Yesterday we discussed Robert E. Lee’s situation as commander of a department in the southeastern Confederacy in February of 1862.  Today we will look at what one of his famous colleagues was thinking as he assumed a new command in the western Confederacy.  Pierre Beauregard had been a part of the major Confederate success at First Manassas, which had been thus far the South’s only military triumph east of the Mississippi River.  Beauregard had made political enemies in Richmond and it was hoped in addition to getting rid of him, a transfer would bolster the Confederate high command in Kentucky and Tennessee where several defeats had just been suffered.  150 years ago today Beauregard laid out an ambitious plan to take back what had been lost to several Confederate governors.

Beauregard proposed quickly raising a force of men from the states threatened by the recent setbacks at Forts Donelson and Henry to launch an offensive which would sever Ulysses Grant’s divisions by capturing the mouths of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers.  While perhaps a well thought out military strategy the proposition was a long way off from reality.  The Confederacy simply lacks the ability of mount a river based offensive like the one underway by the Union and one of the only industrial centers capable of supporting the necessary gunboats and heavy artillery, New Orleans, only had a few more months before it was occupied by the federals.  Maybe it would have been good for Beauregard to have switched places with Lee.  Lee’s dim assessment of his situation near Charleston and Savannah was about right in Tennessee, whereas Beauregard’s approach couldn’t have done any harm against the slow moving federal forces on the coast.

Lee and Beauregard would eventually have the opportunity to work with each other later in the war Petersburg.  Ulysses Grant’s offensive there in the summer of 1864 brought the Army of Northern Virginia down into Beauregard’s territory as commander of the geographical department where Petersburg was located.