Important+People

=Important People = = =  See also: The Gettysburg page

Page editor: Mrs. Z Page update: April 20, 2008 = =
 * Page Authors:** Brynn, Talia, Emma, Fiona, Dominic, Phoebe, Eric

Page Contents:
====Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard / Belle Boyd / Gen. Irwin McDowell / Rosie O'Neal Greenhow / Jefferson Davis / Frederick Douglass / Gen. U.S. Grant / Gen. Robert E. Lee / Abraham Lincoln / Gen. George Meade / Gen. George Pickett / Harriet Beecher Stowe /====

Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard
**Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard** was born May 28, 1818 in New Orleans, Louisiana. As a child, he grew up in a family that honored the language and customs of France. When he was 16, influenced by Napoleon Bonaparte, he went to West Point, where he graduated in 1838.  In the late 1830's he served in the Mexican American War and in 1841 he married Marie Laure Villere. His wife died in childbirth in 1850. Beauregard was in charge of the Confederate forces when they fired upon the Union forces at Fort Sumter. He was also the commanding general during the Battle of Bull Run, the first battle of the Civil War. He helped lead the Confederacy to victory at Bull Run in July 1861. Beauregard was very unpopular with Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Beauregard was considered to be arrogant and a schemer. 

Belle Boyd
**Belle Boyd** was a spy for the Confederates during the Civil War. She was born on May 9, 1844 in Martinsburg, Virginia. Her family had strong connections to the Confederate leadership. She first spied when she overheard a conversation with a reporter for the New York Tribune  and she reported the important information to the South. She joined the Confederate intelligence as a messenger. After the start of the Civil War, Belle was organizing parties to visit the troops,and she also became a courier for Generals Beauregard and Gen. Thomas (Stonewall) Jackson, carrying information, delivering medical supplies and confiscating weapons. After a while, the Union caught her, but even though the penalty for spying was death, Belle was set free and only given a stern warning because the Union did not believe that a 17 year old girl could do much harm in the war. In 1864 she went to England carrying information for the Confederates there she married a Union naval officer. After the war she started touring the U.S tell her story about how she was an exciting spy in the Civil War. She died in 1900.. She is buried in the Spring Grove Cemetery in Wisconsin Dells.

Jefferson Davis

 * [[image:jeffdavis.jpg width="109" height="159" align="left" caption="Jefferson Davis"]]Jefferson Davis** was the first and only President of the Confederate States of America. He was elected president in 1861 and his term of office ended in 1865. He was born in Kentucky but grew up in Mississippi. Before the war, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate and he was the Secretary of War for President Franklin Pierce. As president, he had a hard time getting along with other people. He was captured at the end of the war and spent two years in prison for treason. He died December 6th, 1889.

=Frederick Douglass= **Frederick Douglas**, the most famous black man of his time, was the son of a slave and an unknown white man. Douglass was born a slave but he ran away from his master when he was 20 years old. He spoke out against slavery and he published a book about his experience as a slave and his life as an Abolitionist. He published an anti-slavery newspaper called "The North Star." He advised Lincoln on the problems of slavery and he helped recruit Black soldiers for the 54th and 55th Massachussetts regiments. Douglass died on January 20, 1895 after attending a women's suffrage convention in Washington, D.C.

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Gen. U.S. Grant
= = **Ullysses S. Grant** attended West Point, and began the Civil War as a colonel of the 8th Illinois regiment. His leadership skills helped him to rise quickly through the chain of command. In 1862, he was named Major General and he won a series of victories in the Western theater that put Kentucky and most of Tennessee under Union rule. His army captured Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 4, 1863. In 1864, Lincoln made Grant the Lieutenant General in charge of all the Union armies. Grant moved his headquarters to the Army of the Potomac in the East. In 1865, Grant's army captured Gen. Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army at Petersburg, Virginia, after a 9 month siege. General Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia. Grant helped Lee's starving army after the surrender and he supported Reconstruction of the South. Grant promised to protect the rights of African Americans in the South. He was the Republican candidate for president in 1868 and he won the election. He served as president for eight years.

Rosie O'Neal Greenhow
**Rosie O' Neal Greenhow** was born to a wealthy slave owning family in 1815 or 1817 Port Tabacco, Maryland. Her father was murdered by one of their slaves and from then on Rosie was strongly opposed to the Abolitionist Movement. Rosie O' Neal was one of the most successful female Confederate spies of the Civil War. Rosie O' Neal Greenhow learned about the Union military plans from her wide circle of important friends, then passed that information along to the Confederate leaders. In July 1861, she provided a key piece of information that helped the Confederate forces win the first battle on Bull Run in Virginia. She told the Confederate leaders when the Union forces would leave Washington, how many troops were involved, what route they would take, and the strategies for the Battle of Bull Run. She tricked the Union into thinking that the Confederate forces were planing an offensive attack. Rosie sometimes involved her daughter when carrying out her spy information. She was imprisoned by the Union and her daughter served time with her in jail. Rosie also wrote a book on her spy activities called //My Imprisonment and the First Year of Abolition Rule at Washington// She died on October 1, 1864. She drowned when she tried to escape capture by the Union Navy. The Confederate boat on which she was traveling was intercepted by a Union ship and to escape capture, she persuaded the captain to let her go ashore in a lifeboat. The weather was stormy and the lifeboat overturned. Rosie had $2,000 in gold sewn into her clothing, which weighed her down and contributed to her death.

