Southern leader. He had written some silly letters
to the public deriding the power of the North. No one could know better
than Davis how silly these utterances were. He "hated and despised the
Yankees." Davis feared and recognized their power. Beauregard's
assertion that the South could whip the North even if her only arms were
flintlocks and pitchforks had been often and loudly repeated.

Of the army marshaling in front of him under the command of the
venerable Winfield Scott he wrote with the utmost contempt.

"The enemies of the South," he declared, "are little more than an armed
rabble, gathered together hastily on a false pretense and for an unholy
purpose, with an octogenarian at its head!"

In spite of his small stature, Beauregard was a man of striking personal
appearance--small, dark, thin, hair prematurely gray, his manners
distinguished and severe.

It was natural that, with the fame of his first victory, itself the
provoking cause of the conflict, his distinguished foreign name and
courtly manners, he should have become the toast of the ladies in these
early days of the pomp and glory of war. He was the center of an ever
widening circle of fair admirers who lavished their attentions on him in
letters, in flags, and a thousand gay compliments. His camp table was
filled with exquisite flowers which flanked and sometimes covered his
maps and plans. He used his bouquets for paper weights.

It was not to be wondered at, therefore, that the cold intellectual
standard by which Davis weighed men should have found Beauregard wanting
in the qualifications of supreme command.

The President turned his eye to the flower-decked tent of his general
with grave misgivings. Yet he was the man of the hour. It was fair that
he should have his chance.

CHAPTER XVII

THE FATAL VICTORY

On the banks of the Potomac General Scott had massed against Beauregard
the most formidable army which had ever marched under the flag of the
Union. Its preparation was considered thorough, its numbers all that
could he handled, and its artillery was the best in the world. All the
regular army east of the Rockies, seasoned veterans of Indian campaigns,
were joined with the immense force of volunteers from the Northern
States--fifty full regiments of volunteers, eight companies of regular
infantry, four companies of marines, nine companies of regular cavalry
and twelve batteries of artillery with forty-nine big guns.

In comman