Background
BEAUREGARD, Pierre Gustave Toutant was born on May 28, 1818 in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, United States, United States. Son of Jacques Toutant and Helen Judith (de Reggio) Beauregard.
BEAUREGARD, Pierre Gustave Toutant was born on May 28, 1818 in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, United States, United States. Son of Jacques Toutant and Helen Judith (de Reggio) Beauregard.
Private school, United States Military Academy.
He was a member of an old and aristocratic Creole family. For a time he was educated in a private school in New York City. He graduated second in a class of forty-five from the U.S. Military Academy in 1838.
He was a Catholic. He married Laure Marie Villère, sister of Charles Villère ) in 1841, and Caroline Deslonde in 1860. Beauregard entered the U.S. Army as a second lieutenant of engineers and served chiefly in Louisiana until 1846. In 1847, he supervised the construction of defenses at Tampico.
He also participated in the siege of Vera Cruz and Mexico City and was breveted a major during the Mexican War. From 1853 to 1861, he was a captain of engineers on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana. In January 1861, he was named superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy, a position which he resigned to become the first brigadier general in the Confederate Army.
He was commander of Confederate forces at the battles of Fort Sumter and First Manassas. He also designed the Confederate battle flag in September 1861. In the spring of 1862, he assumed Confederate command at Shiloh following the death of General Albert Sidney Johnston, but he was forced to give up the battle.
After the battle of Corinth in October 1862, he was accused of overly elaborate battle plans. Ill health forced his temporary retirement from active military service in late 1862, after which he was a commander of Confederate forces at Charleston, South Carolina, a city which he held for two years. In April 1864, he defeated the Union general Benjamin Butler at the battle of Petersburg, and from October 1864 until he was relieved by General Joseph E. Johnston in February 1865, he commanded the Army of the West.
Beauregard, who published Maxima of Art of War in 1863, was also a prolific correspondent and military theoretician. He was the symbolic leader of the “Western concentration bloc” of anti-Davis forces. His wartime career was marred by petty jealousies against his early successes.
He served the final few months of the war with Joseph Johnston in North Carolina. After the surrender he returned to Louisiana, having declined an offer to command the Rumanian army. From 1865 to 1870, he was president of the New Orleans, Jackson, and Mississippi Railroad.
He became manager of the Louisiana lottery from which he recouped the family losses from the war. In 1888, he served as the commander of public works in New Orleans. An excellent writer, he became an important historian of Civil War battles in the last years of his life.
"Peculiar institution" of slavery was not only expedient but also ordained by God and upheld in Holy Scripture.
Stands for preserving slavery, states' rights, and political liberty for whites. Every individual state is sovereign, even to the point of secession.
Spouse Laure Marie Villère.