P.G.T. Beauregard: Sumter Brandy, Corinth's Phantom Trains, Cable Cars

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Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard was born outside New Orleans into an aristocratic Louisiana Creole family and spoke only French until about age 12. Largely raised by an enslaved caretaker from the Caribbean who decades later called him her son, he was mocked at West Point for his accent and height, and dropped the hyphen from his name. Passed over for top brevets after strong reconnaissance work in the Mexican-American War, he later stabilized the sinking U.S. Custom House in New Orleans with a timber grillage foundation, and in 1861 served just five days as West Point superintendent before Louisiana seceded.

At Charleston he demanded the surrender of Fort Sumter from Major Robert Anderson, his former artillery instructor, sent him whiskey, brandy and cigars, then shelled the fort for 34 hours. Celebrated after First Bull Run, though Joseph E. Johnston directed much of the fighting, he feuded with Jefferson Davis, stacked his corps in three-mile lines at Shiloh and halted the attack at dusk. In 1864 he held Petersburg with about 5,400 men against 16,000 until Lee arrived. After the war he patented a cable car system, fronted the Louisiana State Lottery and joined the 1873 Unification Movement.

• The first Confederate battle flags he pushed for after Bull Run were sewn from the pink silk of women's dresses.
• At Corinth he ran empty trains with whistles blowing and men cheering to fake reinforcements while his army slipped away.
• Removed by Davis after taking unauthorized sick leave, he defended Charleston with underwater torpedoes and spar-torpedo boats.
• His wife Caroline died in Union-occupied New Orleans, and he could not attend her funeral.
• As state militia adjutant general in the late 1880s, he sent troops against sugarcane strikers, leading to the Thibodaux Massacre.