Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard

Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard (P. G. T. Beauregard) was born on May 28, 1818, in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, to Jacques Toutant-Beauregard and Helene Judith de Reggio. His father was a sugar planter. He attended school in New Orleans and New York City, and he enrolled at the United States Military Academy in 1834. He graduated second in his class in 1838.

He received a commission as a 2nd lieutenant in the 1st United States Artillery, and he served with the Army Corps of Engineers. He was promoted to 1st lieutenant in June 1839. He married Marie Laure Villeré in September 1841, and they had at least two children: René and Henri. During the Mexican American War, he served as an engineer on General Winfield Scott’s staff. He took part in the Battle of Contreras, the Battle of Churubusco, and the Battle of Chapultepec.

He returned to Louisiana after the war, and he was placed in charge of the state’s “Mississippi and Lake Defenses.” His wife died in childbirth in 1850. He supported the Democratic Party, and he endorsed Franklin Pierce in the election of 1852. He was promoted to captain in March 1853, and he served as superintending engineer of the New Orleans Custom House. He ran for mayor of New Orleans in 1858, but he was narrowly defeated. He married Caroline Deslonde in 1860, and the couple had no children. She died in 1864.

In January 1861, he received an appointment as superintendent of West Point. Louisiana, however, seceded a few days later, and Beauregard relinquished the position. He resigned from the army and enlisted as a private in the Orleans Guards. In March 1861, he became the Confederacy’s first brigadier general. He assumed command of the forces surrounding Charleston Harbor, and he attacked Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861.

Confederate officials transferred him to Virginia soon afterward, and he took part in the First Battle of Manassas. He was promoted to full general in the summer of 1861. He was transferred to the Western Theater in early 1862 after arguing with Secretary of War Judah Benjamin. He assumed command of the Army of Mississippi after General Albert Sidney Johnston died in April 1862.

In the summer of 1862, Beauregard went on medical leave without asking permission, and President Jefferson Davis relieved him of command. Beauregard eventually assumed command of coastal defenses in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. He experimented with submarines and naval mines, and he successfully repulsed Union assaults on Charleston in the summer of 1863.

Confederate officials assigned him to the Department of North Carolina and Southern Virginia in the spring of 1864, and then to the Department of the West in October 1864. He surrendered to Union forces on April 26, 1865, and he received a parole on May 2, 1865.

Beauregard returned to New Orleans after the war. He applied for a presidential pardon in September 1865. He insisted that, “In taking up arms during the late struggle…I believed, in good faith, that I was defending the constitutional rights of the South against the encroachments of the North. Having appealed to the arbitration of the sword, which has gone against us, I accept the decision as settling finally the questions of secession & slavery.” President Andrew Johnson, however, refused to pardon him until July 1868.

He worked as chief engineer of the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern Railroad. He was promoted to company president in 1870. He also served as president of the New Orleans and Carrollton Street Railway from 1866 until 1876. In 1877, he became the supervisor of the Louisiana State Lottery Company. He also served as an adjutant general in the Louisiana state militia. He died in New Orleans on February 20, 1893.

Image: P. G. T. Beauregard (courtesy Wikicommons)