Part 47 (2/2)

Johnston's contempt for Beauregard had from the beginning been outspoken to his intimate friends. The battle had raised this little upstart to his equal in rank! He claimed that the President had robbed him of his true position in the Southern army through favoritism in the appointment of Albert Sidney Johnston and Robert E. Lee to positions of seniority to which they were not ent.i.tled.

Johnston began a series of bitter insulting letters to the Confederate President, complaining of his injustice and demanding his rights. Not content with his letters to the Executive, Johnston poured his complaints into the ears of his friends and admirers in the Confederate Congress and began a systematic and determined personal campaign to discredit and ruin the administration.

Among his first recruits in his campaign against Jefferson Davis was the fiery, original Secessionist, Roger Barton. Barton had never liked Davis. Their temperaments were incompatible. He resigned his position on the staff of the President, allied himself openly with Johnston and became one of the bitterest and most uncompromising enemies of the government. His position in the Confederate Senate would be a powerful weapon with which to strike.

The substance of Johnston's claim on which was founded this malignant clique in Richmond was the merest quibble about the date of his commission to the rank of full general. Because its date was later than that of Robert E. Lee he felt himself insulted and degraded.

When the President mildly and good naturedly informed him that his position of Quartermaster General in the old army did not ent.i.tle him to a field command and that Lee's rank as field commander was higher, he replied in a letter which became the text of his champions. Its high-flown language and bombastic claims showed only too plainly that a consuming ambition had destroyed all sense of proportion in his mind.

With uncontrolled pa.s.sion he wrote to the President:

”Human power cannot efface the past. Congress may vacate my commission and reduce me to the ranks. It cannot make it true that I was not a general before July 4, 1861.

”The effect of the course pursued is this:

”It transforms me from the position first in rank to that of fourth.

The relative rank of the others among themselves (Cooper, Albert Sidney Johnston and Robert E. Lee) is unaltered. It is plain that this is a blow aimed at me only. It reduces my rank in the grade I hold. This has never been done heretofore in the regular service in America but by the sentence of a court-martial as a punishment and as a disgrace for some military offense.

”It seeks to tarnish my fair name as a soldier and as a man, earned by more than thirty years of laborious and perilous service. I have but this--the scars of many wounds all honestly taken in my front and in the front of battle, and my father's revolutionary sword.

It was delivered to me from his venerable hand without stain of dishonor. Its blade is still unblemished as when it pa.s.sed from his hand to mine. I drew it in the war not for rank or fame (sic!), but to defend the sacred soil, the homes and hearths, the women and children, aye, and the men of my mother, Virginia--my native South.

It may hereafter be the sword of a general leading armies, or of a private volunteer. But while I live and have an arm to wield it, it shall never be sheathed until the freedom, independence, and full rights of the South are achieved. When that is done, it then will be a matter of small concern to the Government, to Congress, or to the Country, what my rank or lot may be.

”What has the aspect of a studied indignity is offered me. My n.o.ble a.s.sociate with me in the battle has his preferment connected with the victory won by our common trials and dangers. His commission bears the date of July 21, 1861, but care seems to be taken to exclude the idea that I had any part in winning that triumph.

”My commission is made to bear such a date that my once inferiors in the service of the United States and of the Confederate States (Cooper, Albert Sidney Johnston and Robert E. Lee) shall be above me.

But it must not be dated as of July 21, nor be suggestive of the victory of Mana.s.sas!

”If the action against which I have protested is legal, it is not for me to question the expediency of degrading one who has served laboriously from the commencement of the war on this frontier, and borne a prominent part in the only great event of that war, for the benefit of persons, neither of whom has yet struck a blow for this Confederacy.

”These views and the freedom with which they are presented may be unusual, so likewise is the occasion which calls them forth.

”I have the honor to be, most respectfully, Your obedient servant, J. E. Johnston, _General_.”

With a curve of his thin lips and a look of mortal weariness on his haggard face, the man on whose shoulders rested the burden of the lives of millions of his people seized his pen and wrote this brief note:

”Richmond, Va., September 14, 1861.

”General J. E. Johnston:

”Sir:

”I have just received and read your letter of the 12 instant. Its language is, as you say, unusual; its arguments and statements utterly one-sided, and its insinuations as unfounded as they are unbecoming.

<script>