A smoke-stained Stars-and-Stripes droops from a broken toothpick and ninety tired men march out of fallen Sumter to their ships, drums rattling and colors flying.
Their faces are worn and angry, their bellies empty and cold, but the stubborn salute of a gun, fifty times repeated, keeps their backs straight as they march out, and answers something stubborn and mute in their flesh.
Beauregard, beau sabreur , hussar-sword with the gilded hilt, the gilded metal of the guard twisted into lovelocks and roses, vain as Murat, dashing as Murat, Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard is a pose of conquering courtesy under a palmetto-banner. The lugubrious little march goes grimly by his courtesy, he watches it unsmiling, a light half-real, half that of invisible footlights on his French, dark, handsome face.