The controversial Confederate general P G. T. Beauregard was born in Louisiana on May 28, 1818, to parents of French descent. Beauregard commanded Confederate armies at many important battles in both the eastern and western theaters of war. He also designed the famous Confederate BATTLE FLAG.
At age 16, Beauregard entered the United States Military Academy at West Point. Four years later, he graduated second in his class. Early in his career, Beauregard distinguished himself both in building coastal fortifications along the Gulf coast and by his service in the Mexican-American War (1846-48). In 1861, Beauregard returned to West Point to serve as superintendent. His term lasted only five days, however, because President Abraham Lincoln fired him for his secessionist sympathies.
Upon the SECESSION of Louisiana in January 1861, Beauregard resigned from the Federal army. Soon after this, Jefferson Davis awarded him a commission as a brigadier general in the Confederate army. Beauregard assumed command of the forces facing down the Union garrison at Fort Sumter. The surrender of the Union garrison on April 15, 1861, made Beauregard a hero throughout the Confederacy.
Beauregard commanded the Confederate forces in their early victory at the First Battle of Bull Run. As the Confederate army chased the Union army from the field, Beauregard argued unsuccessfully that the Confederates should pursue the enemy all the way back to Washington, D. C. Beauregard lost his popularity when he chastised President Davis in public for not endorsing his plan.
In 1862, Beauregard became second in command of the Army of the West under Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston. After Johnston’s death during the first day of fighting at the Battle of Shiloh, Beauregard took command of the army and nearly secured a victory. After the battle, Beauregard turned command of the western army over to Braxton Bragg and returned to Charleston in hopes of recovering from chronic throat pain. Soon after, Jefferson Davis entrusted Beauregard with the defense of Charleston. to his able preparations, Beauregard and his men were able to repulse a massive Union siege launched against the city in 1863. In the last year of the CiViL War, Beauregard worked under the direction of Gen. Robert
E. Lee to protect Richmond, the Confederate capital, from invasion.
Immediately after the Civil War, Beauregard became superintendent of the New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern Railroad. From 1879 to 1888, he commanded the Louisiana state militia, after which he served as commissioner of public works in New Orleans. In his later years, Beauregard engaged in frequent and bitter disputes about the Civil War, especially with Joseph E. Johnston and Jefferson Davis. He died in New Orleans on February 20, 1893.
Further reading: Alfred Roman, The Military Operations of General Beauregard (New York: Da Capo Press, 1994); Harry T. Williams, P. G. T Beauregard: Napoleon in Gray (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995).
—Chad Vanderford
Bell, John (1797-1869) secretary of war, senator, representative
The moderate Tennessee politician John Bell was born on February 18, 1797, near Nashville, Tennessee. A quick study, Bell graduated from Cumberland College at the age of 16 and gained admission to the state bar in 1816. By 1822 he was a successful attorney practicing in Nashville.
In 1827 Bell was elected as a Democrat to the first of five consecutive terms in the U. S. House of Representatives. Though he broke with the party over President Andrew Jackson’s “bank war” in the early 1830s, he managed to defeat rival James K. Polk for the House speakership in 1834. He was deposed the following year. In 1836 Bell backed Whig candidate Hugh Lawson White for the presidency over Jackson’s anointed successor, Martin Van Buren. In 1840 Bell campaigned for Whig candidate William Henry Harrison, who won and awarded Bell the post of secretary of war. After just one month in office, President Harrison died. His successor, John Tyler, opposed the Whig economic program. When Tyler vetoed a Whig-sponsored bill to create a federal bank of the United States, Bell convinced nearly the entire presidential cabinet to resign in protest.
In 1847 Bell was appointed to represent his native state in the U. S. Senate. A voice of moderation in the increasingly strident debate over slavery in the territories, he reluctantly voted for the Compromise of 1850 but increasingly feared disunion. In 1854 he opposed the Kan-sas-Nebraska Act, which theoretically opened up the western territories to slavery based on popular sovereignty (the preference of resident voters).
Bell’s political career climaxed in 1860 when he ran at the head of the Constitutional Union Party as an alternative to either Abraham Lincoln or John C. Breckinridge. He had staked out a moderate position on slavery and blamed extremists in both parties for the mounting sectional crisis. Lincoln won the contest easily, and Bell rendered a useful service by convincing his fellow Tennesseans that Northerners posed no threat to the South. Consequently, they voted down calls for a secession convention in February 1861. However, after Fort Sumter and Lincoln’s call for volunteers to crush the rebellion, Bell failed to convince Tennesseans to remain in the Union. Bell spent the war years living in near obscurity, believing to the end that compromise over the issue of slavery had been possible. He died in Stewart County, Tennessee, on September 10, 1869, an earnest and overlooked moderate.
