Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 24.djvu/284

 276 Southern Historical Society Papers.

tied up," should not slip away or uncork himself. There was a huge promise, coupled with lively expectation, that Butler and his whole force would be captured, and it was considered peculiarly significant that the man who made himself notoriously obnoxious to put it mildly at New Orleans, should be enmeshed and made prisoner by the Creole General. At the very moment when this master piece of strategy and dramatic revenge of time was about to be consummated, Butler escaped, and the blame is attached to General Whiting.

KEPT HIS PROMISE.

Some weeks afterward I happened to meet the chief engineer of General Beauregard near Charleston, and asked him if the misad- venture was due to General Whiting's infirmity. He replied almost in these words: "You were never more mistaken. Whiting's failure was wholly ascribed to the fact that, like a man of honor and truth, he kept his promise. Had he had a single dram, at the critical moment, to clear his brain, Butler and his whole army would have been prisoners of war."

After this episode, General Whiting returned to Wilmington, and his subsequent career was at once heroic and inspirational. He per- formed prodigies of valor, and stamped himself as one of the most worthy of "the chevaliers of the Lost Cause," by grand tactics at Wilmington and the sacrifice of his life in splendid, but vain, defence of Fort Fisher. On the ruined ramparts of that fort he fought like a hero of old days, and only ceased to struggle when, what proved a mortal wound, closed his military achievements. There was then, and there is now, complaint that General Bragg did not come to his rescue when Fort Fisher was assailed on the land side by General Terry. It may be that Bragg was culpable, but it may be also that he could no more, for the same reason, help Whiting than Joseph E. Johnston could disentangle Pemberton at Vicksburg. This must be solved by experts. Many of the men who had consummate knowl- edge of the situation are dead, but they have left records, and some persons may survive who can set the matter right, without disparage- ment of any actors in the scene. What prominent general of our interstate conflict was free from commission of error, on either side ? The greatest of all Robert E. Lee ascribed to himself the disaster at Gettysburg, although Major Kyd Douglas told the Count of Paris that Lee needed just such a reverse to admonish him that Stonewall Jackson was dead. At Shiloh, General Beauregard' s unfortunate order of retreat saved the Federals from capture or destruction,