The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-04-30
LETTER FROM GEN. BEAURE-
... GARD
Gen. Beauregard Administers a
Singing Rebuke to Gen. Frank
Sherman.
TO Gov. Porter, of Tennessee.

Interesting Particulars Of the Late
Civil War.
! New ORLEANS, La, April %, 1875.
Dear Sv-Your favor OF the 18th instant
has been received, enclosing the form of an
invitation adopted by general meeting Of
the soldiers, sailors and citizens of Chicago,
to be sent "to all who recognize the Ameri.
can flag as an emblem of nationality, un.
divided and u,,dirisible. to attend grand
United States. to be held at Chicago May II,
IS and IA, 1876" and inquiring how much
truth there is in the remarks Of certain Gen.
Frank Sherman, who objected to the invita-.
| ton being sent to me, as she was not in
favor of extending an invitation to man who
had said he was in favor Of shooting all pris-
oners taken under the American flag" 1 had
hoped that the passions and enmities occa-
stoned by the late war were replaced by kind
lier feelings, but it seems that there are hearts
still rancorous enough to be ever anxious to
sti. again into flame the dying embers OF
the war.
|
tons of animosity are confined to those who,
curing the war, were farthest from the enemy,
gathering up the spoils in the wake of the
contending armies Is not this Gen. Frank
Sherman one of those despicable characters
| Not from any regard for such windy decla-
nation, nor for the man mean enough to sink
to such base pandering to popular opinion,
but out of respect to myself and to that cause
whose high and holy purpose history will one
day vindicate, I will very briefly and frankly
state the position took in regard to the con-
duct of the late civil war, as concerned Fed.
eral prisoners.
After the battle of the first Manassas, when
it was reported that the Federal Government
refused to recognize Confederate prisoners as
| "prisoners of war;" that Christian hero and
able soldier, Gen. Thomas J. (Stonewal)
jackson, and myself advocated that the Con-
fedelate Government should then proclaim a
''war to the knife, neither asking nor grant,
ing quarter. We moreover thought that the
war would thereby come sooner to an end,
with less destruction, finally, of life and
property. We thought, also, that such a
mode of warfare would inspire greater terror
in the armed invaders of our soil; and reduce
greatly the number Of army followers, bum
mers, ETC., who are ever the curse OF all
armed inyaSiOns.
Subsequently, when the Federals had pene-
trated certain portions Of the South, and
developed system Of warfare in their opera.
tons in Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia,
so Numerically opposed to the one practiced
by the Confederates, when they invaded
Maryland and Pennsylvania under their great
commander, Gen. r. E. Lee, and 1 saw the
emaciated forms and wretched condition OF
our returned Southern prisoners, again ad-
vocated the hosting of the black flag, willing
at any time to forfeit my life in the deadly
struggle. This policy was rendered still more
justitanle by the inexcusable burning
of Atlanta and Columbia, and the destruc-
tive passage of General Sherman through
Georgia and South Carolina, whose track
was marked by smoking ruins and
blackened chimneys; by the suggestion of
Gen. Halleck to destroy Charleston and
sprinkle salt on its site that not even grass
should grow thereon, to which Gen. s. re-
piled that no salt would be needed, as one of his
most reliable corps formed the right wing of
his army, and that it always did its work
thoroughly; by the devastating march of Gen.
Sheridan through the Shenandoah Valley,
relative to which he reported to the General
in-Chief of the armies, that "a crow flying
over the country would have to carry its own
rations," but he did not say what became of
the old men, women and children who then
lived in that fertile valley.
With regard to the mortality of prisoners
on both sides, the Washington Union (Radi-
cal), of October, 1868, contained the follow
ing article:
In reply to resolution of the House of
Representatives. calling upon the Secretary of
side held, and that died during the war, he
makes the following report:
Number of Union prisoners South, $780,
$40; died, 22,596; number of Confederate
prisoners North, 200, OOO died, rs, 49,"
That is two of the former out Of every
twenty-five, and two of the latter out of every
fifteen. Comment is here unnecessary in
view of the condition and resources of those
two sections of country.
Notwithstanding these views, l always
treated my prisoners with humanity and
proper consideration.
had the fortune of taking many thousands
of them at Manassas, Shiloh, Charleston,
Drugs Bluff, Bermuda Hundreds and Pc
tersburg. most Of whom are, I suppose, still
alive and can land certainly would) testify to
the fact.
After the fall Of Fort Sumter, in April,
1861, granted to the garrison the same con-
siderate terms which had offered before the
attack.
Through my intercession the Federal sur
geons and ministers of the Gospel, taken at
Manassas, were released, without exchange,
by the Confederate Government.
The day after that battle one of the Federal
officers whose friends l knew in New York;
applied to me for a small loan for himself and
friends which furnished at once from my
private funds. 1t was faithfully returned.
Shortly after the battle Of Shiloh 1 sent,
under cartel, q certain number of able
bodied Federal prisoners to Gen. Halleck,
who, several weeks after, returned an equal
number of convalescents from St. Louis to
Fort Pillow. The officer there refused to re-
ceive them, because several of them were
just from smallpox hospital. Gen. Halleck
failed afterwards to make good the exchange.
At Charleston / authorized Admiral Dahl
prisoners We had taken from him; those sup
plies were scrupulously issued them