but from among those who knew him well, none ever turned upon him but the mean and false. He was peculiarly the friend of young men, encouragin gthem to manly exertion and in honourable ambition. He sympathized with the worthy poor, was fond of conversing with them, and gave to hundreds a help, of which the world knew nothing. His heart was full of kindly affections; he sought out children wherever he came, and these instinctively hung upon and loved him. His habits were frugal, and free from all extravagance. Throughout the last twentyfive years of his life, his circumstances were straitened; and, after passing through many public trusts, he died as he had lived, a poor man. His temperance, both in meat and drink, bordered upon abstemiousness; he eschewed betting and gambling, which he held in repugnance; he was a regular attendant upon religious worship; and he died a respected member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, enjoying, in extremis, the affectionate ministrations and devoted attachment of his minister, who left the army and came far to render these grateful offices. This is the great and generous character which partisan rancour and sectional misconceptions have pictured as a monster in treason and various criminality.

LIEUT.-GEN. WILLIAM J. HARDEE.

CHAPTER LXXIV.

His military life before the War of 1861.-His command in the Trans-Mississippi.— Ordered to Bowling Green, Kentucky.-At Shiloh.-His views and advice ir the Kentucky Campaign.-Promoted to a Lieutenant-General.—The first day of Murfreesboro.-Reinforcements wanting at a critical time.-Gen. Hardee as an organizer of troops.—Religious incidents of his camp. He joins Johnston's army in Mississippi.-Return to the Army of Tennessee.-The battle of Missionary Ridge. Fought against the advice of Gen. Hardee.-He takes charge of Bragg's army at Dalton.-Why he declined permanent command of it.-The Atlanta campaign.-Protest against the appointment of Gen. Hood as Commander-inChief.-Hardee's desperate fight at Jonesboro.-He is assigned to the command of the Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.-Condition of this Department at the time of Sherman's "march to the sea."-The evacuation of Savannah.-Campaign of the Carolinas.-Hardee's fight at Averysboro.-Battle of Bentonville.-The General loses a young son in the last affair of arms.-A tribute from Arkansas troops to Gen. Hardee.-Estimate of his military record.-His virtues as a soldier and a citizen.

WILLIAM JOSEPH HARDEE was born in Camden county, Geor gia, in 1815. He obtained his military education both at West Point and at the celebrated cavalry school of Saumaur, in France. He was the author of one of the best works on military tactics that had ever been published; and, up to the period of the war between the North and the South, his military services had extended over more than twenty years. He had served in Florida; he had been stationed on the Western frontier; he had accompanied Taylor across the Rio Grande in the Mexican campaign, taken part in the siege of Monterey, and in various actions distinguished himself to the gates of Mexico. He was twice brevetted "for gallant and meritorious service" during this war, and came out of it Lieutenant-Colonel by brevet. Thereafter, he was on duty on the Texan frontier until 1853; in 1855, he was appointed

Major of the 2d Cavalry; and the following year he was appointed Commandant of the Corps of Cadets at West Point, and filled that office until 1860. Upon being relieved, he obtained leave of absence, and was in Georgia at the time of the secession of that State.

He brought to the service of the Southern Confederacy a fruitful experience, and a name generally known in military circles. He was offered by President Davis the position of Adjutant-General of the Army. This he promptly declined in favour of more active service. The Provisional Congress authorized the appointment of five general officers, and Hardee was one of the five upon whom it was intended this rank should be conferred; but the arrival of Gen. Cooper, about this time, filled out the number to whom the appointments were eventually given.

Hardee was first assigned to the command of Fort Morgan, at the entrance of Mobile Bay; but in June, 1861, he was sent, with the rank of Brigadier-General, to take command in Arkansas. He commenced his military career with a most brilliant. design. When Gen. Price was in the heat of his first famous campaign in Missouri, and pursuing the victory he had obtained at Oak Hills, Gen. Hardee was also intent upon a movement in that State, which promised the most important results. It was to advance through Southeastern Missouri from the Arkansas border, having his base at Pocahontas; to unite at Frederickton with a column under Pillow, of some 6,000 or 8,000 men, moving from New Madrid; to take Ironton, and then, by flanking and threatening to get between that place and St. Louis, to compel the evacuation of the latter city, or to defeat its garrison in the open field. This movement would have cut off and destroyed the defeated and routed army of Lyon, then in full flight for St. Louis, and made the Confederates masters of the situation in Missouri. But the campaign was overruled by other necessities— the first instance of that frequent disappointment of decisive operations in the West, due to the lack of uniformity and concert in the plans and actions of the various commanders. It was considered at Richmond most important, at that time, to occupy and fortify Columbus, in Kentucky, situated on the Mississippi River, some twenty-two miles below the mouth of the Ohio. This measure, it was thought, would protect the States

