I02 CONFEDERATE PORTRAITS
large chapter to the pitiful history of recrimination and fault-finding which makes the years after the war so de- pressing to read about. Mrs. Chesnut's apt and passion- ate exclamation on the subject is suitable to many, North and South, besides Beauregard. ** Another outburst from Jordan. Beauregard is not properly seconded. //^^/.^j.' To think that any mortal general (even though he had sprung up in a month or so from captain of artillery to general) could be so pufied up with vanity, so blinded by any false idea of his own consequence as to write, to intimate that any man, or men, would sacrifice their country, injure themselves, ruin their families, to spite the aforesaid general." ^^ No doubt, personal animosity makes men do strange things, without looking to con- sequences so far as Mrs. Chesnut could do in cold blood. But oh, if some of these really great, really noble, really extraordinary men could for once have dropped their vast ingenuity of self-justification and said simply, *' I was wrong, I made a mistake, I am sorry ! " Lee did it. And his example shines like a star in a dark night.
Meantime, we must take human nature as it is. Beaure- gard's was attractive, in some ways really charming ; but it had its kinks and quirks and oddities.
He could not get along with Davis. Neither could many others. Estimating himself as highly as Beauregard did, it was natural that he should attribute any apparent slight or neglect on Davis's part to pique and jealousy. Possibly there may have been something of these feelings
�� �
