Beauregard Pierre G T Beauregard 1818 1893 was one of the eight full generals of the Confederate army He became a popular hero after commanding the bombardment of Fort Sumter in April 1861 and saw action in every major theater of the war Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard was born into a French Creole family in Louisiana He attended the U S Military Academy at West Point graduating second in his class in 1838 He served in the Mexican War 1846 1848 and was twice wounded When Louisiana seceded from the Union in January 1861 Beauregard resigned from the U S Army and was commissioned as the first brigadier general of the Confederacy He was ordered to South Carolina where he commanded the attack on the garrison at Fort Sumter in April 1861 Military campaigns Hailed as a hero across the Confederacy after the fall of Sumter Beauregard took command of the Confederate army in northern Virginia At the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21 Beauregard was second-in-command to Joseph E Johnston facing a Union army under his former West Point classmate Irwin McDowell Beauregard’s network of spies in Washington provided valuable information on the Union forces and his role in the battle earned him promotion to full general Beauregard moved west to command the Army of the Mississippi in March 1862 He was second-in-command to Albert S Johnston in the Battle of Shiloh in April and took charge after Johnston was fatally wounded His retreat from Shiloh and later withdrawal from Corinth angered President Davis who fired him in June when Beauregard left his army without permission Curriculum Context Beauregard was one of the leading military figures in the Confederacy particularly in the early part of the war 8 People
An excellent engineer and able commander P G T Beauregard was also vain and egotistical In August 1862 Beauregard returned to duty as the senior Confederate commander in Georgia and South Carolina He organized the defense of Charleston until April 1864 when he transferred to help defend Richmond After holding back a Union advance along the James River in May he was assigned to overall command of the armies in Tennessee and Georgia in October 1864 By January 1865 Beauregard was organizing the retreat through Georgia and the Carolinas In February he ordered Charleston to be evacuated In April after the loss of Richmond and the Army of Northern Virginia he was one of the senior figures who urged Davis to negotiate the surrender of the last Confederate forces to end the war After the war Beauregard returned to his home state of Louisiana where he served as state adjutant general for several years Curriculum Context You might be asked to describe the different attitudes toward surrender among Confederate officers and politicians Beauregard Pierre G T 9
Booth John Wilkes John Wilkes Booth 1838 1865 was a noted Shakespearean actor He is mainly remembered as the man who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln to avenge the South less than a week after the Civil War ended John Wilkes Booth was born into a leading theatrical family on May 10 1838 near Bel Air in the slave state of Maryland The Booth home was 25 miles 40 km south of the border with the free North Booth was proslavery from an early age and thus became fervently anti-Lincoln After some early failures J Wilkes Booth as he was known on stage made his name with the Richmond Theatre Company in Virginia in 1859 While in Virginia he became even more attached to the Southern way of life and joined the Richmond militia for a short time As a militia officer he stood guard at the gallows during the hanging of the antislavery figure John Brown Curriculum Context Many curricula expect students to explain how the election of Lincoln alienated supporters of slavery Although fiercely anti-Lincoln John Wilkes Booth was a popular figure in Northern high society during the war His good looks and acting talent gained him many admirers 10 People
Booth was in great demand as an actor in Washington D C during the war years On November 9 1863 President Lincoln saw Booth star in The Marble Heart by Charles Selby at Ford’s Theatre As the war went on Booth became increasingly upset by Confederate defeats and began to gain a reputation for bouts of wild behavior In May 1864 Booth gave up acting He dabbled in the oil business and may have become a Southern spy smuggling quinine and other medicines to the Confederate army In November Booth moved to Washington where he and others devised various plots to kidnap the president They intended to ransom Lincoln for the return of Confederate prisoners of war However their attempts all failed On April 9 1865 Robert E Lee surrendered to the Union In a desperate last-ditch show of support for the Confederacy Booth decided to kill Lincoln The assassination On the night of Good Friday April 14 1865 Lincoln attended a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre During the third act of Tom Taylor’s play Booth entered the unguarded presidential box and shot Lincoln through the back of the head with a pistol He leaped down onto the stage shouting Sic semper tyrannis meaning So it always is with tyrants The South is avenged Despite having broken his left leg as he landed on the stage Booth escaped on horseback Twelve days later Union troops caught up with him on the farm of Richard Garrett near Bowling Green Virginia The soldiers set fire to the tobacco barn in which the assassin was hiding Booth died in the ensuing gun battle shot through the neck by Sergeant Boston Corbett Quinine An anti-malaria medicine made from the bark of a South American tree Curriculum Context Students might be asked to judge Lincoln’s attitudes toward civil liberties and presidential power during the war Is there any evidence that he was a tyrant Booth John Wilkes 11
