First published in 1955 to wide acclaim, T. Harry Williams' P.G.T. Beauregard is universally regarded as "the first authoritative portrait of the Confederacy's always dramatic, often perplexing" general (Chicago Tribune). Chivalric, arrogant, and of exotic Creole Louisiana origin, Beauregard participated in every phase of the Civil War from its beginning to its end. He rigidly adhered to principles of war derived from his studies of Jomini and Napoleon, and yet many of his battle plans were rejected by his superiors, who regarded him as excitable, unreliable, and contentious. After the war, Beauregard was almost the only prominent Confederate general who adapted successfully to the New South, running railroads and later supervising the notorious Louisiana Lottery. This paradox of a man who fought gallantly to defend the Old South and then helped industrialize it is the fascinating subject of Williams' superb biography.
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| The name
T. Harry Williams
conjures up many images for those who knew him. He was a Pulitzer Prize winning author and an outstanding teacher of southern history, who had a flair for the dramatic. Williams was also an innovative scholar and a pioneer in the field of oral history.
Williams was born in Illinois, moved to Wisconsin, and received his Bachelors Degree in Education from Platteville State Teachers College, Wisconsin. He earned Masters and Doctorate Degrees in History from the University of Wisconsin. He taught history at several universities, the final one being Louisiana State University, where he was a professor from 1941 until 1979. He became a Boyd Professor of History in 1953. In 1979, the LSU Board of Supervisors established the T. Harry Williams Chair of American History. Also that year, the T. Harry Williams Scholarship Fund was created.
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Among Williams' many academic honors were Doctor of Law, Northland College (1953); Guggenheim Fellow (1957); Doctor of Letters, Bradley University (1959); Harry S. Truman Award in Civil War History (1964); Harmsworth Professor of American History, Queen's College, Oxford, England (1966-1967); Doctor of Humane Letters, Loyola University (1974); and Doctor of Humane Letters, Tulane University (1979). Williams was the President of the Southern Historical Association (1958-1959) and Organization of American Historians (1972-1973). In 1991, LSU Libraries Special Collections established the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History, to record and preserve the oral history of the university and Louisiana.
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