iying along the Mississippi from invasion, by enabling the Confederates to hold the river, as it was by the river only that those States could be conveniently reached. Gen. Pillow's forces were consequently ordered to that point. Finding that his plans were rendered impossible of execution, on account of the want of Gen. Pillow's coöperation, Hardee returned to Pocahontas, and was shortly afterwards transferred, with the greater portion of the troops under his command, to the eastern side of the river, and was ordered to Bowling Green, as soon as that place was occupied.

From this time the name of Hardee is so constantly associated with the Army of the West, known at various times as the Army of the Mississippi and the Army of Tennessee, that to detail his career would be to write the almost entire history of that army, and consequently to repeat much that has been narrated in other parts of this work. A mere enumeration of his services on the different fields of the West is all that the design of our work will admit here, or our space afford. The story of the two days of Shiloh has already been told. Here Gen. Hardee, as division commander, commanded the first line of attack; and at the moment of the untimely recall by Gen. Beauregard of the pursuit of the enemy, the advance of Hardee's line was within 400 yards of Pittsburg Landing, where the fugitives, huddled under the banks, were crowding on a steamer which was conveying them across the river. Gen. Hardee, necessarily much exposed in the fight, was wounded in the arm, had his coat-skirt torn away by a cannon-ball, and his horse wounded. In the second day's unequal struggle against Buell's reinforcements, the ground was stubbornly contested for some hours, and Hardee drew off his command in the evening to follow up the army, as it retired unpursued to Corinth.

At Tupelo Gen. Beauregard was succeeded by Bragg, who, being in charge of a territorial department, assigned Hardee to the command of the army. This he retained until the army moved from Chattanooga into Kentucky, in August, 1862. There were no active military operations at this period, and the duties of Commanding General were restricted to those administrative offices which are scarcely less important to the efficiency of our army than skilful handling in the field. For these Hardee's

thorough acquaintance with the practical workings of all departments of military administration qualified him to a peculiar degree.

In the Kentucky campaign, the two wings of Bragg's army were commanded by Polk and Hardee. A coöperative force under Kirby Smith had marched from Knoxville, Tennessee, through Cumberland Gap. After the capture of Mumfordsville, Kentucky, Buell advanced from Nashville to within a few miles of Bragg. Hardee was opposed to moving against Buell, believing that he would retire to Bowling Green, only a few miles in his rear, where the works, whose strength Hardee knew, from having constructed them himself, would secure his position. But Hardee, whose quick military apprehension estimated at its first value the advantage of fighting the enemy cut off from his base of supplies, and with the prestige of the late success on the side of the Confederate arms, and who foresaw the injurious, moral and material effect of allowing Buell to march unmolested to the supplies and reinforcements awaiting him at Louisville, was in favour of giving him battle at some point between Mumfordsville and Louisville. Other reasons overbalanced these in the opinion of the Commanding General, and the army moved aside and gave Buell undisputed passage to Louisville. Gen. Hardee was accustomed to say that the retreat from Kentucky dated from this time.

It is true that the battle of Perryville, which followed, was a Confederate success, so far as beating one corps of the enemy (McCook's) was concerned. But the want of forces to follow up the success-forces that could have been supplied from Harrodsburg, as Hardee had strongly advised in a communication to Gen. Bragg-made it a failure as respects the general campaign. But one of the four divisions at Harrodsburg was sent to the field, and the battle was the partial adoption of Hardee's plan, when nothing but its full adoption could assure the expected results. It was paying the price of victory with no hope of reaping its rewards.

The only question that remained after this battle for the Confederate army was how to get out of Kentucky. It was solved successfully; and the month of December found Bragg's army, after having described a circle of 1,500 miles in a little over 70