Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 12.djvu/446

 436 Southern Historical Society Papers.

the fertile and healthful black-land region of Mississippi. With his usual caution, celerity, and success he executed this retreat, which is always a difficult military operation to effect without disaster, when having to elude the grasp of an enterprising and vigilant enemy.

Whilst at Corinth General Beauregard, by dint of excessive efforts and by the magnetism of his popularity, had succeeded in concentra- ting again fifty thousand men, with whom he had to contend against one hundred and twenty-five thousand under General Halleck, as first, and General Grant, as second in command. Before retreating, as we have related, from this eminently important strategic point, which he had to abandon, General Beauregard, with his well-known sagacity and his boldness of conception, had devised a scheme to strike a powerful blow at one of the numerous corps that he had in front. It was to be a flank movement, and was only partially successful, on ac- count of the inefficiency of a leading guide and the slowness of one of the commanding Generals of the expedition. Meanwhile General Beauregard had taken the most minute precautions to protect his falling back to Tupelo, as before stated ; and we believe that Colonel Roman correctly says "that no other retreat during the war was con- ducted in so systematic and masterly a manner, especially when we consider the comparative rawness of some of our troops and the dis- parity of numbers and resources between the two confronting armies." On the 5th of June, 1862, our army was safe at Tupelo, fifty-two miles from Corinth, in a salubrious region, where all the requirements of subsistence and of a good defensive position were found.

It was at Tupelo that the misunderstandings, incessantly occurring between the President and General Beauregard, attained a more acute degree of intensity. Believing that his presence could be dispensed with for a few days, the General went to Bladon Springs, in Alabama, in the hope to benefit his health, which was completely shattered, and transferred, temporarily, the command of the army to General Bragg, one of his Lieutenants. Whereupon, President Davis removed General Beauregard and substituted for him General Bragg, to whom he gave permanent and complete command. General Beauregard felt it to be an injustice and an affront, but he took it magnanimously, showing no irritation and no resentment.

On the 20th of July, General Bragg addressed a letter to his former commander, then at Bladon Springs, and consulted him on a pro- jected campaign from Tupelo into Tennessee and Kentucky. He was answered in a most kind and cordial manner. After having fully developed his views on the subject, Beauregard concluded thus :