Face Off: More US Civil War Commanders Quiz

Pierre G. T. Beauregard was the Confederacy's polished and prickly general who kicked off the Civil War by ordering the first shots at Fort Sumter in 1861. Known for his flair and tactical skills, he won early battles like First Bull Run and the defense of Charleston, but his career was marked by clashes with other Confederate leaders and a tendency to lose patience with slow-moving allies. Beauregard was a great organizer but not known for dealing well with politics and rivalries within the Confederate command.

After the war, Beauregard was pardoned and began a successful career as a civil engineer and businessman. He was a consultant for and president of several railroad companies, and his engineering expertise was used in projects like the design of the New Orleans custom house and the redesign of the city's levee system. He was also a director of the Louisiana State Lottery Company, which was a bit controversial but a profitable enterprise at the time. He died in 1893.

David Farragut was the Union's most celebrated admiral, best remembered for the 1864 Battle of Mobile Bay. When his fleet hit a Confederate minefield (then called "torpedoes") and a ship went down, Farragut supposedly shouted the immortal line, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" Whether he said it exactly that way is certainly debatable, but it makes a great story, and any publicist will tell you that's more important. In any event, his aggressive tactics helped close one of the last major Southern ports, tightening the Union blockade.

During the war, Farragut also captured New Orleans in 1862, giving the Union a major prize and the Confederacy a major headache. His boldness and skill earned him the new rank of admiral, the first in U.S. Navy history.

John Bell Hood was a Confederate general famous for his aggressiveness and, unfortunately for his army, his penchant for charging headfirst where angels feared to tread. Starting as a cavalry officer, he rose quickly through the ranks and took command of the Army of Tennessee in 1864. Hood was all about bold attacks. His offensives in the Atlanta Campaign and the ill-fated Franklin-Nashville battles resulted in heavy Confederate losses and severely weakened his army.

After the war, Hood moved to Louisiana, where he rebuilt his life as a businessman and insurance executive. He also became a vocal defender of the Confederate cause, writing memoirs that tried to justify his bold decisions.

George Meade is best known as the Union general who won the Battle of Gettysburg, although he'd only been in command of the Army of the Potomac for three days when it started. Dropped into the role in June 1863, he (and the army he commanded) managed to stop Robert E. Lee's invasion of the North in a three-day no holds barred cage match that became the war's turning point. Despite the victory, critics complained that he let Lee's army escape back into Virginia, a charge that haunted him even as he continued to serve well under Ulysses S. Grant for the rest of the war.

After the war, Meade stayed in the army, overseeing military districts during Reconstruction and working on coastal survey projects. He died in 1872 at the age of 56.

Joseph E. Johnston was a Confederate general known for his cautious approach, sometimes to the chagrin of others. Early in the war, he commanded Confederate forces in the Eastern Theater but was wounded and replaced by Robert E. Lee. Later, he took charge of the Army of Tennessee, where he fought several battles against Sherman's forces during the Atlanta Campaign, often retreating to preserve his troops rather than risking outright defeat. This strategy earned some criticism from Confederate leadership eager for more aggressive action.

Despite his cautiousness, Johnston remained a respected commander, and at the war's end, he surrendered to Sherman in April 1865, one of the last major Confederate surrenders.

Ambrose Burnside was the Union general whose name became forever linked with his extravagant facial hair. Unfortunately for him, that's one of his greater accomplishments. Reluctant to take high command, he was nonetheless pushed into leading the Army of the Potomac in late 1862. His big moment came at the Battle of Fredericksburg, where he ordered repeated frontal assaults against Confederate positions on a stone wall, turning the Union army into cannon fodder. The result was one of the war's most lopsided defeats, and Burnside's leadership came under heavy fire, so to speak.

Reassigned, Burnside later commanded at the Battle of the Crater during the siege of Petersburg in 1864. The plan was ingenious: blowing a hole in Confederate lines with a massive underground mine packed with explosives. The execution, however, was bungled when Union troops charged straight into the crater rather than around it, turning a brilliant idea into an unwelcome trap. Burnside was relieved of command not long after.

After the war, Burnside fared a bit better in politics than in combat. He served as governor of Rhode Island and later as a U.S. senator, where his friendly personality was more of an asset than it had been on the battlefield. He died in 1881, remembered as a kind and decent man, just not the one you wanted to be taking orders from.

J.E.B. Stuart was a dashing Confederate cavalry commander whose flair for reconnaissance and raids made him admired and controversial. Early in the war, he gained fame for riding circles around Union armies, gathering intelligence, and embarrassing Union commanders with his raids. His cavalry provided Robert E. Lee with valuable information during battles like the Seven Days and Second Bull Run, and Stuart became a symbol of the romanticized "cavalier" of the Confederate army.

That's not to say that Stuart's penchant for boldness didn't get him (and Lee) into trouble, and not unsurprisingly it happened in the area around a small town in southern Pennsylvania. During the Gettysburg Campaign, an extended raid left Lee temporarily blind to Union movements, a lapse that contributed to the epic Confederate defeat.

At the Battle of Yellow Tavern in May 1864, Stuart was mortally wounded while trying to block Union cavalry, dying at 31 years old.

John Pope was a Union general best known for commanding the newly formed Army of Virginia in 1862... and for losing it rather spectacularly at the Second Battle of Bull Run. Coming from a string of successes in the Western Theater, Pope was confident (some of you might say overly so) and loudly promised to bring a more aggressive brand of war to the East. Unfortunately, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson had other ideas. At Second Bull Run, Pope's army was outmaneuvered and badly beaten, ending his brief time in the spotlight.

Following the war, Pope stayed in the army, serving in various commands on the frontier. He retired in 1886 and died in 1892. Like George Pickett, he is remembered less for his career as a whole and more for one devastating defeat.

George Pickett is remembered almost entirely for one thing: leading the ill-fated "Pickett's Charge" at Gettysburg in 1863. On the third day of the battle, his division formed the heart of Lee's great assault on the Union center. The attack was certainly brave but sadly for his men, doomed from the outset. Thousands of Confederates were cut down crossing long open fields, and Pickett's command was wrecked. When Lee told him to rally his men afterward, Pickett is reported to have replied, "General, I have no division now." It was the end of the Confederacy's glory days and the end of Pickett's reputation.

He continued to serve through the rest of the war but never regained distinction. After Appomattox, Pickett lived in Virginia, where he worked in the insurance business and tried to avoid discussing Gettysburg too much, although his wife, LaSalle "Sallie" Pickett, later worked tirelessly to polish his image with romanticized accounts of his career.

Philip Sheridan was a Union general who, while short in stature, was relentless as a cavalryman. Rising quickly through the ranks, he made his name in the Western Theater before being brought east by Ulysses S. Grant. In 1864, Sheridan's cavalry campaigns in the Shenandoah Valley crushed Confederate forces and destroyed the region's supplies, earning him fame (and infamy, depending on whom you ask) for his "scorched earth" approach. At Appomattox, his troopers blocked Lee's escape, helping to seal the war's end.

After the war, Sheridan stayed in the army, where he applied the same aggressive tactics to the Indian Wars on the western frontier, policies that contributed to the devastation of Native American tribes. He later became general-in-chief of the U.S. Army, overseeing modernization and helping to rebuild Chicago after the Great Fire with the army's logistical support. He died in 1888, just after being promoted to full general.