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Pierre
Gustave Toutant Beauregard
(1818-1893)
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The
services of "The Hero of Fort Sumter," Pierre G.T. Beauregard, were
not utilized to their fullest due to bad blood between the
Confederate general and Jefferson Davis. The native Louisianan had
graduated second in the 1838 class at West Point. There he had
become a great admirer of Napoleon and was nicknamed "The Little
Napoleon." Posted to the artillery, he was transferred to the
engineers a week later. As a staff officer with Winfield Scott in
Mexico he won two brevets and was wounded at both Churubusco and
Chapultepec. In the interwar years he was engaged in clearing the
Mississippi River of obstructions. In 1861 he served the shortest
term ever-January 23-28 as superintendent at West Point. Southern
leanings probably resulted in his prompt removal. On February 20,
1861, he resigned his captaincy in the engineers and offered his
services to the South.
His Confederate assignments included: brigadier general, CSA
(March 1, 1861); commanding Charleston Harbor (March 3 - May 27,
1861); commanding Alexandria Line June 2-20, 1861); commanding Army
of the Potomac June 20 - July 20, 1861); commanding Ist Corps, Army
of the Potomac July 20 - October 22, 1861); general, CSA (August 31,
1861 to rank from July 21); commanding Potomac District, Department
of Northern Virginia (October 22, 1861 - January 29, 1862);
commanding Army of the Mississippi (March 17-29 and April 6 - May 7,
1862); second in command, Army of the Mississippi and Department Y2
(March 29-April 6, 1862); commanding the department (April 6 - June
17, 1862); commanding Department of South Carolina, Georgia and
Florida (August 29, 1862 - April 20, 1864); commanding Department of
North Carolina and Southern Virginia (April 22-ca. September 23,
1864); commanding Military Division of the West (October 17,
1864-March 16, 1865); and second in command, Army of Tennessee
(March 16-April 26, 1865).
Placed in charge of the South Carolina troops in Charleston
Harbor, he won the nearly bloodless victory at Fort Sumter. "The
Little Creole" was hailed throughout the South. Ordered to Virginia,
he commanded the forces opposite Washington and created the
Confederate Army of the Potomac. Reinforced by Joseph E. Johnston
and his Army of the Shenandoah, Beauregard was reduced to corps
command under Johnston the day before 1st Bull Run.
However, during the battle Beauregard, being familiar with the
field, exercised tactical command while Johnston forwarded troops to
the threatened left. Both officers later claimed that they could
have taken the Union capital if they had been properly supplied with
rations for their men. This was one of Beauregard's first conflicts
with Davis. Nonetheless he was named a full general from the date of
the battle and early in 1862 was sent to the West as Albert Sidney
Johnston's second in command.
Utilizing Napoleonic style, he drafted the attack orders for
Shiloh and took command when Johnston was mortally wounded on the
first day of the battle. On the evening of the first day he let
victory slip through his fingers by calling off the attacks.
Controversy over his decision has raged to this day. The next day he
was driven from the field by Grant's and Buell's combined armies. He
was eventually forced to evacuate Corinth, Mississippi-his supply
base in the face of Henry W. Halleck's overwhelming force. Shortly
after that he went on sick leave without gaining Davis' permission;
he was permanently relieved of his army and departmental commands on
June 27, 1862, by special direction of the president.
Two months later he returned to the scene of his earlier
triumph as commander along the Southern coast from the North
Carolina-South Carolina line to the tip of Florida. He held this
command for over a year and a half and was engaged in the determined
defense of Charleston against naval and ground forces. Ordered
north, he took command in North Carolina and southern Virginia while
Lee faced Grant in northern Virginia. Gradually the two forces were
pushed together in an awkward command arrangement.
Beauregard managed to bottle up Benjamin F. Butler in the
Bermuda Hundred lines after defeating him at Drewry's Bluff. This
was Beauregard's finest performance of the war. At this point he
started making grandiose proposals for defeating both Butler and
Grant and invading the North by taking a large part of Lee's army
with him. This resulted in lengthy correspondence between the two
commanders and the Richmond authorities. Beauregard also managed to
thwart the early Union attempts to take Petersburg while Lee was
still north of the James River. With the siege of the city under
way, he continued to serve under Lee until September 1864 when he
was assigned to overall command in the West with John B. Hood's Army
of Tennessee and Richard Taylor's Department of Alabama, Mississippi
and East Louisiana under him. With no forces under his immediate
command he was powerless in trying to stop Sherman's March to the
Sea.
In the final days of the war he was again second in command
to Joseph E. Johnston, this time in North Carolina. Following the
capitulation he returned to New Orleans and refused high rank in the
Egyptian and Rumanian armies. Engaged in railroading, his reputation
was tarnished by his association with the Louisiana Lottery as a
supervisor. For a time he was Louisiana's adjutant general, and he
engaged in historical writing including his A Commentary on the
Campaign and Battle of Manassas. (Williams, T. Harry,
P.G.T. Beauregard, Napoleon in Gray
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