ii8 CONFEDERATE PORTRAITS
crying out against Johnston's conservatism, he exclaims:
- ' The history of war is full of buried feasibilities that might
have been brilliant realities, if it were not for this * I dare not' waiting upon *I would.' " ^^
Only, when a man's imagination overflows with these
- feasibilities" for four years and not one of them be-
comes a "brilliant reality" even once, we grow a little suspicious. In spite of his own ill-health, in spite of the Government's hostility, Beauregard surely had oppor- tunities. Yet no one of his splendid dreams of strategy during the war ever even approached fulfillment. Sumter fell into his arms. Bull Run was won by character, not by genius. At Shiloh he failed to harvest any fruits of Johnston's victory. Some believe he threw them away. At Drewry's Bluff he himself admits that — naturally through the fault of others — his full plans were not carried out. By the very irony of fortune, his greatest glory is in a defense which required no aggressive imagination at all. He listens with beatific contentment to his inspired biog- rapher's assertion that Jackson and Beauregard were the two great strategic geniuses of the war. Alas, he would have been far less contented with the quiet characteriza- tion of his own countryman, Grasset : "An ardent heart, a fine-looking soldier, a mediocre strategist, an able engi- neer." ^9 And Lee's gentle comment in a particular in- stance is equally conclusive : " General Lee spoke in terms of compliment and kindness to General Beaure- gard; thought the plan well conceived and might be
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