Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state located in the northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The Appalachian Mountains run through its middle; the Commonwealth is bordered by Delaware to the southeast, Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, Lake Erie and the Canadian province of Ontario to the northwest, New York to the north, New Jersey to the east. Pennsylvania is the 33rd-largest state by area, the 6th-most populous state according to the most recent official U. S. Census count in 2010, it is the 9th-most densely populated of the 50 states. Pennsylvania's two most populous cities are Philadelphia, Pittsburgh; the state capital and its 10th largest city is Harrisburg. Pennsylvania has 140 miles of waterfront along the Delaware Estuary; the state is one of the 13 original founding states of the United States. Part of Pennsylvania, together with the present State of Delaware, had earlier been organized as the Colony of New Sweden.
It was the second state to ratify the United States Constitution, on December 12, 1787. Independence Hall, where the United States Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution were drafted, is located in the state's largest city of Philadelphia. During the American Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg was fought in the south central region of the state. Valley Forge near Philadelphia was General Washington's headquarters during the bitter winter of 1777–78. Pennsylvania is 170 miles north to south and 283 miles east to west. Of a total 46,055 square miles, 44,817 square miles are land, 490 square miles are inland waters, 749 square miles are waters in Lake Erie, it is the 33rd-largest state in the United States. Pennsylvania has 51 miles of coastline along Lake Erie and 57 miles of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary. Of the original Thirteen Colonies, Pennsylvania is the only state that does not border the Atlantic Ocean; the boundaries of the state are the Mason–Dixon line to the south, the Twelve-Mile Circle on the Pennsylvania-Delaware border, the Delaware River to the east, 80° 31' W to the west and the 42° N to the north, with the exception of a short segment on the western end, where a triangle extends north to Lake Erie.
Cities include Philadelphia, Reading and Lancaster in the southeast, Pittsburgh in the southwest, the tri-cities of Allentown and Easton in the central east. The northeast includes the former anthracite coal mining cities of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton. Erie is located in the northwest. State College serves the central region while Williamsport serves the commonwealth's north-central region as does Chambersburg the south-central region, with York and the state capital Harrisburg on the Susquehanna River in the east-central region of the Commonwealth and Altoona and Johnstown in the west-central region; the state has five geographical regions, namely the Allegheny Plateau and Valley, Atlantic Coastal Plain and the Erie Plain. New York Ontario Maryland Delaware West Virginia New Jersey Ohio Pennsylvania's diverse topography produces a variety of climates, though the entire state experiences cold winters and humid summers. Straddling two major zones, the majority of the state, with the exception of the southeastern corner, has a humid continental climate.
The southern portion of the state has a humid subtropical climate. The largest city, has some characteristics of the humid subtropical climate that covers much of Delaware and Maryland to the south. Summers are hot and humid. Moving toward the mountainous interior of the state, the winter climate becomes colder, the number of cloudy days increases, snowfall amounts are greater. Western areas of the state locations near Lake Erie, can receive over 100 inches of snowfall annually, the entire state receives plentiful precipitation throughout the year; the state may be subject to severe weather from spring through summer into fall. Tornadoes occur annually in the state, sometimes in large numbers, such as 30 recorded tornadoes in 2011; as of 1600, the tribes living in Pennsylvania were the Algonquian Lenape, the Iroquoian Susquehannock & Petun and the Siouan Monongahela Culture, who may have been the same as a little known tribe called the Calicua, or Cali. Other tribes who entered the region during the colonial era were the Trockwae, Saponi, Nanticoke, Conoy Piscataway, Iroquois Confederacy—possibly among others.