Gen. Robert E. Lee

 * [[image:lee.jpg align="left" caption="Robert E. Lee"]]Robert E. Lee** was born in Stratford, Virginia. He was the son of Gen. Henry Lee, a Revolutionary War soldier and friend of George Washington. Lee attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and joined the elite Army Corps of Engineers after graduation. He fought in the Mexican-American war, was a superintendant at West Point, and later, he became the lieutenant colonel of the Second U.S. Cavalry. When the Civil War began, Lee did not stand for slavery of separation of the states. When Abraham Lincoln offered Lee command of all of the armies, he said no thank you, that's job is not for me (not his words, mine). His first loyalty was to his state. Since he was originally from Virginia, he fought on the Confederate Army. In 1862, Jefferson Davis appointed Lee as general of the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee took the battles up north with an all-out attack on the Union, pushing them to Maryland. At the Battle of Antietam (called Sharpsburg by the Confederates), Lee's army fought the Union Army to a draw and the Confederates retreated to Virginia. Lee won the battle against Joseph Hooker by flanking his army at Chancelorsville. Lee, having had his army defeated in Gettysburg, retreated back to Virginia. General S. Gran, Lee's opponent after 1864, was a relentless force against Lee's army, outnumbering them 2 to 1 the rest of the war. Lee finally surrendered on April 9, 1865. After the war, he served as president of Washington College (now Washington and Lee College). He died on Oct. 12, 1870. All in All, Robert E. Lee was a very popular and respected man.

Abraham Lincoln
**Abraham Lincoln** was president of the United States during the Civil War. As president, he made daring choices and faced difficult decisions. He signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. This gave freedom to slaves in the states that were in rebellion against the Union. [|Lincoln] went against the [|Constitution] by suspending the writ of [|habeas corpus]. Habeus corpus is a court order that states that people must be brought to court before being imprisoned. This means that people can petition to be released from unlawful imprisonement. To protect against civil unrest, both the Union and Confederate governments supsended some civil liberties guarenteed by the Constitution. Lincoln also went against his military leaders. He wanted a general who would fight no matter what, so he appointed Ulyssess S. Grant general of all the Union armies in 1864. Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865 by John Wilkes Booth, five days after the Confederate surrender. Lincoln succeeded in keeping the Union of states together.

Union **Gen. Irvin McDowell** was born in Columbus, Ohio October 15th,1818 and he died on May 4, 1885. He was a graduate of West Point and when the Civil War began, he was appointed commander of the Union Army in Washington, D.C. He was in command of the 37,000 soldiers Union Army on July 21, 1861 at the First Battle of Bull Run (aka Manassas.) He was defeated by Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, who commanded 32,000 soldiers. He was dismissed as the Army's commanding general, but became a corps commander at the Second Battle of Bull Run almost a year later. He was criticized for his actions in the second battle, and faced charges of misconduct, which were later dismissed. He no longer was in active command but he went on to lead many military departments. After the war, he became Parks Commissioner in San Francisco.

=Gen. George Meade=

**George Meade** was born in Spain. He attended West Point in 1835, became an engineer, and later fought in the Mexican-American War. When the Civil War began, he was a brigadier general and eventually rose through the ranks to command the V Corps of the Army of the Potomac. He became the commanding general several days before the Battle of Gettysburg. Although he led the Union Army to victory, he was criticized by many for not following Lee's army as they retreated. Many thought that if Meade had been able to capture the retreating army, the war would have ended sooner. In 1864, Gen. U.S. Grant was placed in command of all the Union Armies. Grant moved his command to the Army of the Potomac and Meade served under Grant. After the war, Meade lived in Philadelphia.

=Gen. George Pickett=


 * [[image:pickett.jpg align="left" caption="George Pickett"]]George Pickett** was born in Richmond, Virginia on January 25, 1825. He studied law but decided it wasn't his calling. He went to the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1842 and graduated last in his class. He fought in the Mexican-American War and joined the Confederacy when the Civil War began. On the third day at Gettysburg, his division, along with two others, marched across the field from Seminary Ridge to Cemetery Ridge to attack the Union Army. His division was destroyed and he never forgave General Lee for the destruction of his division.

Harriet Beecher Stowe
**Harriet Beecher Stowe** was born on June 14, 1811. Her father and 6 brothers were ministers and her family was opposed to slavery. Her family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio when she was 21 and she saw slavery in action. She met her husband, Elias Stowe, in Cincinnati. They moved to Maine in 1832, the same year the Fugitive Slave Act was passed. The Fugitive Slave Act made it easier for slaves who escaped to be returned.She was so angry about slavery that she wrote //Uncle Tom's Cabin// in 1851 and 1852. The book was about slavery and how bad it was. The book was about a slave named Uncle Tom who was beaten by Simon Legree, a plantation owner. According to Abraham Lincoln, this book was the cause of the Civil War.

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