The commander at Charleston harbor, from March 3 to May 27, 1861, was Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard.
Beauregard had matriculated at the USMA as an adolescent, and graduated in 1838 at the age of 20, ranked second in his class. Having expressed no preference, he was posted to the artillery, but a week later he transferred to the Corps of Engineers. In Mexico, he served as one of the staff engineers to Winfield Scott. In that capacity, he served under Captain Robert Lee, and was resentful that he had not received more, or even as many, brevets as Lee and other officers in Scott's army. (A brevet is a temporary rank which only applies in time of war, but which was the 19th century equivalent of getting a medal.) This sort of resentment was an unlovely facet of his personality. Lee had been permanently promoted captain before joining Scott's staff, having already served more than a dozen years as a lieutenant, and having been promoted for active service on Shreve's Mississippi/Missouri navigation project. Beauregard had served on the staff of various post engineers before the Mexican War, and arrived at Scott's staff as a lieutenant. It seems that he cherished such resentments, too. He constantly carped to his acquaintance during the war about the positions of responsibility which were given to Lee.
Beauregard served creditably as an engineer after the Mexican War, until he resigned his commission in 1856 to pursue a political career, which proved an unwise choice. In January, 1861, he was appointed the commandant of the USMA at West Point, and has the distinction of serving in that post for the shortest period of time in the Academy's history. He was dismissed five days later when Louisiana seceded from the Union. On March 1, 1861, he was commissioned Brigadier in Confederate States service, and took up his post at Charleston on March 3.
In June, 1861, he was given command of the Alexandria Line, but a lack of troops in the face of the initially massive Federal build-up obliged him to withdraw. On June 20, he was given command of the Army of the Potomac (as the Confederate army at Centerville was known), facing the Army of Northen Virginia (as the Federal army moving out of Washington was then known) commanded by Irvin McDowell. When McDowell arrived opposite Beauregard north of the creek known as Bull Run, during the initial skirmishing, and despite excellent intelligence provided by James Ewell Brown Stuart of the First Virginia Cavalry, Beauregard became alarmed and advised Davis that he should withdraw until he could be reinforced. All Beauregard sympathizers usually say his career was blighted by Davis' dislike--i personally consider that Davis' contempt dates from this period, when Beauregard seems to have, at least temporarily, lost his nerve.
Joe Johnston soon arrived, and the brigades of his Army of the Valley came in behind him as they were able to disengage from Patterson in the Valley of Virginia, and march to the railhead to take the cars to Mannassas junction on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. Beauregard continued to display shaky nerves--for example, on the morning of the battle, Jackson was ordered to march to the east to support Longstreet (who was not threatened). Jackson was ever the obedient subordinate, and had his brigade in the road before 4:00 a.m., but as he was about to move out, he received orders to march to the west to the stone bridge over Bull Run. He got his men moving, when he received another order to move to the east, once again to support Longstreet, who rather pointedly told Johnston that he hadn't even seen the enemy's pickets so far that morning. Jackson turned his brigade around in the road, always a difficult and frustrating maneuver, and had just started his brigade off to the east when he received orders to halt and await further orders. Eventually, Joe Johnston himself showed up, and told him to post his men on high ground overlooking the stone bridge, and Jackson marched off to occupy the Henry House Hill, where he and his brigade would receive the famous epithet of "Stonewall."
Both commanders had decided to move by their right and attack the enemy's left, but McDowell had his men up at 2:00 a.m., in the road by 2:30, and on the move by 3:00 a.m. In the event, Beauregard forgot his plans when confronted with a then successful attack on his left wing. Despite the popular view of the battle, McDowell's boys performed well. The commander of the lead division was killed in mid-morning, and it was hours before McDowell was even aware of this. Nevertheless, the Yankees drove back the Confederate defenders steadily until mid-afternoon. By then, they had been up for more than 14 hours, and had been involved in a stiff fight for 12 hours, and doing well, despite their inexperience. Taken all in all, the Yankees performed well, but they were just not able to sustain their advance for that length of time and that distance. In the smoke and confusion, the fire of Jackson's artillery and infantry came as a shock to them, and Jackson's advance was the last straw for them.
Although Beauregard was credited with the victory, Johnston's private dispatch to Davis, along with Davis' own assessment when he arrived on the battlefield at about sundown combined to create a lack of confidece in Beauregard in Davis' mind. Davis was already a difficult man to deal with (he was also a graduate of the USMA, and had served with distinction in the Mexican War; Lee seems to be the only general officer in Confederate services whose skills and opinion Davis genuinely valued). Beauregard commanded the Department of Northern Virginia after the battle, but he was soon relieved by Joe Johnston, and was sent west to the department commanded by Albert Sidney Johnston, initially taking command of the Army of Mississippi. Johnston had been alarmed after the fall of Forts Henry and Donnelson to Grant, and Lee had avised him to do what all southern governors objected to--to strip troops from quiet areas to assemble an army. Braxton Bragg arrived with troops from the eastern Gulf coast and organized those who had escape Fort Donnelson into his own organization to form the second corps. Archbishop Leonidas Polk brought his troops from Louisiana and the western Gulf coast and formed the smaller first corps. Johnston himself command the "Central Army of Kentucky," an ambitious name which bore no real relationship to it's position or power.
