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OBITUARIES. AMERICAN. (BEALE BEERS.) 



Beale, Edward Fitzgerald, military and naval officer, 

 born in Washington, D. C., Feb. 4, 1822 ; died there, 

 April 22, 1893. He was graduated at the United 

 States Naval Academy in 1842, and at the beginning 

 of the Mexican War was ordered to duty in California 

 under Commodore Eobert F. Stockton. On Dec. 7, 

 1846, he distinguished himself by charging through a 

 body of Mexican soldiers at San Pasquale and San 

 Bernardino and carrying intelligence to San Diego 

 of the perilous situation of the American army under 

 Gen. Kearney, for which gallantry he was presented 

 by his brother officers with a sword inscribed with 

 the story of his act, and in February following was 

 selected by Commodore Stockton as nearer of official 

 dispatches to Washington. After the war he resigned 

 his naval commission and was appointed Superin- 

 tendent of Indian Affairs for California and New 

 Mexico. He is credited with having brought the 

 first specimens of gold from California to the East, and 

 with naving made the report which first led to the 

 gold fever. He was commissioned a brigadier-gen- 

 eral in the army, and appointed by President Pierce 

 superintendent of the wagon road in California. In 

 1861 President Lincoln appointed him surveyor-gen- 

 eral of California and Nevada, but he declined the 

 office to enter the Union army, in which he served 

 through the civil war. After the war he engaged ex- 

 tensively in stock raising and wool growing near Los 

 Angeles, Cal., till 1876, when President Grant, with 

 whom he had been on terms of unusual intimacy for 

 many years, appointed him United States minister to 

 Austria. He remained in Vienna one year, then re- 

 signed, and subsequently spent the most of his time 

 in California. 



Beard, James Henry, painter, born in Buffalo, N. Y., 

 in 1814; died in Flushing, L. I., April 4, 1893. He 

 was of English-Scotch ancestry, his father having 

 been descended from Sir James Beard, of England^ 

 and his mother from Sir Lochlain Maclean, of 

 Scotland. The family removed to Ohio, and settled 

 finally in Cincinnati, where James Henry devoted 

 himself to portrait painting with great success. We 

 owe to his skillful brush much of our familiarity with 

 the outward appearance of Henry Clay, John Quincy 

 Adams, and other public men who gave him sit- 

 tings. In 1846 he exhibited in the National Acad- 

 emy, New York city, a painting called " The Carolina 

 Emigrants," and in 1848 he became an honorary 

 member of the Academy. In 1870 he removed his 

 residence to New York, and in 1873 he was elected to 

 full membership in the Academy. He achieved suc- 

 cess in animal painting, to which he devoted himself 

 in his later years. His best known works include " A 

 Peep at Growing Danger" (1871); "The Widow" 

 (1872); "A Mutual Friend," "The Parson's Pets" 

 (1875) ; " Attorney and Clients," " Out all Night," and 

 " There's Many a Slip" (1876); " Consultation" and 

 "Blood will tell" (1877); "Don Quixote and 

 Sancho Panza" (1878); "Don't you know me?" 

 (1879) ; " Heirs at Law " (1880) ; " Which has Pre- 

 emption?" (1881); "You can't have this Pup" 

 (1882); "My Easter's all spoilt" and "I don't be- 

 lieve One Word of it" (1883) ; " The Detected Poach- 

 er" (1884); "Don't you come here" and "The 

 Mississippi Flood" (1885); "A Barnyard," "'LI yer 

 gimme some ? Say!" (1886). 



Beauregard. Pierre Gustavo Toutant, military officer, 

 born in St. Martin's Parish, La., May 28, 1818; died in 

 New Orleans, La., Feb. 20, 1893. He was graduated 

 at the United States Military Academy and appointed 

 a brevet 2d lieutenant of artillery in '1838; was pro- 

 moted 1st lieutenant and transferred to the corps of 

 engineers in 1839; distinguished himself in the Mexi- 

 can War, where he won the brevet of captain for gal- 

 lantry at Contrerns and Churubusco, and of major for 

 Chapultepee, where he was twice wounded ; was en- 

 gaged in constructing fortifications on the Gulf of 

 Mexico after the war; and for five days in January, 

 1861, was superintendent of the Military Academy. 

