were advancing. In front was an open field swept by the ene my's musketry from their works just beyond. The battle of Franklin was fresh in their minds, and they hesitated. Hardee saw their hesitation, and, leaping his horse over the ditch, he rose the ascent beyond, and in full view of his own troops and the enemy, waved his men forward. They recognized their old commander, now seen for the first time since October before, and raising a cheer such as those old hills had never echoed before, dashed across the field and drove the enemy pell-mell from their works.

Gen. Johnston rode up to Hardee on the field, while the action was still in progress, and said, "General, I congratulate you on your success. You have only done, however, what you always

do."

The Confederates occupied at night a line a little in rear of the advanced position of the day. It was afterwards ascertained that Sherman had 35,000 troops on the ground at the beginning of the fight. He now brought up the remainder of his army, and pressed Johnston's line closely.

In an affair of the next day fell, mortally wounded, a son of Gen. Hardee, only sixteen years old. A year before, this brave boy, full of generous military enthusiasm, and captivated by the renown of "Terry's Rangers," a body of Texan cavalry, had run away from school at Athens, Georgia, and joined this regiment as it passed on its way to the army. His years were too tender for the rough service of these veterans, and his father took him on his staff. He won his spurs at Resaca, where he had a horse killed under him, and did a soldier's duty throughout the campaign. Later he joined Stuart's battery of light artillery in South Carolina, and served as a private up to the battle of Bentonville. There he again met "Terry's Rangers," and the boy's first love revived. The soldiers, proud of his preference for them, urged him to join them. Gen. Johnston designed making him his aid-de-camp, but thought it well first to allow him to see more field-service. He joined the regiment but two hours before the charge that closed his young career. Thus, in his father's last battle in the last charge of the day-in the last gallant blow which the "Army of Tennessee" struck for Independence, fell, in the beauty and promise of tender youth, this noble boy, leaving no male descendant to inherit the name and the fame of Hardee

A few days thereafter and the news of Gen. Lee's surrender was the occasion of the conference which terminated in the capitulation agreed upon between Gens. Johnston and Sherman, on the 26th April, 1865. The sad survivors of the brave thousands that had enlisted in the ranks of 1861, now stacked their arms, furled their banners, took leave of their comrades, and prepared to wend their way to their various homes. It was a touching proof of affection for their first commander that the Arkansas Brigade, which had commenced and ended its career under Hardee's command, and whose bravest filled graves strewn over the length and breadth of nine States, at a moment when it might be supposed that men who had not seen their homes and kindred for four years, would only consider the speediest mode of reaching them, now volunteered, in a body, to escort Gen. Hardee to his adopted home, in Alabama. He declined the generous proffer, and moved across the country, accompanied by some members of his staff, and escorted by a company of couriers, who had served with him three years, and who never left him until they had seen him under his roof-tree, in Alabama.

Gen. Hardee's record, as a commander in the Confederate armies, is perfect in its round of usefulness and honour. Always in the field, always on duty, always at the point which danger and responsibility made the post of honour, from Missouri to North Carolina, from "Shiloh" to "Bentonville," he was intrusted with high duties and critical enterprises, and found faithful in all, and equal to all. In the outset, he began by preferring active field service to rank and a position of comparative ease in an Administrative Department. He afterward resisted the strongest temptation that could have been held out to a noble ambition, in declining the command of the second army in the Confederate States, when he thought the public weal would be advanced by intrusting it to other hands. No page in the history of the armies with which he was connected but is full of the proofs of trust reposed in him by his commanders, and in the unwritten but infallible verdict of the rank and file of the army, those severest, but most competent of all judges, his name stands in the front of the great soldiers of the war. President Davis is known to have considered him the best corps

commander in the service; and Gen. Johnston went even further, in saying that he was more capable of handling 20,000 men in action than any other Confederate leader.

Gen. Hardee possessed, in a high degree, the quality which Napoleon classes as one of the most important in a commander -the capacity to estimate, at their just value, military events as they occur. His courage was of that order which inspires courage in others. An accomplished horseman, of commanding stature, and strikingly martial mien, his bearing in action was impressive and inspiring. To this was added, coolness that never failed; presence of mind never disturbed; and an intellect that rose, like his heart, in the tumult and dangers of battle.

