates, the expedition to Bermuda Hundred was not under the direction of an able and enterprising soldier. There was a delay of a few days before anything was even attempted, and then the attempt was a poor affair. Two good officers of the regular army, commanded by a civilian general, did not make a strong board of direction. Beauregard had leisure to collect his forces. By the time he was ready to strike — for his usual policy, and it was generally a good one, and it proved an especially wise one in the present case, was to take the offensive — he found that our troops had advanced towards Richmond from Bermuda Hundred, had taken possession of the Petersburg and Richmond railroad, and were facing north ; their line extending from the river on the right, not far from Drury’s Bluff, to a point beyond the railroad in a westerly direction. Between this line and Richmond was the little army of Beauregard. In Petersburg was a Confederate division under Major-General Whiting. Beauregard’s plan was to make his main attack on our extreme right, close to the river, and so cut us off from our base at Bermuda Hundred, while Whiting’s division was to assault us in rear. The result was a serious defeat for our forces, which would doubtless have been a more crushing one had Whiting’s division participated in the action. But owing to the fault of that officer this part of the plan was not carried out.

The outcome of this brilliant affair was that General Butler’s operations came abruptly to an end. He retired to Bermuda Hundred, fortifying the short neck of land between the James and the Appomattox which constituted the westerly line of his position ; and when Beauregard had constructed a like series of works opposite to his, his army,” to use General Grant’s celebrated phrase, “ though in a position of great security, was as completely shut off from further operations against Richmond as if it had been in a bottle strongly corked.”

Having for the time being thus disposed of the immediate danger, Beauregard made, on the 18th of May, one of his characteristic proposals to the war department. Lee and Grant were confronting each other at Spottsylvania, some fifty or sixty miles from Richmond. This proposition shows so well the military sagacity of Beauregard that we venture to copy the greater part of his letter : —

“ Memorandum. The crisis demands prompt and decisive action. The two armies are now too far apart to secure success, unless we consent to give up Petersburg and place the capital in jeopardy. If General Lee will fall back behind the Chickahominy, engaging the enemy so as to draw him on, General Beauregard can bring up fifteen thousand men to unite with Breckinridge [who had been sent for from the Valley], and fall upon the enemy’s flank with over twenty thousand men effective, thus rendering Grant’s defeat certain and decisive, and in time to enable General Beauregard to return with a reinforcement from General Lee to drive Butler from Petersburg and from his present position. For three days, perhaps four at most, Petersburg and Richmond would be held by the forces left there for that purpose. Without such concentration nothing decisive can be effected, and the picture presented is one of starvation. Without concentration General Lee must eventually fall back before Grant’s heavy reinforcements, and the view presented merely anticipates this movement for offensive purposes.”

It certainly may be said that, had this plan been carried out, the battle would have been fought when the army under Grant was by no means as strong as it was on the day of Cold Harbor. But whether the united forces of Lee and Beauregard could have inflicted a “ decisive” defeat upon the Army of the Potomac, entrenched as it would unquestionably have been, we take the liberty, pace General Beauregard, to doubt. Yet it must be borne in mind that what he predicted in this memorandum actually came to pass. True it was that without such a concentration as he urged nothing could be effected, and that “ the picture presented was one of starvation;” that is, of inaction and decay, resulting in inevitable and utter failure. It may well be that Beauregard’s counsel was not only bold, but wise.

No notice seems to have been taken of it, however, and the armies of Grant and Lee occupied a fortnight in getting down to Cold Harbor; the reinforcements received by Grant during this time largely exceeding those received by Lee. To fight his great battle Grant took the Eighteenth corps away from Bermuda Hundred. After he had delivered his ill-advised assault on the lines of Cold Harbor, there was for a time a lull in the progress of the campaign. But this was merely to concert a scheme, by which Grant hoped to seize Petersburg with his whole army, while Lee was still on the north bank of the James. This masterly movement, the successful accomplishment of which has been generally overlooked in considering the extremely unsatisfactory performances of the army after it had arrived before Petersburg, was begun on the 12th of June.

General Grant saw that unless he could induce General Lee to believe that he was aiming at Richmond his object would not be achieved. Therefore, after breaking camp at Cold Harbor, he manœuvred so skillfully on the Chickahominy and near Charles City Cross Roads that he completely deceived his adversary, both as to his whereabouts and his intentions. Smith’s corps, the Eighteenth, was put on transports, and sent back to Bermuda Hundred, where it arrived on the 14th, and moved at once upon Petersburg. A pontoon bridge was laid across the James at Windmill Point, below the junction with the Appomattox, and the Second corps, under General Hancock, despite an entirely unnecessary delay at the crossing, for which nobody seems to be responsible, reached, with two divisions, the outer works of Petersburg about dark on the 15th, just after Smith, who had come up before noon, had succeeded in capturing them.

