P. G. T. Beauregard (1818-1893)

An 1838 West Point graduate, Beauregard was appointed the school’s superintendent in 1861. However, he resigned after only a few days, following Louisiana's secession from the Union, and joined the Confederate Army. During the 1864 Overland Campaign, Beauregard found himself leading the Department of North Carolina and Virginia and was responsible for protecting territories south of the James River. As Grant moved south against Lee, Butler launched the surprise Bermuda Hundred Campaign Beauregard’s timely action, coupled with the military incompetence of Butler, bottled up the Union army, nullifying its threat to Petersburg and Lee's supply line. Later that summer, Beauregard also protected the city of Petersburg with low numbers, awaiting reinforcements from Lee. After leaving the Virginia campaigns and the siege of Petersburg, Beauregard travelled to the west and, along with Johnston, surrendered to Sherman in 1865. After the war, Beauregard served as an engineer in New Orleans and the supervisor of the Louisiana Lottery.

 

 

 

 

Benjamin Butler (1818-1893)

Benjamin Butler was a Massachusetts politician and Union officer who fought for the rights of African-Americans. Butler entered the Union Army in April 1861, as a brigadier general and was promoted to major general in May. During the Civil War, he was assigned to the command of Fort Monroe and the Department of Eastern Virginia. During the 1864 Overland Campaign, Butler (leading the Army of the James) was given orders to control Bermuda Hundred – a territory between the James and Appomattox Rivers and to the south of Richmond. This campaign proved to be an overall failure for Butler. Mark Grimsley in his book And Keep Moving On: The Virginia Campaign May-June 1864 eludes to the proposition Butler may have been placed in the Overland Campaign for political purposes. Some within the Republican/National Union Party supported the notion of Butler running in the 1864 Preisdenital Election; if Butler was militaristically preoccupied that notion couldn’t be fulfilled. After the war, Butler served in Congress as a Radical Republican and led the Impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson.

 

 

 

 

John C. Fremont (1813-1890)

A Senator from California, John C. Fremont was unsuccessful as the first Republican candidate for president of the United States in 1856. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he was appointed as a major general in the Union Army by President Abraham Lincoln in May 1861, but was removed in December 1861 due to his emancipation edict (insubordination). In 1862, Fremont was appointed to command the mountain department in Kentucky and Virginia, but faced a series of battle losses. He resigned from the Union Army after being nominated the Radical Republicans presidential candidate on May 31, 1864. This nomination occurred due to the rift within President Lincoln’s Republican Party; many abolitionists were upset with Lincoln's position toward both the issues of slavery and post-war reconciliation with the south. However, Fremont abandoned his political campaign in September 1864, after making a political deal in which Lincoln removed Postmaster General Montgomery Blair from office. After the war, Fremont was appointed Governor of Arizona Territory. 

 

 

 

 

Hiram Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885)

When Confederate troops attacked Fort Sumter, Grant volunteered to rejoin the Union army, despite having resigned in 1854 after 15 years of prior military service. He was initially rejected for appointments, but was eventually given command of the 21st Illinois Volunteer regiment. Applying lessons that he'd learned from commanders during the Mexican-American War, Grant saw that the regiment was combat-ready by September 1861. After Grant captured Vicksburg, Mississippi in July 1863, he was promoted to Lieutenant General and in March 1864 was named General-in-Chief of all US forces. He set to work creating a total war plan to be implemented in the summer of 1864, sending Sherman to attack Georgia and Grant went with Meade to Northern Virginia, in the hopes of destroying Robert E. Lee’s army. Despite the fact the Virginia Overland Campaign met little success and numerous casualties, Grant ultimately led a siege of Petersburg and Lee would surrender in April 1865. After the war, Grant oversaw the military portion of Reconstruction and in 1868 was elected President. 

 

 

 

 

Andrew Johnson (1808-1875)

Andrew Johnson had a full political career leading into the Civil War: elected to the House of Representatives in 1843, elected Governor of Tennessee in 1853, elected to the US Senate in 1856. When Tennessee seceded from the Union in 1861, Johnson broke with his home state and became the only Southern senator to retain his seat in the U.S. Senate. He was vilified in the South, but was appointed military governor of Tennessee to due this pro-Union passion. In June 1864, Andrew Johnson was chosen as the National Union Party’s vice-presidential candidate. This was at a time when the party was shaping its presidential ticket to appeal to as many northern voters as possible, and Johnson was more than likely chosen due to his southern roots and Democratic background. After Union military victories in Georgia in the summer and fall, Lincoln and Johnson won the 1864 election. At the end of the Civil War, Johnson became president following Lincoln’s assassination. Johnson unsuccessfully led American through the first few years of Reconstruction, often clashing with radical leaders in Congress.

 

 

 

 

 

Robert E. Lee (1807-1870)

An exceptional student of West Point, Robert E. Lee served with distinction in the Mexican War. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Lincoln presented Lee with the proposition of leading the Army of the Potomac. However, Lee declined the post, resigned from the US Army and returned to Virginia to lead Confederate forces due to his state loyalties. As leader of the Army of Northern Virginia, Lee achieved great success on the battlefield (Seven Days Battle, Second Manassas), and some notable failures (Antietam, Gettysburg). During the spring of 1864, Lee continuously faced off against Grant, moving southeast across Virginia in Grant’s Overland Campaign. Throughout these series of battles (Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, Cold Harbor), Lee held the upper hand, but at high casualty rates. By the end of the summer, however, Petersburg was under siege and on April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant in Appomattox Court House. Following the war, Lee would follow a path into the field of education, serving as president of Washington College in Virginia. 

