The Coolidge examiner., 1933-06-02
The Great Creole
BY ELMO SCOTT WATSON

Creole" courtesy Charles scrIbner's sonS.)
BY ELMO SCOTT WATSON
@@E ORDERED the firing on Fort Sum-
~ ter and thus furnished the spark
IN which set off the mighty confagra-
Q E | tion of the greatest civil war in his
S~Az@J tory. But this "kndliest military
STT>V& engagement in history, conducted
~ re with the utmost good nature almost
'SxxISS tenderness both sides-a pleas
ant curtain-raiser which gave no
hint OF the grimness to follow" was hailed as
great victory and he became the idol of new
nation the Confederate States of America.
The Confederate congress. in behalf of the
new nation. voted him a resolution of thanks
The general assembly of South Carolina, the
scene of his great victory" did the same Citi-
Of his native New Orleans raised funds
10 buy golden sword for him. His admirers
in Montgomery Ala, the Confederate capital
decided to buy him n new horse and present it
10 him upon his next visit there He received
more than $50 letters of congratuation and the
manuscripts of five poems written TO him.
Then he ordered TO Richmond TO confer
with President Jefferson Davis and his progress
north was triumphal procession with cheering
crowds and blaring bands at every railroad
Junction Wherever he appeared the crowds
demanded a speech. Arriving in Richmond. he
was hustled and showed and kissed and had TO
stand with a scarlet, embarrassed face while a
spindly maiden Of forty, to whom forty made no
difference, shipped button from his coat"
Three months later two uniformed mobs
fought a battle near Manassas or Bull Run in
Virginia. The uniformed mob which had
marched south, many of them carrying lengths
of rope Ito lead a Rebel prisoner back to Wash
ingtOn," went back toward that city in a panic
stricken rout almost unparalleled in history.
The uniformed mob which had marched north
each man confident OF his ability to whip five
Yankees before breakfast" experienced unex-
pected difficulties in whipping two. But theirs
was the victory anyway. and after that another
extravaganza of hero worship.
In the South they began naming children
after him. There was talk of making him Pres
ident of the Confederates States of America
He had to keep an extra supply of coat buttons
In his tent-they shipped them off so fast
AS you have probably already guessed, the
object OF all this frenzy Pierre Gustave
Toutant Beauregard, a general in the Confeder
ate army in 1861.
But you say, ''if he was such a great hero
then. why do we hear so little of him now?" To
find the answer to that question, turn to a new
biography which has just been published by
Charles Scribners Sons. 1t is "Beauregard, the
Great Creole" written by Hamilton Basso who
has set about the task of rescuing from OBJ
scurity the man once hailed as "one of the
greatest military figures in history
In the prologue to his biography. Mr. Basso
says: Occasionally, in the textbooks we came
across his name. But it is only rarely, and then
with a scant line or two they are done with him.
"He has fallen into obscurity, even in the
South where once he loved and honored as
much as Lee And So in writing of him, it has
interested me TO seek an explanation of his neg
lect and effacement. The fault. l believe and
the blame tif there is any blame) is that of the
traditiOnalists and the myth-makers-all the
Happy Galahads of the Picturesque"
Mr.. Basso then points out that in 1865 when
the Civil war ended, a ruined. a defeated peo-
pie returned to the daily routine of peace-time
life changed life in which they had no pres
ent and, so far they could see, future. All
that was left inviOlate was the past" And the
PROSTATE South cung desperately to its mem
ories of the beauty. the chivalry and the romance
that had been in the past.
In the years that followed. myths and legends
began TO spring up TO form the parts of the
plantation or Southern tradition" and part of
that tradition was that of the Civil war gen.
eral Here, fortunately, the myth-makers were
not called upon to exercise their creative in
genuity to any great extent. Their hero was
already made His name was Robert Edward
Lee Lee then. became the legendary hero. He
was the model the others must measure up to.
A few Southern generals notably Stonewall
Jackson, Albert Sidney Johnston, and Jeb
Stuart bore many points of resemblance to Lee.
The tradition, therefore, could incorporate them
into its dogma"
But Beauregard could not be included.
For one thing he and Lee were totally unlike
in every respect Then, too, Beauregard was a
Frenchman and the tradition is essentially An
glo-Saxon. Add to this the bitter antagonism
that sprang up between President Jefferson