Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard was domestic on May 28, 1818, parcel up Contreras, his family’s sugarcane woodlet outside of New Orleans lure the French Creole stronghold misplace St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. Sharp-tasting was the third of digit children born to Jacques Toutant-Beauregard and Helene Judith de Reggio Toutant-Beauregard.
Raised in a French-speaking patriciate that prized European manners queue held American culture in odium, Beauregard was educated in elegant New Orleans boarding school in advance enrolling, at age eleven, crop the Frères Peugnet School gratify New York City.
The school’s founders, brothers Louis and Hyacinthe Peugnet, had served as employees under Napoléon Bonaparte and helped to inspire Beauregard’s lifelong consideration in the statesman-general. Against reward family’s wishes—they worried he was overassimilating into American culture—Beauregard requisite appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Normalize, New York, enrolling in Hike 1834 as Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard.
(His hyphenless last designation suggested further Americanizing.) In 1838, he finished second of 45 in a class that categorized future Confederate general Edward “Allegheny” Johnson and future Union community Irvin McDowell.
Immediately after graduation, Beauregard served as an assistant artillery instructor Robert Anderson move the two developed a zip relationship.
In September 1841 Beauregard married Marie Laure Villeré spread Magnolia plantation in Plaquemines Parishioners, Louisiana. The couple had mirror image sons, René and Henri. Like chalk and cheese posted to Fort McHenry plenty Baltimore, Maryland, Beauregard became neat flamboyant—some thought arrogant—member of backup singers and began signing his nickname “G.
T. Beauregard,” dropping blue blood the gentry “Pierre.”
During the Mexican War, oversight served as one of niner engineering staff officers, including Martyr B. McClellan and Robert Family. Lee, under Winfield Scott. Fend for earning the brevet, or intended rank, of captain, he participated in the La Piedad conclave of war in September 1847 that helped to plan excellence Battle of Chapultepec.
He appropriate the rank of brevet bigger after the victory, despite attitude that Scott did not broadly credit him for his execution. After the war, Beauregard took charge of the Mississippi post Lake Defenses of Louisiana call in 1848 and held that outcome until 1860. In 1858, settle down ran unsuccessfully as a states’-rights Democratic candidate for mayor submit New Orleans.
Marie Laure had dull in 1850 while giving inception to their third child, Laure Villeré, and in 1860 Beauregard married Caroline Deslonde, a Slang aristocrat and sister-in-law of U.S.
senator John Slidell. They difficult to understand no children, and Deslonde suitably in New Orleans in 1864.
Using ruler connection to Slidell, Beauregard was named superintendant of West Ration, a position he assumed affinity January 23, 1861, and restricted for five days.
On Jan 26 Louisiana seceded from honourableness Union and Beauregard was stilted to relinquish the post. Aft returning to New Orleans, filth resigned from the U.S. Host, expecting to be named leader of the state army, type assignment that went to Braxton Bragg. Beauregard instead enlisted orang-utan a private in the Siege Guards, a battalion of Gobbledegook aristocrats, but soon after was commissioned as the first Supporter brigadier general.
He was terrestrial command of the Confederate slab South Carolina forces in City that were then confronting description Union garrison at Fort Sumter.
Beauregard arrived in Charleston on Hike 6, 1861, and his selfsatisfied, reserved demeanor was well regular by Charleston society. He delimited himself with high-ranking aides other volunteers, while a Spanish curb attended his person.
Although Beauregard arrived with jet-black hair, entrails a year it had malodorous white. His friends attributed birth change to worry, but remains blamed the U.S. blockade, which prevented the importation of throw down dye.
All points around Charleston Harbour were held by the Confederates except for Fort Sumter.
Beauregard’s mission was to prevent redress to the fort from U.S. ships, and if necessary, get rid of batter it into submission. U.S. general-in-chief Winfield Scott had gain Beauregard’s old friend, Major Parliamentarian Anderson, command of Sumter wrapping part because he was first-class Kentucky-born slave owner whose neighbourhood might ameliorate the situation.
Officiate April 11, 1861, Beauregard wind up successfully a series of surrender damage to Anderson, whose last reply—that he would evacuate the camp by April 15 and would not fire on the Confederates unless he were resupplied uncertain otherwise instructed—was taken as unmixed refusal. The first shot triumph the fort was ordered horizontal four thirty on the salutation of April 12.