After the close of the war, Gen. Hardee adapted himself readily to the change in the habit of life resulting to him, in common with his brother officers of the old army, and applied himself to civil avocations, with the same energy and success that had marked his military career. In the combined occupations of planting and railroad operation, he finds agreeable and useful employment; and, followed by the respect and confidence of his countrymen, awarded to the virtues of the man not less than to the deeds of the soldier, his life flows on in an unbroken current of honourable usefulness.

LIEUT.-GEN. RICHARD TAYLOR.

CHAPTER LXXV.

Peculiar advantages of Gen. "Dick" Taylor in the war.-His gallantry and critical service at Port Republic.--Transferred to West Louisiana.--Interest of his military life directed to New Orleans.-Operations of 1863 in the Lafourche coun try. His part in the Red River campaign.-Violent quarrel with Gen. E. Kirby Smith. The merits of this controversy canvassed.-President Davis sustains Gen. Taylor, and gives him increased rank and command.-His disposition to insubordination.--Destruction of his property by the enemy.-A Vermont soldier's account of the exploit.

RICHARD TAYLOR-or "Dick" Taylor, as he was popularly known-had the accident of birth and a peculiar advantage to favour his career in the late war. A son of Zachariah Taylor, the tenth President of the United States, and the popular hero of the Mexican war, he bore a name already dear and familiar to the public. A brother-in-law of President Davis-who had married his sister after a romantic elopement from her father's house-he had an extraordinary access to the fountain of office and honour: was in close relationship to a ruler who was notoriously governed by his personal affections in dispensing his official patronage, and distributing the gifts of rank and fortune.

Gen. Taylor's first remarkable service in the war was in Stonewall Jackson's famous campaign in the Valley of Virginia. It was at Port Republic that the Louisiana Brigade, commanded by Gen. Taylor, decided the day by an attack on the enemy's artillery, responding with cheers to Jackson's stern command, "That battery must be taken!" This attack, by which the enemy's artillery was dislodged and the field secured for a general advance of the lines of infantry, was perhaps the most brilliant incident of the resplendent and fruitful campaign; and at Port Republic the line has been generally drawn when the fortunes

of the Confederacy passed from their first great shadow of disas ter and mounted to a new illumination of hope. It was the beginning of that remarkable series of victories in which Richmond was saved, the war put back on the frontier, and Lee's guns bellowed for peace almost at the portals of Washington.

Gen. Taylor was afterwards transferred to another and distant field of operations, and, with the rank of Major-General, placed in command of the District of West Louisiana. Here transpired the chief interest of his military life. It had a remarkable connection with the city of New Orleans; and twice he indulged the vision of relieving or recapturing that city, which appears, indeed, to have been the aim of all his operations and the summit of his hopes. At one time the prospect of such a prize was reasonable, and kindled public expectation. In an active campaign in the Lafourche country in the summer of 1863, Gen. Taylor, by an admirable operation, captured Brashear City and its forts, and the position thus obtained, with that of Thibodeaux, gave him command of the Mississippi River above New Orleans-enabled him in a great measure to cut off Gen. Banks' supplies, and, it was hoped, might eventually force that Federal commander to the choice of losing New Orleans or abandoning his operations against Port Hudson. But the unexpected fall of Vicksburg, which involved so many other operations, and carried down with it so much of Southern fortune, was fatal to Gen. Taylor's plans, and robbed him even of the success he had already obtained. It exposed Port Hudson, compelled its surrender, and left Gen. Taylor's position in the Lafourche country extremely hazardous, and not to be justified on military grounds. He was clearly unable to hold it, with an active force less than 4,000 men, not including the garrison at Berwick's Bay, against the overwhelming forces of the enemy released from the siege of Port Hudson; and he was compelled to abandon the campaign, to disappoint the hopes it had excited, and to mortify an ambition that had sought so great an opportunity of success and glory.

Gen. Taylor's second occasion of notable service in the TransMississippi was in the famous Red River campaign in the spring of 1864, in which, acting under the orders of Gen. E. Kirby Smith, the department commander, he encountered Banks' army moving from Alexandria, and gained two of the most important