Camp Beauregard, named in honor of Confederate Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard, was established in Water Valley 2 miles north of Feliciana in September 1861 to protect the eastern flank of the Confederate garrison at Columbus, Kentucky, as well as to protect the railroad that extended from Paducah to Memphis. Designed to serve both as a recruiting center and training camp, the facility was finally manned when Confederate Maj. Gen. Leonidas Polk sent 4,000 men to the post. The camp was apparently separated into four separate encampments and housed some 6,000 men by mid-November under the command of Col. John L. Bowen of the 1st Missouri Confederate Regiment. Military units from Missouri, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Louisiana were stationed and trained at the camp, and at least ten different infantry regiments, three batteries of field artillery, and several independent cavalry companies served there at various times. Although no battles occurred in the vicinity of Camp Beauregard, small scouting parties sent out to reconnoiter and patrol the surrounding countryside engaged in minor skirmishes. Successive epidemics of typhoid fever, pneumonia, and cerebrospinal meningitis took their toll of the men stationed at the camp, and it is estimated that as many as 1,500 soldiers died. The camp was abandoned after the Confederates surrendered Fort Donelson on February 16, 1862. After abandoning the camp, Confederate forces under Col. Thomas Logwood of the 27th Tennessee Regiment burned the camp's facilities and destroyed railroads and bridges in the area as they retreated. Today a stone monument is located at the cemetery where some of the soldiers are buried in a mass grave.

Camp Beauregard has regional/state significance, because it had an observable influence on the Vicksburg campaign. It is significant because it was related to the outer defenses of the Confederate "Gibraltar of the West" at Columbus, and it was a training center for Confederate military units from a number of Southern states. The significance of the site is enhanced because of the epidemics that took the lives of some 1,500 troops who were stationed there between September 1861 and February 1862.