The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1933-06-02
The Great Creole
By ELMO SCOTT WATSON

Creole" courtesy Charles scribner's sons)
BY ELMO SCOTT WATSON
T7E ORDERED the firing on Fort Sum-
- ter and thus furnished the spark
which set of the mighty conf1agra-
Il 4 ton Of the greatest civil war in his
$50 tory. But this "kindliest military
STNTI engagement in history, conducted
70 with the utmost good nature, almost
"<SSH tenderness, on both sides-a pleas
ant curtain-raiser which gave no
hint of the grimness to follow" was hailed as a
great victory and he became the idol of a 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-
zens Of his native New Orleans raised funds
TO buy a golden sword for him. His admirers
in Montgomery, Ala, the Confederate capital,
decided TO buy him new horse and present it
TO him upon his next visit there. He received
more than $50 letters of congratulation and the
manuscripts of five poems written to him. At
a testimonial dinner in Charleston he was
cheered for fifteen minutes. Hundreds of
pamphlets describing the action at Sumter made
their appearance. 1t was compared to Water
loo to Solferino, the Battle of New Orleans
And he was the Great Creole and lone of the
greatest military figures in history"
with President Jefferson Davis and his progress
north was triumphaI procession with cheering
crowds and blaring bands at every railroad
junction. Wherever he appeared, the crowds
demanded speech. Arriving in Richmond. he
was hustled and showed and kissed and had to
stand with scarlet, embarrassed face while a
spindly maiden Of forty, to whom forty made no
difference, shipped a button from his coat"
Three months later two uniformed mobs
oIlerbr har fIa Dali Dr.,
Virginia. The uniformed mob which had
marched south. many of them carrying lengths
of rope Ito lead 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
fdent of the Confederates States of America.
He had to keep extra supply of coat buttons
in his tent-they shipped them off his coat so
fast
AS you have probably already guessed the
object of all this frenzy was Pierre Gustave
Toutant Beauregard general in the Confeder-
ate army in 1861. But before you smile toll
adulation and hysterical hero worship and say,
tAh, they were so sentimental in those days."
please remember Lieut. Richmond Pearson Hob
son in 1898 and Col Charles Lindbergh in 1927
But" you say, eff he was such great hero
then. why do we hear so little of him now?" To
find the answer TO that question, turn TO
biography which has just been published by
Charles Scribner's Sons. II is "Beauregard the
Great Creole" written by Hamilton Basso, who
has set about the task of rescuing from OBJ
security the man once hailed as lone Of the
greatest military figures in history" For from
the great heights of Sumter and Bull Run, the
descent of this soldier who was "the pride of
the Confederacy and the fear of the North" was
just as swift lad just amazing as his ascent,
and TO the present generation of Americans he
is little more than name-truly "a lost soldier
of lost cause"
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 was 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. believe and
the blame OF there is any blame) is that of the
traditionalists and the myth-makers-an the
Happy Galahads Of the Picturesque"
Mr.. Basso then points out that in 1865 when
the Civil war ended, ruined defeated peo-
pie returned TO the daily routine of peace-time
life, changed life in which they had no pres
ent and. so far as they could see. no future All
that was left inviolate the past" And the
PROSTATE South chung desperately TO its men,
cries 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 50 included.
For 0pa thing he and Lee were fn.alIv militia