Johnston had organized his army, and given the command of it to Brigadier George Crittenden, with Brigadier Felix Zollicoffer commanding the first brigade, masking the Cumberland Gap. (Johnston was the department commander, and it was considered appropriate that he would delegate such commands.) Unfortunately for Crittenden, he was facing the Virginian, George Thomas, who had remained in the Federal Army. At Mill Springs in Kentucky in January, 1862, Thomas moved as rapidly forward as the rain soaked roads would allow. Crittenden, who had lazed around Knoxville, Tennessee, realized the threat to Zollicoffer, and rushed into Kentucky to assess the situation. (In his absence, Union men in eastern Tennessee seized Knoxville, and despite numerous attacks and a protacted siege, were to hold the city throughout the rest of the war.)
Thomas commanded three brigades, and had halted, on orders, to await another division which was to join him. Crittenden ordered Zollicoffer to attack before the Federals could concentrate. Thomas, who had arrived in Louisville in 1861 to find 2000 troops commanded by a Navy lieutenant with no equipment, had assembled troops, harried the war department to fully equip them, and trained them to a faretheewell. When Zollicoffer attacked, they suffered heavy casualties until the forward Federal regiments had emptied their cartridge boxes. Obedient to the orders of the fearsome martinet Thomas, they then retired in perfect order through the ranks of the regiments supporting them. Zollicoffer and his officers thought they had the Yankees on the run, and followed up so rapidly that their troops became disorganized and mixed. Thomas' reserve regiments poured a heavy and constant fire into them, and the regiments which had been withdrawn came back to the line, having filled their cartridge boxes, and added to the slaughter. Zollicoffer, near-sighted and confused in the gathering dusk, wandered into Thomas' lines and was shot several times, dying of his wounds that night.
The difference between the two armies, Federal and Confederate was clearly shown in the aftermath. Johnston was informed, a few days later, of a Confederate victory. A few days later, he was informed that his little army had received a check. A week after the battle, he learned that his army had been defeated. Two weeks after the battle, he learned that Crittenden's army had been routed, that Zollicoffer was dead and that the Confederates had been drive out of Kentucky. Crittenden was reassigned to Bragg's command, and was soon cashiered for drunkenness.
In contrast, although Thomas was arguably the most modern-thinking general in the Federal army, nevertheless the situation was typical of the efficiency of the Federal army. Thomas had two wagons in his staff train with telegraph keys, an engineer company to string wire, and two troops of cavalry to protect them and patrol the line. Lincoln was informed of Thomas' victory late in the evening of the day of the battle.
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Grant had taken Fort Henry and Fort Donnelson. Crittenden had been routed from Kentucky and Eastern Tennessee. Lee advised Johnston to concentrate all of his forces to confront Grant, who had now moved down into Tennessee to Pittsburg landing. Johnston took command of the Army of Mississippi, making Beauregard his second in command, and to Polk's and Bragg's corps were added a third corps commanded by William Hardee, who had literally written the book on infantry doctrine--
Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics for the Exercise and Manoeuvres of Troops When Acting as Light Infantry or Riflemen, commonly known as
Hardee's Tactics, and called the "bible" of the infantry officer. Alas, his practice did not match his fame. A reserve or fourth corps of troops largely from Kentucky and Tennessee troops, many survivors of Zollicoffer's debacle, was organized under Kentucky's favorite son, John C. Breckenridge, former Vice President, and "Dixiecrat" presidential candidate in 1860.
Despite all the good reasons have known that Johnston was coming, Grant and his divisional commanders remained completely oblivious to Johnston's advance. Even when deer and other wildlife began to bolt through their camps, the Yankees did not seem to realize the implications. Suddenly (from the Yankee perspective), Hardee's boys came howling out of the woods at Sherman's fifth division of Grant's army, scattering the forward regiments. The lack of experience on both sides had it's effect though--many of Hardee's men dropped out of the line at the smell of real coffee and fresh bacon cooking on the Yankee campfires, and it took some time for the officers to get them back into line and moving forward. In the meantime, Sherman had organized a line around a small log chapel in the forest, known as Shiloh Meeting House.