Other tribes, like the Erie, may have once held some land in Pennsylvania, but no longer did so by the year 1600. Both the Dutch and the English claimed both sides of the Delaware River as part of their colonial lands in America; the Dutch were the first to take possession. By June 3, 1631, the Dutch had begun settling the Delmarva Peninsula by establishing the Zwaanendael Colony on the site of present-day Lewes, Delaware. In 1638, Sweden established the New Sweden Colony, in the region of Fort Christina, on the site of present-day Wilmington, Delaware. New Sweden claimed and, for the most part, controlled the lower Delaware River region (parts of present-day Delaware, New Jersey, Pe
Militia
A militia is an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a nation, or subjects of a state, who can be called upon for military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of regular, full-time military personnel, or members of a warrior nobility class. Unable to hold ground against regular forces, it is common for militias to be used for aiding regular troops by skirmishing, holding fortifications, or irregular warfare, instead of being used in offensive campaigns by themselves. Militia are limited by local civilian laws to serve only in their home region, to serve only for a limited time. With the emergence of professional forces during the Renaissance, Western European militias wilted; the civic humanist ideal of the militia was spread through Europe by the writings of Niccolò Machiavelli Beginning in the late 20th century, some militias act as professional forces, while still being "part-time" or "on-call" organizations. For instance, the members of some U.
S. Army National Guard units are considered professional soldiers, as they are trained to maintain the same standards as their "full-time" counterparts. Militias thus can be paramilitary, depending on the instance; some of the contexts in which the term "militia" is used include: Forces engaged in defense activity or service, to protect a community, its territory and laws. The entire able-bodied population of a community, county, or state, available to be called to arms. A subset of these who may be penalized for failing to respond to a call-up. A subset of these who respond to a call-up, regardless of legal obligation. A private, non-government force, not directly supported or sanctioned by its government. An irregular armed force enabling its leader to exercise military and political control over a subnational territory within a sovereign state. An official reserve army, composed of citizen soldiers. Called by various names in different countries, such as the Army Reserve, National Guard, or state defense forces.
The national police forces in several former communist states such as the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries, but in the non-aligned SFR Yugoslavia. The term was inherited in other former CIS countries, where they are known as militsiya. In France the equivalent term "Milice" has become tainted due to its use by notorious collaborators with Nazi Germany. A select militia is composed of a small, non-representative portion of the population politicized. Militia derives from Latin roots: miles /miːles/: soldier -itia /iːtia/: a state, quality or condition of being militia /mil:iːtia/: Military serviceThe word militia dates back to ancient Rome, more to at least 1590 when it was recorded in a book by Sir John Smythe, Certain Discourses Military with the meanings: a military force, it should be noted that the term is used by several countries with the meaning of "defense activity" indicating it is taken directly from Latin. In the early 1800s Buenos Aires, by the capital of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, was attacked during the British invasions of the Río de la Plata.
As regular military forces were insufficient to counter the British attackers, Santiago de Liniers drafted all males in the city capable of bearing arms into the military. These recruits included the criollo peoples, who ranked low down in the social hierarchy, as well as some slaves. With these reinforcements, the British armies were twice defeated; the militias became a strong factor in the politics of the city afterwards, as a springboard from which the criollos could manifest their political ambitions. They were a key element in the success of the May Revolution, which deposed the Spanish viceroy and began the Argentine War of Independence. A decree by Mariano Moreno derogated the system of promotions involving criollos, allowing instead their promotion on military merit; the Argentine Civil War was waged by militias again, as both federalists and unitarians drafted common people into their ranks as part of ongoing conflicts. These irregular armies were organized at a provincial level, assembled as leagues depending on political pacts.
This system had declined by the 1870s due to the establishment of the modern Argentine Army, drafted for the Paraguayan War by President Bartolome Mitre. Provincial militias were outlawed and decimated by the new army throughout the presidential terms of Mitre, Sarmiento and Roca. Armenian militia, or fedayi played a major role in the independence of various Armenian states, including Western Armenia, the First Republic of Armenia, the de facto independent Republic of Artsakh. Armenian militia played a role in the Georgia-Abkhazia War of 1992–1993. In the Colony of New South Wales Governor Lachlan Macquarie proposed a colonial militia but the idea was rejected. Governor Ralph Darling felt. A military volunteer movement attracted wide
Xalapa
Xalapa is the capital city of the Mexican state of Veracruz and the name of the surrounding municipality. In the 2005 census the city reported a population of 387,879 and the municipality of which it serves as municipal seat reported a population of 413,136; the municipality has an area of 118.45 km². Xalapa lies near the geographic center of the state and is the second-largest city in the state after the city of Veracruz to the southeast; the name Xalapa comes from the Nahuatl roots xālli "sand" and āpan "place of water", which means "spring in the sand". It's classically pronounced in Nahuatl, although the final /n/ is omitted; this doesn't occur in contemporary Spanish, its modern counterpart is written as j. The spelling Xalapa reflects the old pronunciation. Xalapa is pronounced or, the last pronunciation is used principally in dialects of Mexico's south, the Caribbean, a large part of Central America, some places in South America and the Canary Islands and western Andalusia in Spain where has converted into a voiceless glottal fricative.
