"Eugene Beaumont" redirects here. For the American football coach, see E. B. Beaumont. For the American actor and television director, see Hugh Beaumont.
By December 17, 1864, he was a major serving as the Assistant Adjutant General of the Army of the Mississippi's Cavalry Corps. On that day, at the Harpeth River in Tennessee, he took command of the 4th Cavalry Regiment and led a successful mission to capture a Confederate artillery battery. At the Battle of Selma, Alabama, four months later, on April 2, 1865, he led the regiment in an assault on Confederate fortifications. For these actions, he was awarded the Medal of Honor several decades after the end of the war, on March 30, 1898.[1]
Medal of Honor citation
Beaumont's official Medal of Honor citation reads:
Obtained permission from the corps commander to advance upon the enemy's position with the 4th U.S. Cavalry, of which he was a lieutenant; led an attack upon a battery, dispersed the enemy, and captured the guns. At Selma, Ala., charged, at the head of his regiment, into the second and last line of the enemy's works.[1]
Indian Wars service
After the Civil War, Beaumont served with the 4th Cavalry throughout the western United States. One of his first assignments was as commander of the District of Lampasas, Texas, in 1869 and 1870. During the Red River War, he fought with Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie in the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon, where he led the 4th Cavalry's leading battalion. He spent four years as a cavalry instructor at West Point, from 1875 to 1879, before being promoted to major and returning west. He commanded Fort Reno, in the Indian Territory, for a year, then participated in a campaign against the Ute tribe while stationed at Fort Garland, Colorado. He commanded Fort Riley, Kansas, in 1881, Fort Bowie, Arizona Territory), beginning in 1884, and Fort Huachuca in 1888.[3]
Beaumont's wife Margaret died in 1879[5] and he remarried, to Maria Orton, in 1883.[2] His oldest daughter from his first marriage, Natalie Sedgewick Beaumont, married George Alexander Forsyth, a fellow 4th Cavalry officer who was only three or four months his junior.[6] Beaumont's other daughter, also from his first marriage, Hortense Darling Beaumont, married Charles Pinckney Elliott.