R. M. T. Hunter, the foremost statesman of Virginia, resigned his
position in the Cabinet to be unembarrassed in his fight for the
presidency.
Beauregard had been promoted to the full rank of general and his tent
was now a bower of roses. Around the figure of the little fiery,
impulsive, boastful South Carolinian gathered a group of ambitious
schemers who determined to make him President. They filled the
newspapers with such fulsome praise that the popular nominee for an
honor six years in the distance, and shrouded in the smoke of battle,
sought to add fuel to the flame by waving the Crown aside! In a weak
bombastic letter which deceived no one, dated,
"Within Hearing of the Enemies' Guns," he emphatically declared:
"I am not a candidate, nor do I desire to be a candidate, for any civil
office in the gift of the people or Executive!"
Controversies began between different Southern States, as to the
location of the permanent Capital of the Confederacy. The contest
developed so rapidly and went so far, that the Municipal Council of the
City of Nashville, Tennessee, voted an appropriation of $750,000 for a
residence for the President as an inducement to remove the Capital.
A furious controversy broke out in the yellow journals of the South as
to why the Southern army had not pursued the panic-stricken mob into the
City of Washington, captured Lincoln and his Congress and ended the war
next day in a blaze of glory.
Pages:
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269