Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 12.djvu/451

 Military Operaticms of General Beauregard. 441

"that he was not superseding General Hood, but that he was merely sent to him as an adviser." General Hood, however, seems to have acted very little in concert with any advice from General Beaure- gard, and the plan of campaign which he had prepared, when carried into execution, ended in disaster for the Confederacy near Nashville, in Tennessee. The demoralized army became disorganized and was rapidly degenerating into a rabble. The days of the Confederacy were numbered and it was easy to foresee that its extinguishment was near.

On the ist of February, 1865, Sherman began his famous march to the Atlantic Ocean. Beauregard was at Augusta. The estimate of the forces in and about that city and in the State of South Caro- lina, was 33,450 demoralized men, only one-half of them available at that date. It was the ghost of an army, with which to oppose at least 58,000 disciplined and well organized troops under Sherman.

It was then that General Beauregard, refusing to despair, and with a fortitude derserving of a better fate, conceived a plan by which he hoped, late as it was, to redeem the fortune of the Confederacy, and which he presented to President Davis, repeatedly in two telegraphic dispatches. He advised and demonstrated the policy of promptly abandoning all those cities and ports which he knew must soon fall of their own weight, and for whose protection troops were used that could be better employed at other points. But no attention was paid to his suggestions. "The government," says Colonel Roman, "per- severed in following the beaten track, and preferred fighting the enemy's superior forces with disjointed portions of our own — thus reversing the essential maxim of war: to command success concen- trate masses against fractions.

This plan is minutely transcribed in Colonel Roman's book, be- cause, as he says, "of its strategic value and entire feasibility." He further remarks: "It was indeed unfortunate that the War De- partment and Generals Bragg and Hardee did not understand the wisdom and necessity, at this juncture, of the concentration he ad- vised. It would have resulted in the re-establishment of our lines of communication and depots of supplies, and in the eventual relief, if not permanent salvation of the Confederate capital."

Acknowledging our incapacity in this matter, we leave to compe- tent critics the task to pronounce judgment on the " strategic value and entire feasibility " of the plan to which neither the government nor Generals Bragg and Hardee gave their assent. But we cannot but admire the stoutness of a heart impervious to despair, and the fer-