Pierre
Gustave Toutant Beauregard
1818-1893
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
Manassas. 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)