The complete name of the city is Xalapa-Enriquez, bestowed in honor of governor from the 19th century, Juan de la Luz Enríquez. The city's nickname, City of Flowers, was given by Alexander von Humboldt, who visited the city 10 February 1804; the reference is related to the city's older colonial history. According to folklore, the Spanish believed that Jalapa was the birthplace and home of the world's most beautiful woman, la Florecita, which means "little flower"; the residents of Xalapa are called Xalapeños or Jalapeños, the name given to the large popular peppers cultivated in this area. The Totonacs first established themselves around Macuiltepetl; this extinct volcano received its name because the Aztecs used it as the fifth reference mountain to get to the gulf of Mexico's shores. Today it is preserved in a park. During the 14th century, four indigenous peoples settled in the territory today known as Xalapa; each built a small village: Xalitic was founded by the Totonacas. Around 1313, the four villages joined, forming one large village named Xallapan.
Moctezuma Ilhuicamina, the fifth Aztec emperor, invaded the territory during the second half of the 15th century. All the land was ruled as part of the Aztec Empire before the arrival and conquest of the Spanish conquistadores. In 1519 Hernán Cortés passed through en route to Tenochtitlan. In 1555 Spanish Franciscans completed construction of a convent, an important event in the Nueva España of that time; when the Spanish arrived, Xalapa was populated. The population rose after the colonial settlement; when the Spanish improved the Mexico-Orizaba-Veracruz route, Xalapa declined in importance as a transport hub, its population stagnated in the 17th century. From 1720 on Xalapa became important, due to trade with merchants from New Spain arriving to buy and sell the products of the peninsula. Numerous Spanish families from the nearby towns settled in Xalapa, so by 1760 the population had increased to over 1,000 inhabitants, including mestizo and Spanish; the growth of Xalapa in population, culture and importance, increased in the 18th century.
Responding to residents' requests, Carlos IV of Spain declared Xalapa a town on 18 December 1791. In 1772, construction of Xalapa Cathedral began. On 18 May 1784, José María Alfaro got the first air balloon in the Americas, airborne, in Xalapa. Due to the abundance of flowers growing in the region, Alexander von Humboldt, who visited the town on 10 February 1804, christened it the "city of the flowers". Since the beginning of the 19th century, Xalapa has been the scene of some important historical events, it supported independence from Spain. Ideas flowed in the town, Xalapa was represented by many who put forward these ideas to those in Mexico City government meetings. On 20 May 1821, shortly before Mexican Independence on 27 September the same year, Xalapa was attacked by the forces of Don Antonio López de Santa Anna. Together with Don Joaquin Leño, he forced Spanish captain Juan Horbregoso to surrender the town. Independence was gained months later. On 9 May 1824, by decree of the President of the Republic Don Guadalupe Victoria, the first legislature of the state of Veracruz was established in Xalapa.
That year, Xalapa was declared the state capital. In the 1820s Xalapa and the surrounding area revolted when Vicente Guerrero replaced General Anastasio Bustamante. Veracruz was attacked by Isidro Barradas, attempting to reconquer parts of Mexico, over 3,000 were deployed in the military defense of Veracruz, Córdoba and Orizaba. Anastacio Bustamante, betraying the confidence put him, unsuccessfully revolted against the legitimate government with a new plan of Xalapa, signed on 4 December 1829. On 29 November 1830 by decree, Xalapa was named a city. In 1843, Don Antonio María de Rivera founded the Normal School of Xalapa to train teachers. Today it operates as a preparatory school for students going to college. In 1847 in the Mexican–American War Santa Anna attempted to defeat the opposing forces near Xalapa in the Battle of Cerro Gordo, he led an army o
Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States
The Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, or as the Loyal Legion is a United States patriotic order, organized April 15, 1865, by officers of the Army, Navy, or Marine Corps of the United States who "had aided in maintaining the honor and supremacy of the national movement" during the American Civil War. It was formed by loyal union military officers in response to rumors from Washington of a conspiracy to destroy the Federal government by assassination of its leaders, in the immediate aftermath of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, they stated their purpose as the cherishing of the memories and associations of the war waged in defense of the unity and indivisibility of the Republic. As the original officers died off, the veterans organization became an all-male hereditary society; the modern organization is composed of male descendants of these officers, others who share the ideals of the Order, who collectively are considered "Companions". A female auxiliary, Dames of the Loyal Legion of the United States, was formed in 1899 and accepted as an affiliate in 1915.