Ever since the 7th, Beauregard had foreseen this movement of Grant’s. He had been obliged to weaken his small force by sending Hoke’s division and two brigades of Johnson’s division to Lee, in anticipation of the battle of Cold Harbor; and all he had to depend upon was the remainder of Johnson’s division, which was in front of Bermuda Hundred, and Wise’s brigade, Dearing’s cavalry, and a few militia at Petersburg. On the 7th he begged Bragg to return his troops from Lee’s army, expressing his belief that “ Grant doubtless intends operating against Richmond along James River, probably on south side.” On the 9th he wrote a careful memorandum to General Bragg, suggesting that Grant would probably operate from Bermuda Hundred as a base against Petersburg. At last, on the very morning when Smith’s corps appeared before Petersburg, Hoke’s division was allowed to leave Drury’s Bluff for Petersburg. It arrived just in time for one of its brigades to participate in the withdrawal of the troops of Wise from the outer line, which Smith had broken in the afternoon. Beauregard instantly decided that the enemy’s main attack was against Petersburg, and he at once withdrew Johnson’s division from the lines at Bermuda Hundred. Grade’s brigade also arrived from Lee’s army. His forces did not exceed fifteen thousand men. Colonel Roman puts them at a “ total effective of about ten thousand men,” but we think the larger number is nearer the fact.

But not only were the Eighteenth corps and two divisions of the Second corps the assailants of Petersburg. On the morning of the 16th of June the remaining division of the Second corps appeared, and, soon after, the Ninth corps, one division (Neill’s) of the Sixth (the other two being sent to Bermuda Hundred), and, later in the day, the Fifth corps. One division of the Eighteenth corps was, however, sent to Bermuda Hundred.

Beauregard’s little force maintained such a firm front, and held still such advanced positions, that the Federal generals were deceived as to its strength. It was not till dark on the 16th that an assault was ordered. It was measurably successful. But although a portion of the lines was carried, the remainder was obstinately held, and attempt after attempt was made during the night to recover the lost ground. The next morning, the 17th, Potter’s division of the Ninth corps made a brilliant assault on the left of our line, capturing guns and prisoners; but there was no proper provision to support the attack, although the Fifth corps was lying idle on the left of the Ninth. The other two white divisions of the Ninth corps were put in during the day and evening ; but they were put in one after the other, without being supported to any effective degree either by each other or by the corps on the left and light, the Fifth and Second. The first division of the Ninth corps, for instance, made a brilliant charge at dusk, and captured the enemy’s works ; but it was allowed to be driven out again, for want of reinforcements and ammunition. On our right, the Second and Sixth corps won some important ground, but their generals seem to have remained satisfied with very inadequate results. In fact, while allowance must of course be made for the fatigue of the troops, it is really impossible to understand the utter failure of the Army of the Potomac to improve its golden opportunity of taking Petersburg on June l6th and 17th except on the hypothesis that Beauregard’s handling of his forces completely deceived our commanders. His policy was so daring that his adversaries supposed they were fighting the whole or a large part of the army of General Lee. No one could imagine that with twelve or fifteen thousand men a general would undertake to hold such an extended front, to stick so obstinately to weak and untenable positions, to try repeatedly by desperate counter-assaults to recapture the ground which had been wrested from him. The tactics of the Confederate general were bold indeed. Had the Fifth corps, at any time while the rest of the army were engaging Beauregard’s forces, marched up the Jerusalem plank road into Petersburg, the whole game would have been up. But this seems not to have been even thought of. We repeat that it is no wonder that the unaccountable failure of the Army of the Potomac to accomplish anything of moment during these two days has obscured the brilliant strategy by which the army had these two days given to it in which to make itself master of Petersburg.

For, during this time, Lee was on the north side of the James, fully expecting that Grant intended a direct move on Richmond. Able as Lee undoubtedly was, he failed on this occasion to divine his opponent’s scheme. Nor could Beauregard rouse him to a sense of the danger of the situation. Dispatch after dispatch, aide after aide, were sent to Richmond ; but the alarming news they brought was attributed to Beauregard’s too fertile imagination. Among the most curious stories in the book are those of the staff officers whom Beauregard sent at this time to General Lee. It was not till Beauregard telegraphed, on the 17th, that, unless reinforced, he would have to evacuate Petersburg by noon of the next day that Lee consented to move to Petersburg; and even then he expressed himself as “ not yet satisfied of General Grant’s movements.”