Further reading: Jonathan Atkins, Parties, Politics, and Sectional Conflict in Tennessee, 1832-1861 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1997).
—John C. Fredriksen
Benjamin, Judah P. (1811-1884) Confederate government official
Born in St. Croix in the West Indies in 1811, Judah Philip Benjamin became a prominent New Orleans attorney, the only Jewish cabinet member in the Confederate government, and a distinguished member of the British bar. Benjamin’s parents were Philip Benjamin, a small-scale merchant, and Rebecca de Mendes. Leaving St. Croix while Judah was very young, the Benjamins relocated to Charleston, South Carolina. Benjamin grew up there before going to Connecticut to attend Yale University in 1825. After two years, Benjamin left Yale and relocated to New Orleans, where he held various positions to support his study of law. Admitted to the bar in 1833, Benjamin married Marie St. Martin, a Catholic. Judah and Marie had one daughter, but their marriage was not a success. Marie moved to Paris in 1845, and Benjamin saw her rarely thereafter.
While a New Orleans attorney, Benjamin argued two Supreme Court cases, and copublished a learned legal treatise. Benjamin was fairly successful in New Orleans, but he never earned enough money to enable him to live as a rich man. Instead, the law provided him an opportunity to enter into politics. First winning a state representative seat in 1842, Benjamin went on to be elected to the U. S. Senate in 1852 and reelected in 1859. Initially a Whig, Benjamin became a Democrat in the 1850s.
When Louisiana seceded from the Union, Benjamin resigned his Senate seat and returned to the South. Although his relationship with Jefferson Davis had not been cordial in Washington, D. C., the new president of the Confederacy asked Benjamin to assume the attorney generalship of the Confederacy. Over time, Benjamin and Davis built a strong working and personal relationship, overcoming their previous differences. As attorney general,
Benjamin founded the Confederate Justice Department, which was responsible for a variety of legal affairs.
When the secretary of war resigned in 1861, Benjamin’s efficiency as attorney general led Davis to appoint Benjamin to the vacant post. He ultimately proved to be unsuited to the job. He clashed with Confederate generals, who disdained his lack of military experience. The greatest failure of his tenure was the loss of Roanoke Island in early 1862, for which he was widely blamed. With Benjamin’s popularity plummeting and constant conflict between commanders in the field and the War Department, a change was necessary. Davis appointed Benjamin secretary of state, which was a job much better suited both to Benjamin’s talents and to his relationship with Davis. The State Department allowed Benjamin to apply his interest in efficiency and organization to a variety of civil issues, including foreign relations. Although Benjamin was not able to convince France or England to recognize the Confederacy, he did arrange the Erlanger loan in 1863. The loan, which was coordinated by a Parisian bank, provided nearly $10 million for the Confederate war effort.
By 1865 Benjamin was searching for ideas to help avert disaster for the Confederacy. He proposed that Davis offer emancipation of slaves in exchange for recognition from France and England, but that proposal failed. Recognizing the seriously depleted state of Confederate military units, he pursued Emancipationist policies. This outraged many Confederate politicians, who tried to remove him from office. In the end, Benjamin evacuated Richmond with Davis in April 1865. Separated from Davis near Savannah, Georgia, Benjamin narrowly missed capture by Union troops. Instead, he was able to leave the country through Florida and the Caribbean, eventually settling in England.
Benjamin remained in England until his death, working as a barrister. He earned a distinguished reputation in English legal circles and was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1870. Between 1880 and 1882, Benjamin suffered several blows to his health which led to his death in Paris in 1884.
Although Benjamin was not a FIRE-EATER, his commitment to the Confederacy led him to make enormous commitments of time and energy to its cause. Nevertheless, a variety of factors, including anti-Semitism, led to almost constant criticism of his actions by Confederate leaders and newspapers. He was simultaneously one of the Confederacy’s best assets and one of its least appreciated ones.
Further reading: William C. Davis, Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour (New York: HarperCollins, 1991); Eli N. Evans, Judah P Benjamin, the Jewish Confederate (New York: Free Press, 1988); Robert Douthat Meade, Judah P Benjamin, Confederate Statesman (London, New York: Arno Press, 1975).
—Fiona Galvin
World History
