Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard Papers

Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard (1818-1893) was born in Saint Bernard Parish, Louisiana, and graduated with the class of 1838 from West Point. He served as an officer of the engineer corps before and during the Mexican War and received two brevets for gallantry. Beauregard was appointed superintendent of the Military Academy for a few days in January, 1861, but resigned his commission in February, and on March 1, 1861, was appointed brigadier general of the Provisional Army, C.S.A. He was in command at Fort Sumter and with Joseph E. Johnston at 1st Manassas. Commissioned a full general in the regular army, Beauregard was sent west in 1862 where he assumed command of the Army of the Tennessee at Shiloh after General Albert Sidney Johnston was killed. Confederate troops under Beauregard fell back to Corinth, Mississippi, but abandoned the city to Federal General Halleck's larger force. Illness forced Beauregard's temporary retirement, yet in the last two years of the war he returned to command Confederate forces in South Carolina and Georgia, especially in the area of Charleston. He was instrumental in the Confederate victory at Petersburg, and he supported Lee in Virginia in 1864 where he was in command of the Army of the West. During the last weeks of the war, he served General J.E. Johnston in the Carolinas and returned to New Orleans after the surrender.