 

 

 

 

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

Abraham Lincoln was elected 16th President of the United States in 1860. But before his inauguration, seven southern states seceded from the Union, and by April 1861 the Civil War began. Over the years, the war effort gradually improved for the North, but the summer of 1864 proved to be difficult for the Union cause. Grant’s Overland Campaign in Virginia was not proceeding as planned and the failures convinced Lincoln he'd be a one-term president. Northerners were divided in their war aims and political parties split. Lincoln’s opponent, George B. McClellan, was chosen by the Democrats to challenge him for the presidency, but the contest wasn't even close. Lincoln received 55 percent of the popular vote and 212 of 243 Electoral votes, in part due to the recent military victories by Sherman in Georgia. By April 9, 1865, the war for all intents and purposes was over and Lincoln hoped to carry out a quick Reconstruction policy. However, he was assassinated five days later by John Wilkes Booth, leading Radical Republicans to take control and lead Reconstruction on a very different path.

 

 

 

 

 

George McClellan (1826-1885)

At the outbreak of the Civil war, George McClellan served as General of the Army of the Potomac and briefly as General-in-Chief of all US forces. However, in response to McClellan’s military failure in the Peninsula Campaign, his performance in and directly following the Battle of Antietam, and perceived insubordination, Lincoln removed him from command of the Army of the Potomac. After being relieved of command, McClellan entered the world of politics, openly joining the Democratic Party in 1863 and being chosen their presidential candidate in the 1864 election. His popularity amongst the soldiers, the nation’s divisions over war aims and the failures to suppress Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia all combined to convince Lincoln he would lose the November election. However, the success of Sherman in Georgia united with the divisions amongst the Democrats (the official peace platform was not condoned by McClellan) aided in Lincoln’s re-election success. After the war, McClellan spent many years in Europe and later served as Governor of New Jersey. 

 

 

 

 

George Pendleton (1825-1889)

George Pendleton started his political career as an Ohio State senator in 1854, becoming a congressman in the US House of Representatives in 1857.  Throughout his congressional career, he was a leader of the peace faction of the Democratic Party, with close ties to the Copperheads. At the time of the Civil War, southern Ohio was a center of antiwar sentiment in the Union, and Pendleton became the head of a group of Democrats who opposed President Abraham Lincoln's policies at every turn. He voted against the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which outlawed slavery. In August 1864, Pendleton was chosen the vice-presidential candidate for the Democratic Party. Pendleton was chosen because he balanced the ticket, being paired with War Democrat George McClellan. The Democratic Party adopted a peace platform, but these beliefs were not advocated by McClellan, ultimately hurting the ticket’s chance for Election Day success. After the war, Pendleton served off and on in Congress and also served as Envoy to Germany. 

 

 

 

 

Philip Sheridan (1831-1888)

In 1864, General Philip Sheridan was promoted to the Eastern Theater of the Civil War, commanding the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac. Initially in this Overland Campaign, Sheridan’s cavalry services weren’t significant, due to the dense terrain in battles like the Wilderness. However, by late May Sheridan was sent to directly challenge the Confederate cavalry. While never seriously threatening Richmond, Confederate Cavalry Commander J.E.B Stuart was mortally wounded in these raids. Later that summer, Sheridan was appointed General of the Army of the Shenandoah, given the mission to defeat Confederate General Early's army (who just moved on D.C.) and to close off a potential Northern invasion, but also to destroy the agricultural capabilities of the Shenandoah Valley. In 1865, Sheridan’s cavalry helped pursue Lee until he finally surrendered at Appomattox Court House. After the war, Sheridan continued his military service, fighting in the Great Plains Indian Wars and being promoted General of the Army of the United States in 1888.

 

 

 

 

William T. Sherman (1820-1891)

A graduate of West Point and veteran of the Mexican War, William Tecumseh Sherman was serving as head master at a military academy in Louisiana at the time of their secession. Sherman then resigned and once Fort Sumter was attacked had a commission arranged in the Union Army. Sherman fought in the western theater with Grant during campaigns such as Vicksburg. When Grant was promoted to General-in-Chief, Sherman was named Union commander of the western theater. In organizing his spring 1864 campaigns, Grant focused fighting in Virginia and Georgia, giving Sherman charge of defeating Confederate General Johnston’s Army of Tennessee in the Georgia realm. By September 1864, Sherman had captured Atlanta, a move that helped Lincoln clinch re-election that fall. He then moved eastward on his infamous March to the sea, decimating the landscape through scored-earth policies. In April 1865, he accepted the surrender of all the Confederate armies in Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas. Sherman continued his military service after the Civil War.

 

 

 

 

J.E.B. Stuart (1833-1864)

A Captain in the US Army, James Ewell Brown Stuart resigned in May 1861, following Virginia’s secession, and joined the Confederate States Army. Stuart was first commissioned as a lieutenant colonel of Virginia Infantry, but Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson gave him command all the cavalry companies of the Army him  the Shenandoah. When Lee became commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, he requested Stuart perform reconnaissance on the Union forces, a move that was sometimes successful such as during the Peninsula Campaign. During Grant’s Overland Campaign in the spring of 1864, Stuart’s Cavalry Corps would fight alongside Lee’s forces, delaying the Union cavalry in early battles like Spotsylvania  Court House, angering Union leaders. General Sheridan demanded the opportunity to concentrate all his cavalry forces and directly challenge the Confederate cavalry.  He received the chance on May 11th when the two cavalries faced off in the Battle of Yellow Tavern. It was in this fray J.E.B. Stuart was mortally wounded and died the following day.