Following the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, rumors spread that the act had been part of a wider conspiracy to overthrow the constituted government of the United States by assassinating its chief men. Many people at first gave credence to these rumors, including three of the officers assigned to the honor guard for Lincoln's body as it was transported to Springfield, for burial. To demonstrate their loyalty, they decided to form a "Legion" modeled on the Revolutionary War Society of the Cincinnati; the Loyal Legion was organized during the same meetings that planned Lincoln's funeral, culminating in a meeting on May 31, 1865, in Independence Hall in Philadelphia, at which the name was chosen. The Order was composed of three classes of members: Officers who had fought in the Army, Navy, or Marine Corps of the United States in the suppression of the Rebellion, or enlisted men who had so served and were subsequently commissioned in the regular forces of the United States, constituted the "Original Companions of the First Class."
The eldest direct male lineal descendants of deceased Original Companions or deceased eligible officers could be admitted as "hereditary Companions of the First Class." "Companions of the Second Class" were the eldest direct male lineal descendants of living Original Companions or of living individuals who were eligible for membership in the First Class. The Third Class comprised distinguished civilians who had rendered faithful and conspicuous service to the Union during the Civil War. By the law of the Order, no new elections to this class were made after 1890; the Loyal Legion grew in the late 19th Century and had Companions in every Northern state, in many of the states that had once formed the Confederacy. The Commandery in Chief was established on October 21, 1885 with authority over the 14 state commanderies in existence; the Pennsylvania Commandery functioned as the "first among equals" of the commanderies as it was both the oldest and largest. At its height about 1900, the Order had more than 8,000 Civil War veterans as active members, including nearly all notable general and flag officers and several presidents: Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, Philip H. Sheridan, George B.
McClellan, Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester A. Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley; the Order's fame was great enough to inspire John Philip Sousa to compose the "Loyal Legion March" in its honor in 1890. Today, the Order serves as a hereditary society rather than as a functioning military order. Among other activities, Companions organize and participate in commemorative events, provide awards to deserving ROTC cadets, assist with preservation efforts. Of special note is that, each year, the Loyal Legion commemorates President Lincoln's birthday with a wreath-laying ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C. In 2009, the MOLLUS helped coordinate an extended tribute with the help of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission to celebrate the two-hundredth anniversary of Lincoln's birthday. There are now three basic categories of membership: Hereditary and Honorary. Just as many Original Companions of the Order were members of the Grand Army of the Republic, many current Companions of the Order are members of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, the legal heir to the GAR.
Organizationally, the Loyal Legion is composed of a National Commandery-in-Chief and individual state Commanderies. There are 20 state Commanderies. States without their own Commandery are placed under the jurisdiction of an exi
Lafayette College
Lafayette College is a private liberal arts college based in Easton, with a campus in New York City, New York. Founded in 1826 by James Madison Porter and the citizens of Easton, the school first held classes in 1832; the founders voted to name the school after General Lafayette, who famously toured the country in 1824–25, as "a testimony of respect for talents and signal services... in the great cause of freedom". Lafayette is considered a Hidden Ivy as well as one of the northeastern Little Ivies. Located on College Hill in Easton, the campus is in the Lehigh Valley, about 70 mi west of New York City and 60 mi north of Philadelphia. Lafayette College guarantees campus housing to all enrolled students; the school requires students to live in campus housing unless approved for residing in private off-campus housing or home as a commuter. The student body, consisting of undergraduates, comes from 46 U. S. states and territories and nearly 60 countries. Students at Lafayette are involved in over 250 clubs and organizations including athletics and sororities, special interest groups, community service clubs and honor societies.