On the morning of Saturday, the 18th, accordingly, General Lee’s army began to appear. On that day the same fatality pursued the Federal leaders as had marked their doings for the preceding forty-eight hours. Meade’s order to attack at daybreak, which could have been and ought to have been carried out to the letter, would even then have gained us the possession of Petersburg. When our troops moved, early on Saturday morning, they found the lines of the night before abandoned ; in pressing on, they allowed themselves to be detained by the enemy’s skirmishers; finally, they arrived in front of the formidable positions, near the city itself, on which Beauregard, with excellent judgment, had placed his little force, and which were the positions held to the end of the war. Here our corps commanders saw fit to halt; and while they were thus delaying in front of the thin lines of Beauregard,—which at that moment they could either have broken by a direct assault, or have turned by way of the Jerusalem Road, — the gallant little force which had so well defended Petersburg was reinforced by the army of Northern Virginia. At half past ten o’clock in the morning appeared General Lee himself, at the head of Kershaw’s division. And when, after a sufficient time had been spent in making preparation, the Federal army delivered their assault it was a total failure. Despite of the greatest courage and self-devotion on the part of both officers and men, we were repulsed at every point, with great slaughter. Our want of enterprise had cost us dear.

Beauregard was in Petersburg at the time of the explosion of the mine, on the 30th of July, 1864, and Colonel Roman gives us much that is interesting and valuable in regard to that most unfortunate day.

In the autumn of 1864, Beauregard was again sent to the West, to command the armies of Hood and Taylor. His authority over these officers seems not to have been very clearly defined. He certainly took no active part in the disastrous campaign of General Hood.

But in the winter and early spring of 1865 we find him, at first alone, afterwards with his old comrade, Joseph E.

Johnston, working hard to get together a respectable force, to arrest the progress of Sherman in the Carolinas. Matters were at a desperate pass for the Southern cause. The “ march to the sea ” gave the Federals two armies on the Atlantic coast. Sherman left Savannah on the 1st of February, on his march northward, and to the armies of Grant and Lee “ there came,” as Swinton well says, “ rolling across the plains of the Carolinas, beating nearer and nearer, the drums of Champion Hills and Shiloh.” Unless Sherman could be stopped, the Confederacy was doomed. On the other hand, such was the weariness of the war in the North and in Europe, and so precarious seemed the condition of the Federal finances, that a severe defeat inflicted upon Sherman, while in the Carolinas, might yet, so some sagacious men thought, restore the falling fortunes of the South. It might accomplish for the Confederacy what was accomplished for the colonies by the bloody and indecisive battle of Guilford Court House, which Greene forced upon Cornwallis in March, 1781.

But to effect this required the instant adoption of a policy of concentration. Augusta, Columbia, Goldsboro’, Wilmington, Charleston,— even, as Beauregard thought, Richmond itself,—should be abandoned at once. Any and every sacrifice of local feeling should be unhesitatingly made. No associations were too sacred to be given up, if only a force could be raised capable of coping with Sherman’s powerful and well-appointed army. This policy Beauregard strongly advocated. He soon, however, found obstacles in his way. The Confederacy had deeply felt the loss of Savannah. But to abandon Charleston was too terrible even to think of. General Hardee doubted and delayed at the last moment. Davis ordered him to postpone the evacuation of the city as long as was prudent, hoping “ to save the pain of seeing it pass into the hands of the enemy.” From causes like this, Beauregard’s policy was blocked at every stage ; the result fell far short of his hopes. Sherman, in the mean time, was steadily pursuing his onward course. He compelled the evacuation of Augusta, Columbia, Charleston, and Wilmington, as an inevitable consequence of his admirable strategy. He completely deceived his adversaries as to his real intentions; he kept them separated from each other; and it was not until his masterly march from Savannah to Goldsboro’ was wellnigh completed that Johnston, who had succeeded Beauregard in command, was able to strike the well-meant but feeble blows of Bentonville and Averysboro’. Sherman had deserved his success.

After the evacuation of Richmond and the surrender of General Lee, Mr. Davis had an interview with Johnston and Beauregard at Greensboro’, North Carolina. Of this interview General Johnston, in the appendix to the second volume (page 664), gives a curious account. The military men were all of a mind. They considered the situation as hopeless, and so expressed themselves. With them agreed the Secretary of War, Breckinridge, and all the members of the cabinet except the President and Mr. Benjamin. The latter, General Johnston says, “ repeated something very like Sempronius’s speech for war. Mr. Davis,” the general goes on to say, “ received these suggestions of mine as if annoyed by them.” Beauregard reports that the President said that the struggle could still be carried on to a successful issue by bringing out all the latent resources of the Confederacy, and, if necessary, by crossing the Mississippi and uniting with Kirby Smith’s forces. But he was finally compelled to hear reason, and General Johnston was permitted to open negotiations with Sherman.

Here we leave our subject. It needs not to be said that Colonel Roman’s book is a very important contribution to our history ; that no library which aims at getting together the important works on the late war can omit it. It is long, and it is written with more minuteness on certain topics than seems to us to be necessary. But there may well be questions in the investigation of which one would find that these pains had all been well bestowed.

The book bears throughout abundant evidence of a very strong feeling against the late President of the Southern Confederacy. We have purposely refrained from bringing this feature into prominence ; nor do we deem it necessary to say more here than that the reader will find in this work many grave charges of inefficiency, obstinacy, and prejudice against the administration of Mr. Davis, and a good deal of evidence in their favor.