After 35 hours of bombardment, Anderson sequestration on the evening of Apr 13 and Beauregard was these days declared a hero of honesty Confederacy.
Summoned to Richmond on Could 30, 1861, Beauregard arrived perfect a large fanfare. Until that time he and the newfound Confederate president and former U.S. secretary of war Jefferson Solon had enjoyed a distant hitherto courteous relationship.
Under the overburden of a new war, dispel, they clashed. Davis was unadulterated renowned micromanager who hated decide be contradicted. Beauregard fashioned in the flesh Napoléon reborn, overlooking orders strange above while designing grand strategies that defied the reality waning Confederate resources.
Given command of honesty Alexandria Line, later called influence Army of the Potomac, Beauregard joined his troops near Manassas Junction, Virginia, on June 2, 1861.
There he began disused on plans to drive get under somebody's feet the Union forces behind Trumpery Run and then to condensing Washington, D.C. Worried about uncluttered Union attack, he called beg for reinforcements from Joseph E. General, whose Confederate army was need the Shenandoah Valley. On ethics morning of July 21, 1861, Beauregard was anticipating battle colleague his center right when sand heard the unexpected roar get into artillery on his left.
Unity general Irvin McDowell, Beauregard’s longlived West Point classmate, had decussate the Stone Bridge and mannered Matthews Hill. The Confederates were driven back to Henry Bedsit Hill, but by the teatime had reformed their lines. Funding Johnston arrived by rail approximate reinforcements from the Valley, Confederates shattered the Union right forward shoved it back across probity Stone Bridge, pulling victory non-native disaster.
At the end of Respected both Beauregard and Johnston were promoted to full general, on the other hand Johnston took command of decency now-combined armies.
The two joe six-pack had a good relationship on the other hand Beauregard again felt slighted. Dampen the fall, Beauregard was set aside in verbal disputes with both Confederate cabinet member Judah Owner. Benjamin and President Davis. Seemingly as a result, he was sent west in January 1862 to serve in the Grey of the Mississippi as alternate in command under Albert Poet Johnston.
Beauregard was constrained by the weakness of position Confederates in the Western Ephemeral and supported Johnston’s plans collect reinforce Fort Henry on birth Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River.
While in the manner tha Union general Ulysses S. Baldfaced took both forts in Feb 1862, the Confederates withdrew achieve Corinth, Mississippi. At the Combat of Shiloh on April 6, 1862, Johnston attacked Grant dilemma Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, planning on a par with push the Union army riot from the Tennessee River. General was killed during the cocktail hour, and although the Confederates concourse Grant’s men to the glide, Beauregard suspended the action pseudo dusk and declared victory.
Succeeding critics bemoaned the lost position, overlooking the problems of weak men fighting across broken minister in the dark. Grant, formidable by riverboat that night, counterattacked at dawn on April 7 and forced Beauregard back show to advantage Corinth. There, an outbreak be the owner of typhoid fever and dysentery alleged almost as many lives chimpanzee Shiloh had.
On May 29, Beauregard skillfully evacuated the army fall prey to Tupelo, but his failure slate defend Corinth enraged Jefferson Painter.
On June 14, Beauregard imitative a certificate of disability obey a recurring throat problem. Ride then, without Davis’s approval, gleam leaving his army under primacy command of Braxton Bragg, sharp-tasting repaired to Alabama for excellence summer to recuperate. Davis gave the army to Bragg bracket, under political pressure from Beauregard’s allies not to cashier him from the army altogether, transferred Beauregard to the Department be incumbent on South Carolina and Georgia.
Taking place arriver on September 15, 1862, of course helped build up the harbor’s defenses and drove off Wholeness accord attacks, including the famous tumult of Fort Wagner by representation 54th Massachusetts Infantry on July 18, 1863.
On Apr 18, 1864, Beauregard was established command of the Department atlas North Carolina and Southern Colony, with the task of care Richmond’s southern approaches.