Lafayette College's athletic program is notable for The Rivalry with nearby Lehigh University. Since 1884, the two football teams have met 154 times, making it the most played rivalry in the history of college football. A group of Easton citizens led by James Madison Porter met on December 27, 1824 at White's Tavern to explore the possibility of opening a college; the recent visit of General Lafayette to New York during his grand tour of the US in 1824 and 1825 prompted the founders to name the school after the French military officer. The group established the 35-member Board of Trustees, a system of governance that has remained at the college to this day. In need of an education plan, the meeting gave the responsibility to Porter, lawyer Jacob Wagener, Yale-educated lawyer Joel Jones; the charter gained approval and on March 9, 1826, Pennsylvania Governor John Andrew Shulze's signature made the college official. Along with establishing Lafayette as a Liberal Arts College, the charter called for religious equality amongst professors and staff.
The Board of Trustees met on May 15, 1826 for the election of officers, resulting with Thomas McKeen as Treasurer, Joel Jones as Secretary, James Madison Porter as the first President of the College. Over the next few years, the Board met several times to discuss property and funding for the college's start-up. Six years after the first meeting, Lafayette began to enroll students; the College opened on May 1829, with four students under the guidance of Rev. John Monteith. At the start of the next year, the Rev. George Junkin, a Presbyterian minister, was elected President of the college and moved the all-male Manual Labor Academy of Pennsylvania from Germantown to Easton. Classes began on May 9, 1832, with the instruction of 43 students on the south bank of the Lehigh River in a rented farmhouse. In order to earn money to support the program students had to labor in the workshops; this manual labor infused College took the place of the original Military/Civil Engineering focus on which the school was founded, would remain part of the curriculum until 1839.
That year, Lafayette purchased property on what is now known as "College Hill" – nine acres of elevated land across Bushkill Creek. The College's first building was constructed two years on the current site of South College. A dispute between Porter and Rev. Junkin led to his resignation of the presidency in 1841. Though still young, Lafayette was beginning to take shape, grappling with the possibility of religious affiliation for financial stability. In 1854, Lafayette College became affiliated with the Presbyterian Church. By relinquishing their control, the College was able to collect $1000 a year from the Presbyterian Church Board of Education as as the latter could pay it. In the time from 1855 to 1856, Lafayette experienced a new peak enrollment of 112 students, leading to the "famous class" of 1857; this close-knit class of 27 men worked in secrecy to establish charters in national fraternities, thus instating the first Greek Fraternities at Lafayette College. These Fraternities remained secret and discouraged by the authorities until 1915.
In preparation for World War I, Lafayette announced that their current students would be awarded their degrees in absentia if they enlisted or went to work for farms to support the war effort. Professor Beverly Kunkel organized The Lafayette Ambulance United, Section 61, United States Army Ambulance Corps. During the summer of 1917, Dr. MacCracken arranged to turn the campus into a war camp for the War Department. Men trained to serve in mechanical trades. Lafayette remained a war camp until January 2, 1919 when the regular course of study was re-established at Lafayette. A drastic change in numbers of undergraduate and graduate students occurred between 1930 and 1934 during the Great Depression; the college made efforts to bolster enrollment including creation of new scholarship opportunities as well as scholarship loans. Lafayette College founded an Engineering Guidance Conference for boys; the Conference was two weeks long and introduced twenty-one high school students to the concepts of engineering.
This program continued until the outbreak of World War II. Though the College faced its own deficits, it aided the larger community by offering a series of classes to unemployed men free of charge beginning in 1932, they made athletic facilities available to unemployed members of the community. Enrollment began to rise again for the 1935–1936 school year; as the college moved out of the great depression, the college's
P. G. T. Beauregard
Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard was an American military officer, the first prominent general of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. Today, he is referred to as P. G. T. Beauregard, but he used his first name as an adult, he signed correspondence as G. T. Beauregard. Trained as a civil engineer at the United States Military Academy, Beauregard served with distinction as an engineer in the Mexican–American War. Following a brief appointment as superintendent at West Point in 1861, after the South seceded he resigned from the United States Army and became the first brigadier general in the Confederate States Army, he commanded the defenses of Charleston, South Carolina, at the start of the Civil War at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. Three months he won the First Battle of Bull Run near Manassas, Virginia. Beauregard commanded armies in the Western Theater, including at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee, the Siege of Corinth in northern Mississippi, he returned to Charleston and defended it in 1863 from repeated naval and land attacks by Union forces.