Breckenridge wandered off on Johnston's left, which happened to work out, as they showed up suddenly on the right flank of McClernand's first division, moving to the support of Sherman. Polk's little corps hit Prentiss' sixth division as Prentiss was deciding whether or not to move to Sherman's support. In a hard fought action in which regiments on both sides fired into their own soldiers as they appeared on their flanks, Prentiss' division was scattered. Prentiss fell back with a handful of survivors, and joined William Wallace's second division. Bragg now moved to attack Wallace's division, in what became known as the Hornet's Nest, from the constant whine of the musket balls tearing into the peach trees by the sunken road. Bragg, in his typical incompetent fashion, sent his brigades in one at a time, unsupported, increasing the slaughter and prolonging the agony. Wallace was mortally wounded, and Prentiss eventually surrendered the survivor's of the sixth and second division--those who had not already run away. Hurlbut's fourth division was obliged to withdraw as they were now isolated, and they fell back to east, toward the river, taking no further part in the fight.
Observing the fight at the Hornet's Nest, Johnston had sent his surgeon off to help the Yankee doctors, when he was struck behind the knee by a spent musket ball. It was not a serious wound, but Johnston told no one and it was not until he began to faint that his staff noticed that his boot had filled with blood. No one around him knew about tourniquets, and with his doctor absent, Johnston bled to death. Beauregard now again took command of the army. Johnston's plan had been to drive Grant's army to his (Johnston's) left, into the swamps of Owl Creek, but with him dead, Beauregard seems to have lost all sense of the plan. In stark contrast to his near panic at Bull Run, he now showed an incredible insouciance. He listened to Bragg and allowed that paragon of military wrongheadedness to hammer on McClernand's and Sherman's survivors, driving them into an excellent defensive position above Pittsburgh Landing. This attack was repulsed, when John Jackon's brigade of Bragg's second division was brought forward for yet another attack--and Jackson's brigade had not fought that day, they were fresh. Beauregard, however, decided that enough had been done, and called off the attack.
Missing from the day's fight had been the third division of Grant's army, commanded by Lew Wallace (eventual author of
Ben Hur). Wallace had been marching to the sound of the guns, and would have crossed either Owl Creek or Snake Creek into the rear of Johnston's army. An aide of Grant arrived ordering him to march to Pittsburg Landing, whom Wallace ignored. Another aide, and then yet another arrived with preremptory orders to reverse his march. Incredulous, Wallace asked if he actually expected him to turn his division in the road (the wilderness was too thick to do anything else if they couldn't show him a different route). He was told yes, those are General Grant's orders. Pissed, Wallace ordered his division to turn in the road (rather than just reversing the order of the march--it was an act of spiteful pettiness on Wallace's part), and marched back to his bivouac, then marched south to Pittsburgh Landing. He arrived an hour or more after Jackson would have attacked if Beauregard had not cancelled the attack. That evening, the division of William "Bull" Nelson (formerly of the U.S. Navy) arrived and were ferried over the river--Nelson's division was the largest in Don Carlos Buell's Army of the Ohio, and numbered ten thousand men. Combined with Wallace's seven thousand men, Grant had replaced all of his losses before midnight. The rest of Buell's men arrived overnight, about eleven thousand men, and when Grant ordered an attack the next morning, the attacking force was larger than the entire army Johnston had commanded before the battle.
Beauregard's battered army was driven away on April 7, 1862, and so was the luster of Beauregard's name. Beauregard retired on Corinth, Mississippi, and, although reinforced to more than 60,000 troops, his army was unable to deal with the Federal army. Henry Halleck arrived, took command of Grant's army, and treating him as though he were a callow junior officer, he combined all available forces to advance on Corinth with more than 120,000 troops. Within two weeks of the battle of Corinth, Halleck had retuned to Washington, Grant was dealing with Sterling Price, who had crossed the Mississippi after the battle of Pea Ridge, and Beauregard was sent off to the department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, to defend a coast which was not then threatened.
Beauregard held that command until April, 1864, when he was given command of the department of North Carolina and southern Virginia. It was there that he rendered probably his greatest service to the Confederacy, stopping the advance of Meade's army in June, 1864, when his men literally jumped of the cars and formed up to drive the Yankees away from the Weldon railroad. Beauregard's action (despite his attempt to insist that he outranked Lee, and despite his initial panic when he saw what he took to be all of Meade's army barrelling down on the railroad) probably stopped Grant from overrunning Petersburg and maybe he even deserves credit for preventing Grant from taking Richmond in 1864.
Eventually, he was made commander of the western department, when it no longer mattered (it is likely that Davis just wanted to get rid of him, as, technically, he did outrank Lee). Finally, he was made second in command of the "Army of Tennessee" (suvivors of Hood's shattered army combined with the troops Joe Johnston could scrape up in the Carolinas), and he and Joe Johnston finally persuaded Jefferson Davis to suffender.
After the war, Beauregard did not do badly, becoming a railroad executive, and even becoming quite wealthy by establishing a state lottery in Louisiana. Few officers in that war were surrounded by more controversy for their role in the war, and if one character trait typifies Beauregard in his military career, and in the aftermath of the war, it was a trucelent resentment.
