Year: 1872

General Beauregard on the Siege OF


Charleston and Grants Last Cam


paign.


In recent number of the Southern
Magazine General Beauregard comments
upon the siege Of Charleston and Grants 9


last Virginia campaign. In regard to
the attack Of the monitors upen Fort
Sumter, he is evidently of the opinion
that it failed chiefly because it was un-
dertaken in the daytime instead OF at
night:


I'VE had great doubt as to the i'm
pending result, and ! was always Of the
unqualified opinion that, if the enemy s
ironclad feet made q night attack
against Fort SUMTER by coming within
sufficiently close range to see the fort,
which was large and elevated object,
and yet not to be seen from the fort, the
latter would certainly be silenced or de-
stroyed in the course of a few nights,
without serious injury to the monitors,
and the channel to Charleston and the
harbor would have been opened to them,
after having removed the torpedoes
placed at their entrance"


The failure of General Gilmore TO APP
prehend the true point to which to attack
Charleston is thus commented upon:


Being an engineer by profession and
acquainted with General Gilmore felt
confident as he assumed command of the
forces operating against Charleston, that
he would turn his attention to attacking
Fort Sumter, as he had done Fort Pu-
laski lat the entrance of Savannah rivsr)
the year before, instead of employing his
means to the taking of Charleston, which
could and should have been done at that
time by the way of Stone river and James
Island. | often remarked to my general
officers at that period that the latter
island was the door to Charleston, where
as Morris Island was only the window to
it; and it was fortunate indeed for that
city and the Confederacy that General
Gilmore preferred attempting to enter
through the window instead of the door. ="
. General Beauregard is plainly Of the
opinion that the siege of Petersburg by
Grant was a mistake. He says;


What Gen. Lee and myself feared
most was that Gen. Grant should con-
tinue to rotate around Richmond on the
south side Of the James and Appomat-
tox, as he had done on the north side OF
the former river 1t is evident that,
with our inferiority of numbers at the
time go, 900 against $50, 0,000) and paucity
of resources, we could not have checked
him by placing ourselves in his front,
without uncovering Petersburg and Rich
mond, which required very strong gar
risons (more than we could safely spare),
TO be abandoned to themselves even for
moment. For the same reason we
could not have threatened his line of
communication with City Point or the
lower James river, where he could have
re-established his base at any point most
suitable for him. . .
By that movement of rotation Grant
would have effectually destroyed the
Weldon and Danville railroads, the only
two lines which continued to furnish
Richmond and the. army With scanty
supplies of provisions and ammunition
from Wilmington, and the nearly ex-
hausted States of South Carolina and
Georgia. We were living then, as it
were, from hand to mouth; and any
serious interruption to these lines of
supply would have compelled an imme-
diate evacuation of Virginia by the Con-
federate government and army for North
and South Carolina, or for Tennessee
and Kentucky, where q new theater of
war might have been established. But
General Grant preferred to hammer
away all the year on that line against
the fortifcations of Petersburg) like an
infuriated bull, which, losing sight of its
rushes madly at the red flag
which is haunted in his eyes. AS GEN
eral Bosquet said of the gallant charge
at Balaklava, Celia est magnifique, mais
ce n est pas la guerre That is mag
but it is not according to the
art of war.