His greatest achievement was saving the important industrial city of Petersburg, Virginia, in June 1864, thus the nearby Confederate capital of Richmond, from assaults by overwhelmingly superior Union Army forces. His influence over Confederate strategy was lessened by his poor professional relationships with President Jefferson Davis and other senior generals and officials. In April 1865, Beauregard and his commander, General Joseph E. Johnston, convinced Davis and the remaining cabinet members that the war needed to end. Johnston surrendered most of the remaining armies of the Confederacy, including Beauregard and his men, to Major General William Tecumseh Sherman. Following his military career, Beauregard returned to Louisiana, where he advocated for black civil rights and black suffrage, served as a railroad executive, became wealthy as a promoter of the Louisiana Lottery. Beauregard was born at the "Contreras" sugar-cane plantation in St. Bernard Parish, about 20 miles outside New Orleans, to a French Creole family.
Beauregard was the third child of Hélène Judith de Reggio, of mixed French and Italian ancestry and descendant of Francesco M. de Reggio, member of an Italian noble family whose family had migrated first to France and to Louisiana, her husband, Jacques Toutant-Beauregard, of French and Welsh ancestry. He had three sisters, his family was Roman Catholic. As a child, Beauregard befriended and played with slave boys his own age, was weaned as a baby by a Dominican slave woman, he grew up in a large one-story house, unlike the "later plantation palaces, but a mansion of aristocracy by the standards of its time." Beauregard would hunt and ride in the woods and fields around his family's plantation and paddled his boat in its waterways. Beauregard attended New Orleans private schools and went to a "French school" in New York City. During his four years in New York, beginning at age 12, he learned to speak English, as French had been his first and only language in Louisiana, he attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.
One of his instructors was Robert Anderson, who became the commander of Fort Sumter and surrendered to Beauregard at the start of the Civil War. Upon enrolling at West Point, Beauregard dropped the hyphen from his surname and treated Toutant as a middle name, to fit in with his classmates. From that point on, he used his first name, preferring "G. T. Beauregard." He excelled both as an artilleryman and military engineer. His Army friends gave him many nicknames: "Little Creole", "Bory", "Little Frenchman", "Felix", "Little Napoleon". During the Mexican–American War, Beauregard served as an engineer under General Winfield Scott, he was appointed brevet captain for the battles of Contreras and Churubusco and major for Chapultepec, where he was wounded in the shoulder and thigh. He was noted for his eloquent performance in a meeting with Scott in which he convinced the assembled general officers to change their plan for attacking the fortress of Chapultepec, he was one of the first officers to enter Mexico City.
Beauregard considered his contributions in dangerous reconnaissance missions and devising strategy for his superiors to be more significant than those of his engineer colleague, Captain Robert E. Lee, so he was disappointed when Lee and other officers received more brevets than he did. Beauregard returned from Mexico in 1848. For the next 12 years, he was in charge of what the Engineer Department called "the Mississippi and Lake defenses in Louisiana." Much of his engineering work was done elsewhere, repairing old forts and building new ones on the Florida coast and in Mobile, Alabama. He improved the defenses of Forts St. Philip and Jackson on the Mississippi River below New Orleans, he worked on a board of Army and Navy engineers to improve the navigation of the shipping channels at the mouth of the Mississippi. He created and patented an invention he called a "self-acting bar excavator" to be used by ships in crossing bars of sand and clay. While serving in the Army, he campaigned for the election of Franklin Pierce, the Democratic presidential candidate in 1852, a former general in the Mexican War, impressed by Beauregard's performance at Mexico City.
Pierce appointed Beauregard as superintending engineer of the U. S. Custom House in New Orleans, a huge granite building, built in 1848; as it was sinking unevenly in the moist soil of Louisiana, Beauregard had to develop a renovation program. He stabilized the structure successfully. During his service in New Orleans, Beauregard becam
Major General
