Perhaps it was another omen!
By the side of Johnston sat a small but muscular man, swarthy, and in
early middle years. His face and gestures when he talked showed clearly
that he was of Latin blood. It was Beauregard, the victor of Bull Run,
now second in command here, and he made a striking contrast to the stern
and motionless Kentuckian who sat beside him and who was his chief.
There was no uneasy play of Johnston's hands, no shrugging of the
shoulders, no jerking of the head. He sat silent, his features a mask,
while he listened to his generals.
On the other side was Braxton Bragg, brother-in-law of Jefferson Davis,
who could never forget Bragg's kinship, and the service that he had done
fifteen years before at Buena Vista, when he had broken with his guns
the last of Santa Anna's squares, deciding the victory. By the side of
him was Hardee, the famous tactician, taught in the best schools of both
America and Europe. Then there was Polk, who, when a youth, had left
the army to enter the church and become a bishop, and who was now a
soldier again and a general. Next to the bishop-general sat the man who
had been Vice-President of the United States and who, if the Democracy
had held together would now have been in the chair of Lincoln, John
C. Breckinridge, called by his people the Magnificent, commonly
accounted the most splendid looking man in America.
"Bring the prisoner forward, Colonel Kenton," said General Johnston,
a general upon whom the South, with justice, rested great hopes.
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