Really short bios of notable US Civil War military and civilian people.

[Henry Moon]

Pierre G(ustave) T(outant) Beauregard (1818–93)   
 
Confederate soldier, born in St Bernard Parish, Louisiana, USA. He trained at West Point (1838), entered the Mexican War, and was twice wounded. He resigned from the US service during the secession crisis. He opened the Civil War with the bombardment of Fort Sumter, commanded the Confederate left wing at the First Battle of Bull Run (1861), succeeded the mortally wounded A S Johnston in command of the Army of Tennessee at Shiloh (1862), and commanded the Charleston defences during Union siege operations (1862–4). Small and animated, he graded high in defence of static positions but performed less ably on a fluid battlefield. After the war he held several public offices in Louisiana. 

http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9203801

[Henry Moon]

Earl Van Dorn (1820–63)   
 
US soldier, born near Port Gibson, Mississippi, USA. He trained at West Point (1842), and saw considerable action in the Mexican War, the Seminole War, and against the Indians (he was wounded four times in one engagement). As a major-general of the Confederate cavalry, he was defeated at Pea Ridge, AR (Mar 1862) and Corinth, MS (Oct 1862). He retrieved his military reputation leading Confederate cavalry against Grant during the Vicksburg campaign (1862–3). A civilian enemy - said to be a jealous husband - shot and killed Van Dorn as he sat working in his tent.  


 http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9515530

[Henry Moon]

Barnard (Elliott) Bee (1824–61)   

Confederate soldier, born in Charleston, South Carolina, USA. He trained at West Point (1845), became a Mexican War hero, and left his frontier post (1861) to fight for the Confederacy. At the First Battle of Bull Run he inadvertently originated the nickname ‘Stonewall’ for General T J Jackson and his brigade when he exhorted his inexperienced troops to rally by crying ‘Look at Jackson's brigade - it stands like a stone wall! Rally behind the Virginians’. Mortally wounded, Bee survived the battle by one day. 

 http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9204576

[Henry Moon]

Stand Watie (1806–71) 
 
Cherokee leader and Confederate soldier, born near Rome, Georgia, USA, the brother of Elias Boudinot. He published a Cherokee newspaper with his brother, and when they and two others signed the treaty in which SE Cherokees agreed to resettle W of the Mississippi, Watie alone escaped being killed by angry tribesmen. Siding with the Confederacy, he was appointed colonel of the Cherokee Mounted Rifles and fought in many engagements including Wilson's Creek (1861) and Pea Ridge (1862), and later served as a raider and light cavalry commander. When most of his people decided to support the Union in 1863, he led those Cherokee who stayed with the Confederacy, and was among the last Confederate officers to surrender. He spent his final years as a planter and tobacco processor.   

[Henry Moon]

Braxton Bragg (1817–76)  


US soldier, born in Warrenton, North Carolina,USA. He trained at West Point (1837) and served in the Seminole, Frontier, and Mexican wars, then left the army (1856) to run a plantation in Louisiana. When Civil War broke out he commanded his state's militia, and led the Army of Tennessee into Kentucky in the summer of 1862, but withdrew after the inconclusive battle of Perryville in October. He won a resounding victory over Union forces at Chickamauga (Sep 1863) but his defeat at Chattanooga two months later cost him his command. Dour, irritable, and unpopular with his fellow soldiers, he later became a military adviser to President Davis. After the war he served successively as public works commissioner in Alabama and as chief engineer of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad.   
      

[ole]

Much too kind a bio of Bragg! He irritated the bejeezus out of almost everyone he ever had in his circle. He was abrasive and he thoroughly honked of just about everyone who ever had contact with him. Except Jefferson Davis who knew him when. Whatever his particular forte, he was elevated beyond his level of expertise. And he stayed and stayed there, courtesy of Jeff Davis.

ole

[Henry Moon]

Quote by Ole:

Much too kind a bio of Bragg! He irritated the bejeezus out of almost everyone he ever had in his circle

I agree. These bios are pretty tame and very elementary.  Bragg was petty, manipulative, and controlled by his emotions, much like his good friend Jeff Davis.


Terry