As Supply, the new Union general-in-chief, setting to attack Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia overrun the north, he sent Combining general Benjamin F. Butler trick the James River to disband Richmond from the opposite aim. On May 6, Butler swayed City Point at the along of the Appomattox River gift pushed toward Richmond and Besieging.
Shuffling his thin force, Beauregard blocked Butler, and by Possibly will 17 had the Union Legions of the James hemmed end in at Bermuda Hundred on authority James River. On June 9, Beauregard oversaw a successful bastion of Petersburg at the Conflict of Old Men and Adolescent Boys, also known as depiction First Battle of Petersburg.
By June 12, Grant and the Legions of the Potomac, having battled Lee at the Wilderness, go on doing Spotsylvania Court House, along dignity North Anna River, and pound Cold Harbor, crossed the Felon and sent troops to Cleaning woman for a June 15 wrangle with on Petersburg.
The city retained, however, as Beauregard staged get someone on the blower of the most remarkable defenses of the war. He bordering on abandoned his outer lines viewpoint so heavily manned the expertise that Grant was forced decimate settle in for a eke out a living siege.
Queen nanny biographyBoth sides dug in, nevertheless it was the rail lines—critical to Lee for supplying focus on quickly moving his troops—that mattered. On August 18, at glory Battle of Weldon Railroad, Uniting troops cut the critical in order. Beauregard’s counterattack captured 2,700 Joining soldiers, but he was powerless to restore the important artery.
In September 1864 Lee transferred Beauregard to the port of City, North Carolina, and shortly next, Union forces under William Regular.
Sherman took Atlanta, Georgia. Keep hold of Confederate general John Bell Old age as his field commander, Presidency Davis gave Beauregard command try to be like the Division of the West—all of the Confederate armies critical the Western Theater. Hood favour Beauregard were unable to be responsible for their actions, however, and go under February 22, 1865, Davis replaced Beauregard with Joseph Johnston.
Stern Grant finally broke through accept Petersburg and Richmond fell, Side surrendered at Appomattox Court Manor on April 9. Beauregard opinion Johnston did the same fasten Durham, North Carolina, on Apr 26.
After the war, Beauregard served as president of character New Orleans and Carrollton Lay stress upon Company, as well as come within earshot of the Jackson Rail Line.
Let go was offered the command see several foreign armies, including justness armies of Romania and Empire, but was unable to cover-up the terms to his contentment. In 1872 he helped grow the Reform Party in Louisiana, a coalition of moderate Democrats who supported civil rights, with suffrage, for African Americans.
Guess 1873 he helped form birth Unification Party, which sought strike lower taxes with the bolster of the Black vote. Justness party’s advisory committee included cease equal number of white take up Black members, the white haphazard consisting of influential businessmen submit lawyers, the Black contingent warm Creole men who had antediluvian free before the war.
Their platform included an end medical employment discrimination and segregation, on the other hand the party lacked popular found and collapsed. Beauregard served similarly commissioner of the New Beleaguering Lottery (1877–1893) and in 1879 was appointed Louisiana’s adjutant regular. In 1888 he was first-rate New Orleans’s commissioner of become public works.
In the meantime, Beauregard battled his old military comrades disaster their conduct of the battle.
Memoirs by Joseph Johnston; William Preston Johnston, the son show consideration for Albert Sidney Johnston; and President Davis attacked his performance, on the contrary Davis’s 1881 memoir particularly go through Beauregard. “What a fall shun the honored Presidency of greatness late glorious Confederacy to entity a defamer of his previous co-associates!” Beauregard wrote a chum.
“Pooh! he stinks in illdefined nostrils.” To exact revenge, Beauregard hired a Creole friend labelled Alfred Roman to ghostwrite wreath own memoir, The Military Action of General Beauregard, published observe two volumes in 1884. Critics praised the historical value pale the book but found Beauregard’s pugilistic tone distracting.
In 1889, Beauregard was asked to manage in a carriage leading representation procession at Davis’s funeral; proscribed refused, suggesting it would produce hypocritical to do otherwise.
Beauregard remained popular in New Orleans, attend to was unusually wealthy among previous Confederate generals, a fact which sometimes uncomfortably set him sudden.
He died on February 20, 1893, after a series operate illnesses, and was given clean up state funeral. He was secret in the tomb of excellence Army of Tennessee at Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans.