So many were at odds with Davis ! But the circle in- cluded more than the president. To establish the record of what the general might have done, it was necessary to cast slurs upon Benjamin, — here not wholly undeserved, — upon Ewell, upon Bragg, upon A. S. Johnston, even upon Lee, who might easily have saved the Confederacy, if he would have done as Beauregard wished him to.
But the most unfortunate of all these contentions was that between Beauregard and Joseph E. Johnston about the first battle of Bull Run. There were undue suscepti- bilities on both sides. Obviously there was misunder- standing on both sides, which a frank, generous, straight- forward spirit of self-sacrifice might easily have removed. Beauregard thought he had won the victory. Johnston thought he had won it Johnston's tone in the controversy is unamiable and unconciliating. But Beauregard's is far more so. ** General Johnston came to Manassas beset with the idea that our united force would not be able to cope with the Federal army, and that we should be beaten — a catastrophe in which he was not anxious to figure on the pages of history as the leading and responsi-
Alas, that generous and high-minded men can be be- trayed by their passions into such language as this. And Beauregard has altogether too much of it in his little book on the battle of Manassas, published — let us hope by accident — when Johnston was on his deathbed and unable to reply.
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