 He resigned his commission after the secession of 

 Louisiana in February following ; was appointed com- 



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mander of the Confederate forces at Charleston, 8. C. ; 

 and there opened the hostilities of the civil war by 

 bombarding Fort Sumter, on April 11. After the 

 evacuation of the fort by Major Anderson, Gen. Beau- 

 regard was transferred to Virginia, where he com- 

 manded the Confederate forces in the battle of Bull 

 Eun, on July 21. In 

 March, 1862. he was 

 ordered to the Army 

 of the Mississippi, un- 

 der Gen. Albert S. 

 Johnston, and in April 

 following fought the 

 battle ot Shiloh, gain- 

 ing a victory over the 

 National forces the first 

 day, but being defeat- 

 ed by Gen. Grant on 

 the second day. Fail- 

 ing health kept him 

 from active duty till 

 June, 1863, when he 

 took charge of the de- 

 fense of Charleston 

 against the combined 

 land and naval forces. 

 He remained in command there till April, 1864, 

 when he was ordered to Richmond, to strengthen 

 its defenses. On May 1 6, he attacked Gen. Butler in 

 front of Drury's Bluff, and forced him back to his 

 intrenchments between the James and the Appo- 

 mattox rivers. In anticipation of Gen. Sherman's 

 successful march through the Carolinas, he ordered 

 Gen. Hardee to evacuate Charleston, which was done, 

 Feb. 17, 1865. He attempted to aid Gen. Joseph E. 

 Johnston in opposing Gen. Sherman, but in April 

 surrendered with the former to the latter. After the 

 war he became President of the New Orleans, Jack- 

 son and Mississippi Kailroad Company, Adjutant- 

 General of the State, and a manager of the Louisiania 

 State Lottery. He published "The Principles and 

 Maxims of the Art of War" (Charleston, 1863) and 

 "Keportof the Defense of Charleston" (Richmond, 

 1864), and was the last survivor of the full generals 

 of the Confederacy. 



Bedford, Gunning 8., jurist, born in New York" city, 

 in 1837 ; died there, Oct. 29, 1893. He was a son of 

 Dr. Gunning S. Bedford, well known in his day as a 

 physician and medical writer, and a great-grand- 

 nephew of Gunning Bedford, one of the framers of 

 the Federal Constitution. He was graduated at Co- 

 lumbia College in 1855, and at the Harvard Law 

 School in 1859 ; was admitted to the bar in New 

 York city in 1859; was assistant district attorney in 

 1865-'69; city judge in 1869-'74; in private practice, 

 1874-'85 ; and assistant district attorney from 1885 till 

 his death. At a stated meeting of the New York 

 Academy of Medicine, on May 18, 1871, Judge Bed- 

 ford received the compliment of a resolution thanking 

 him for the vigorous and effective manner in which, 

 in his official capacity, he had co-operated with the 

 medical authorities in their efforts to check the crime 

 of abortion. 



Beers, William H., insurance officer, born in Phila- 

 delphia, Pa., April 16, 1823; died in New York city, 

 Nov. 16, 1893. He received a public-school educa- 

 tion; served some time in the united States navy; 

 became a clerk in the New York Life Insurance Com- 

 pany in 1853; and was its president from 1885 till 

 Feb. 10, 1892. In 1891 the New York "Times" 

 charged him with gross mismanagement of the com- 

 pany's affairs, for which he brought two actions for 

 libel against that newspaper, aggregating $1,750,000. 

 Both of these suits were withdrawn ; the superin- 

 tendent of the State Insurance Department investi- 

 gated the charges, and in his report so criticised Mr. 

 Beers's methods that the latter resigned the presi- 

 dency. The board of directors then made a contract 

 with Mr. Beers by which he was to serve the com- 

 pany in an advisory capacity for life, at an annual 

 salary of $37,500, one half his former salary as presi- 





