Brig. General Pierre Beauregard

Pierre Beauregard was born in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, on May 28, 1818.

He obtained his military education at West Point, and graduated second in his class of 45 from West Point in 1838.

Initially assigned to the artillery, he was transferred to the engineers after only a week. As a staff officer with Winfield Scott during the Mexican War, he was wounded twice.

In 1861, he served the shortest term ever as superintendent at West Point, removed after less than a week due to his Southern leanings at a time just prior to the onset of war. A month later, he resigned his position altogether and offered his services to the Confederacy in February of 1861.

Placed in command of Confederate forces in Charleston Harbor, he achieved fame a couple of months later after winning a bloodless victory at Fort Sumter.

Ordered to Virginia, he commanded the forces opposite Washington, and created the Confederate Army of the Potomac. Reinforced by Joseph Johnston and his Army of the Shenandoah, Beauregard was reduced to corps commander under Johnston the day before the first battle of Bull Run, against the Union Army led by General Irvin McDowell.

The Confederate forces led by Beauregard, Joseph E. Johnston, Thomas Stonewall Jackson, and James Jeb Stuart easily defeated the inexperienced Union troops. Northern casualties totaled 1,429 with another 1,216 missing but unaccounted for.

Beauregard claimed that the Confederate forces could have taken the Union capital if they had been properly supplied and equipped. This was Beauregard’s first conflict with Confederate President Davis, but he was nevertheless promoted to full General following the battle.

Early in 1862, he was assigned to the West as Albert Sydney Johnston’s second in command.

Beauregard drafted the orders for the attack on Shiloh, taking command after Johnston was mortally wounded on the first day of battle. On the evening of the first day, he called off the attack, a decision for which he was widely criticized.

The following day, he was forced to retreat by Union forces commanded by Grant and Buell, and was eventually driven to evacuate by overwhelming forces commanded by Henry Halleck.

Shortly after his defeat, he went on sick leave without permission from President Davis, for which he was relieved of his army and departmental commands in June, 1862.

Two months later, he was appointed to command forces along the Southern coast, from the Carolinas to the tip of Florida, a command which he held for a year and a half, and was engaged in a fierce defense of Charleston against naval and ground forces of the Union.

Ordered North, he took command in North Carolina and southern Virginia, while Lee faced Grant in northern Virginia. Gradually, as Lee was forced to retreat, the forces came together in an awkward command arrangement.

Beauregard was able to bottle up the forces of Benjamin F. Butler in the Bermuda Hundred after defeating him at Drewry’s Bluff. This was considered his finest performance of the war.

He also managed to put a stop to early Union attempts to take Petersburg while Lee was engaged north of the James River. While the siege of the city was underway, 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 Louisiana under him. But with no forces directly under his command, he was powerless to stop Sherman’s March to the Sea.

In the final days of the war, he was again second in command under Joseph Johnston, this time in North Carolina.

Following the surrender of the Confederacy, he returned to New Orleans, refusing an offer of high rank in the Egyptian and Rumanian armies.

His reputation was tarnished by his association with the Louisiana Lottery as a supervisor. For a time, he was Louisiana’s adjutant general, and authored one book, A Commentary on the Campaign and the Battle of Manassas.

Beauregard died on February 20, 1893 in New Orleans, Louisiana.