Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,846

This is the grave of P.G.T. Beauregard.

Born in 1818 in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, Beauregard grew up in the sugar planting elite, meaning slaves, slaves, slaves. He was the kind of guy–the southern elite was always like this–who liked to remember his mammy and all that shit about how he actually loved the slaves he grew up with, all the while doing everything possible, including treason, to defend holding human property. Anyway, he went to the fancy schools and was then sent to New York at age 12. He didn’t speak English yet. That French plantation world was pretty French.

Beauregard ended up at West Point, so common for the best of the southern elite, who prioritized military mannerisms instead of the burgeoning business values of the northern middle class. He was a very good student, finishing second in the class of 1838. He was mostly an engineer and worked for the Army Corps, including a stint back in New Orleans in the mid 1840s. He was an engineer under Winfield Scott, in the war where the United States stole half of Mexico to expand slavery. He was shot in the shoulder and thigh at Chapultepec, a battle which means nothing to Americans but is merely one of the key moments in the entire Mexican historical identity, when the Niños Heroes fought to the death against the American imperialist invaders. Unfortunately, Beauregard didn’t die.

For the next dozen years, Beauregard had an easy gig. He was the commanding officer in the Engineer Department in Louisiana and Mississippi, meaning no frontier service and hanging out at home with his friends and family. He was close to Franklin Pierce, actively campaigning for his drunken presidency and so was rewarded by being named superintending engineer of the Customs House in New Orleans, a sweet patronage post indeed.

After Louisiana left the union, Beauregard committed treason in defense of slavery. He resigned from West Point and was named brigadier general in the traitor Army. He was already in South Carolina by the time of Fort Sumter, commanding the defense of Charleston. He was at First Manassas as well, after which he was promoted to general. It was at this time that he took a leading role in designing the infamous Stars and Bars Confederate battle flag, proud symbol of racists ever since. Then, as things got more serious, he was sent to the West and was second in command at Shiloh and Corinth during the siege that followed. Moreover, Albert Sidney Johnston recognized that Beauregard was largely the better strategist and largely deferred to him in the planning of the attack at Shiloh. When Johnston was killed, Beauregard became commander of the attack outright. But at Corinth, Beauregard bailed on the city without permission, largely because his troops were being decimated by illness due to contaminated water supplies. Beauregard then went on an unauthorized medical leave himself, bacteria in water unconcerned with rank.

Now, Beauregard most certainly wanted to be running the show. Like most of the leading southern officers, he believed he was the best in the world and these other hacks were getting in the way. But he never had Jefferson Davis’ ear. Davis, who desperately wanted to be in the military instead of being president, constantly interfered in Confederate military operations, playing favorites among generals, and generally creating havoc. But since and Beauregard did not like each other, the general had little influence, despite his relative success on the battlefield. Basically, Beauregard was a big military strategy planner and Davis thought these plans ridiculous. Davis was furious with Beauregard after the latter abandoned Corinth and Braxton Bragg replaced him as commander of the Army of Tennessee (this can be confusing because Grant’s armies in the West were the Army of the Tennessee; notice the article that makes the difference). Thus started the kind of political battle over generals common, with Beauregard’s allies in the Congress demanding his restoration and his enemies following Davis to promote Bragg.

Beauregard could not be ignored though. He was assigned back to Charleston for awhile and did good work on its defenses, but really, this was not what he wanted or what he thought he deserved, His work on the defense of Petersburg probably saved the city and Confederacy from collapse for a little while longer. Finally, he and Joseph Johnston blunted told Davis that the war needed to end in 1865, that the Confederacy had lost, and that further bloodshed was pointless. Finally, Davis listened, not really having any choice. After Lee surrendered to Grant, Beauregard surrendered most of the rest of the armies in Virginia to William Tecumseh Sherman.

Beauregard went back to Louisiana and surprisingly became something of an advocate for Reconstruction. It wasn’t really an ideological shift on the rights of Black Americans. It was that he realized he had lost and that the future was development among Republican lines. If only other ex-Confederates had actually accepted they had been defeated, things would have been a lot less terrible. Alas, southern whites did not accept this and resisted at every opportunity and alas, in the 21st century, white supremacy is roaring back as whites still can’t accept racial equality. Moreover, Beauregard was still quite conservative on these matters. He initially considered moving to Brazil with his slaves and being an officer in the Brazilian army, but stayed because Andrew Johnson was such a great president and all….Romania and Egypt also made him offers but he stayed in New Orleans.

Beauregard promoted Black suffrage precisely to build alliances with moderate Black elements and get rid of Radical Republican rule over his state. Tending to business matters now, Beauregard became super rich. He was a leading railroad executive in the South. He also presided over the Louisiana lottery, an excellent way to make sure you were getting plenty of money. He ended up being one of the most financially successful ex-Confederates, precisely because he moved on from ownership of human capital as the basis of his wealth to investment capital as its basis. Later in life, he participated heavily in the rise of Civil War nostalgia, all of which favored southern interests as northern whites came to the conclusion that southern race relations were the way to go. He published A Commentary on the Campaign and Battle of Manassas in 1891. He was also the uncredited coauthor on Alfred Roman’s The Military Operations of General Beauregard in the War Between the States, published in 1884. Beauregard was also adjutant general in the Louisiana militia when they were mobilized to break up the Knights of Labor led strike of Black sugar workers, leading to the Thibodaux Massacre, so that’s just great

Sometimes, a facile look at the past leads people to say that Beauregard was pro-Black rights so he was less of a bad guy. Any deeper examination of the issue shows how shallow that analysis was. He was happy to massacre Black workers.

Beauregard died in 1893, probably of heart failure. He was 74 years old.

P.G.T. Beauregard is buried in Metairie Cemetery, New Orleans, Louisiana. This is actually the Tomb of the Army of Tennessee and there are other treason officers buried there too, but Beauregard is obviously the most prominent.

If you would like this series to visit other treasonous Confederates, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Stonewall Jackson is in Lexington, Virginia and the reburied body of Nathan Beford Forrest is in Columbia, Tennessee. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.