P. G. T. Beauregard
American military officer, politician, inventor, writer, civil servant, and the first prominent general of the Confederate States Army
1818 CE to 1893 CE
Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard (May 28, 1818 – February 20, 1893) is a Louisiana-born American military officer, politician, inventor, writer, civil servant, and the first prominent general of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.
Today he is commonly referred to as P. G. T. Beauregard, but he rarely uses his first name as an adult and signs correspondence as G. T. Beauregard.
Beauregard is trained as a civil engineer at the United States Military Academy and serves with distinction as an engineer in the Mexican-American War.
Following a brief appointment at West Point in 1861, with the South's secession, he becomes the first Confederate brigadier general.
He commands the defenses of Charleston, South Carolina, at the start of the Civil War at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861.
Three months later, he is the victor at the First Battle of Bull Run near Manassas, Virginia.
Beauregard commands armies in the Western Theater, including at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee, and the Siege of Corinth in northern Mississippi.
He returns to Charleston and defends it from repeated naval and land attacks in 1863.
His greatest achievement is saving the important industrial city of Petersburg, Virginia, and thus also the Confederate capital of Richmond, from assaults by overwhelmingly superior Union Army forces in June 1864.
However, his influence over Confederate strategy is marred by his poor professional relationships with President Jefferson Davis and other senior generals and officials.
In April 1865, Beauregard and his commander, General Joseph E. Johnston, convince Davis and the remaining cabinet members that the war needs to end.
Johnston surrenders most of the remaining armies of the Confederacy, including Beauregard and his men, to Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman.
Following his military career, Beauregard serves as a railroad executive.
He becomes one of the few wealthy Confederate veterans because of his role in promoting the Louisiana Lottery.
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Lincoln had ordered the U.S. Navy to resupply Fort Sumter, situated in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, commanded by Major Robert Anderson.
Upon receiving notice, by Lincoln’s personal emissary, of the Navy’s intentions, South Carolina’s governor had telegraphed the Confederate capital at Montgomery.
The Confederacy responds by ordering the bombardment of the fort.
The artillery attack is commanded by Brig. Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard, who had been Anderson's student at West Point.
The attack begins April 12, 1861, and continues until Anderson, badly outnumbered and outgunned, surrenders the fort on April 14.
No one was killed in the battle on either side, but one Union soldier is killed and one mortally wounded during a fifty-gun salute.
The first major battle of the war ends in a Confederate victory in the First Battle of Bull Run at Manassas Junction, Virginia, on July 22, 1861.
Over twenty-eight thousand poorly trained Union forces under Brigadier General Irvin McDowell and Major General Robert Patterson are routed by some thirty-two thousand Confederates commanded by Brigadier General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard and Major General Joseph E. Johnston, as well as Colonel Thomas Jonathan Jackson (later to be known as Stonewall Jackson).
The Union has the upper hand at first, nearly pushing confederate forces holding a defensive position into a rout, but Confederate reinforcements under Joseph E. Johnston arrive from the Shenandoah Valley by railroad, and the course of the battle quickly changes.
A brigade of Virginians under the relatively unknown brigadier general from the Virginia Military Institute, Thomas J. Jackson, stands its ground, which results in Jackson receiving his famous nickname, "Stonewall".
The Union forces stampede back to Washington in panic, losing four hundred and eighteen of their number to the Confederates' thirty-eight.
The Confederates also list 1,522 wounded and 12 missing.
Union wounded number 1,011, and 1,216 are reported missing.
The Confederates' surrender of Forts Henry and Donelson, Tennessee, and the evacuation of Columbus, Kentucky, forces General Beauregard, commander of the Confederate Army of the Mississippi, to chooses Island No. 10, about sixty river miles below Columbus, to be the strongpoint for defending the Mississippi River.
Nearby is New Madrid, one of the weak points.
Brigadier General John Pope, commander of the Union Army of the Mississippi, sets out from Commerce, Missouri, on February 28 to attack New Madrid.
Johnston moves his force to concentrate with Beauregard's by late March.
The preparations for the Union campaign have not proceeded smoothly, and Halleck seems more concerned with his standing in relation to General-in-Chief George B. McClellan than he does with understanding the Confederate Army is divided and canbe defeated in detail.
Further, he cannot agree with his peer, Buell, now in Nashville, on a joint course of action.
He sends Grant up the Tennessee River while Buell remains in Nashville.
In the first day of the battle, the Confederate onslaught drives Grant back against the Tennessee but cannot defeat him.
Johnston is mortally wounded leading an infantry charge on this day; he is considered by Jefferson Davis to be the most effective general in the Confederacy at this time.
On the second day of the Battle of Shiloh, April 7, Grant receives reinforcements from Buell and launched a counterattack that drives back the Confederates.
Grant fails to pursue the retreating enemy and will receive enormous criticism for this and for the great loss of life—more casualties (almost twenty-four thousand) than all previous American battles combined on the Battle of Shiloh.
Although the 61,681 Union troops far outnumbered the 40,335 Confederates, the casualties on both sides are relatively equal.
The Union ranks suffer 1,754 killed, 8,408 wounded, and 2,885 missing, while the Confederates list 1,773 killed, 8,012 wounded, and 959 missing.
Union control of the Mississippi River begins to tighten.
On April 7, while the Confederates were retreating from Shiloh, Union Major General John Pope defeats Beauregard's isolated force at Island Number 10, opening the river almost as far south as Memphis.
The Union ironclad Carondelet had passed the Island No. 10 batteries on the night of April 4 and anchors off New Madrid.
Pittsburg had followed on the night of April 6.
The ironclads help to overawe the Confederate batteries and guns, enabling Pope's men to cross the river and block the Confederate escape route.
Brigadier General William W. Mackall, who replaces McCown, surrenders Island No. 10 on April 8.
The Mississippi is now open down to Fort Pillow, Tennessee.
Beauregard has little concentrated strength available to oppose a southward movement by Halleck, but the Union general had showed insufficient drive to take advantage of the situation.
He had waited until he assembled a large army, combining the forces of Buell's Army of the Ohio, Grant's Army of West Tennessee, and Pope's Army of the Mississippi, to converge at Pittsburg Landing.
He had moved slowly in the direction of the critical rail junction at Corinth, in northeast Mississippi. taking four weeks to cover the twenty miles (thirty-two kilometers) from Shiloh, stopping nightly to entrench.
By May 3, Halleck was within ten miles of the city but had taken another three weeks to advance eight miles closer to Corinth, by which time Halleck is ready to start a massive bombardment of the Confederate defenses.
At this time, Beauregard decides not to make a costly defensive stand and withdraws without hostilities during the night of May 29.
Grant had not commanded directly in the Corinth campaign.
Halleck had reorganized his army, giving Grant the powerless position of second-in-command and shuffling divisions from the three armies into three "wings".
When Halleck moves east to replace McClellan as general-in-chief, Grant resumes his field command, now named the District of West Tennessee, but before he leaves, Halleck disperses his forces, sending Buell towards Chattanooga, Sherman to Memphis, one division to Arkansas, and Rosecrans to hold a covering position around Corinth.
Part of Halleck's reason for this is that Lincoln desires to capture eastern Tennessee and protect the Unionists in the region.