The Civil War, By Harriet Beecher Stowe - 2254 Words

Albert Einstein once said, â€Å"You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.† Honestly, what quote represents General Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard better than that? It could be said that Beauregard, with his quick wit and tremendous skill, was destined to play a vital role in the Civil War. Decades of tension and rivalry between the North and the South led to the five year â€Å"war between the states,† more commonly known as the Civil War. No one knows for certain what the true cause for war was; some people claim it was slavery; some people insist it was state’s rights. The main issues included the South’s dwindling political power, state’s rights, expansion of slavery into the new†¦show more content†¦The five year war resulted in over 360,000 Union deaths and over 260,000 Confederate deaths, with gruesome and bloody skirmishes and battles such as the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest single day of the war, and the Battle of Gettysburg, the bloodiest battle of the war . The war ended in a Union victory after General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865 (historynet). But how did General Beauregard affect the Civil War? To summarize, Beauregard played a key role in the Battle of Fort Sumter, the First Battle of Bull Run, and was an excellent militant. Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard was born on May 28, 1818, into a well-respected Creole family. He was raised on a sugarcane plantation in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, which is just outside of New Orleans. Beauregard attended school in New York City, but in 1834 he was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point. He was popular, with nicknames such as â€Å"Little Creole† and â€Å"Little Napoleon,† and finished second in his class when he graduated in 1863 (history). Beauregard married Marie Antoinette Laure Villerà © in 1 841, and they had three children, Rene, Henri, and Laure before she died in childbirth on March 21, 1850 (findagrave). He was an