826 



TAYLOR, RICHARD. 



TENNESSEE. 



popular with the brigade. Camp exposure had 

 brought on an illness from "which he was slowly 

 recovering, and he had seen no service. The 

 promotion was attributed to the partiality of 

 President Davis toward the brother of his first 

 wife, who was a daughter of Zachary Taylor. 

 At the instance of General Joseph E. Johnston, 

 Taylor went to Richmond to urge the adop- 

 tion of that General's plan of army organiza- 

 tion. During the Valley campain of 1862 Tay- 

 lor fought under Stonewall Jackson. The bri- 

 gade bore its part well in many a fray, at Luray, 

 Port Republic, Front Royal, and Winchester. 

 On one occasion they captured a battery and 

 turned it upon the enemy. General Jackson, 

 in recompense of their gallantry, presented the 

 battery to the brigade. When Jackson marched 

 to the Peninsula, Taylor's command, still in Ew- 

 ell's division, confronted McClellan, and was 

 engaged in the seven days' tight around Rich- 

 mond. Jackson recommended him for promo- 

 tion. He received his grade of major-general 

 while in Richmond, stricken with paralysis. 

 Taylor was then assigned to command in Lou- 

 isiana. 



During the siege of Vicksburg, the Indiano- 

 la, a heavily armed ironclad, passed the town 

 and controlled the Mississippi River. The only 

 boats at Taylor's disposal were the towboat 

 Webb and an ordinary river-steamer, the Queen 

 of the West, recently captured from the North- 

 eners. The Indianola, with a coal-barge lashed 

 on each side, was lying off a point sixty miles 

 below Vicksburg. The attack was made at 

 night. Both the vessels suffered severely, but 

 the Indianola was struck four times, and then 

 surrendered in a sinking condition. In a bat- 

 tle with General Banks at Mansfield, 2,500 pris- 

 oners, 200 wagons, and 20 pieces of artillery, 

 besides side-arms and colors, were captured by 

 Taylor. This success was speedily followed by 

 the fight at Pleasant Hill, at which Banks and 

 Taylor each claimed the victory. The report 

 of Admiral Porter, bearing date April 14, 1864, 

 says: " The army here lias met a great defeat, 

 no matter what the generals try to make of it. 

 With the defeat has come demoralization, and 

 it will take some time to reorganize and make 

 up the deficiencies in killed and prisoners." 

 General Grant from Virginia reported to Hal- 

 leek in Washington : " You can see from Gen- 

 eral Brayman's dispatch to me something of 

 General Banks's disaster." 



At the close of the Red River campaign, 

 General Taylor, believing that further opera- 

 tions in this quarter would accomplish nothing, 

 asked to be relieved from duty. He was pro- 

 moted to lieutenant-general and placed in com- 

 mand of Alabama and Mississippi. At Merid- 

 ian Forrest reported to him, and was sent to 

 impede Sherman's communications north of 

 the Tennessee, and thus relieve Hood's army, 

 then west of Atlanta. In December Taylor 

 went to Tupelo to take command of the rem- 

 nant of Hood's Army of Tennessee. The sol- 

 diers were moved as speedily as possible to re- 



enforce Johnston in North Carolina. Taylor 

 was left confronting Canby and hard pressed 

 by Wilson's cavalry. On the 8th of May, 1865, 

 he surrendered to Canby at Citronelle, and his 

 military career terminated. 



After four years' absence, he returned to New 

 Orleans penniless. This lord of many acres 

 now called nothing his own but his horses. 

 These he sold for $350, with which he began life 

 afresh. He took charge of some important pub- 

 lic works, among others of the Carondelet Ca- 

 nal. In January, 1873, he again visited Wash- 

 ington in the interest of his State, then torn in 

 two by two rival Governors and Legislatures, 

 and with the military overriding the civil power. 

 His intervention proved vain. In May he was 

 sent to Europe in the interest of some North- 

 ern capitalists, and was again received with the 

 same kindness as when in the heyday of his 

 father's glory he visited England. After the 

 death of his wife, convinced that Louisiana was 

 permanently blighted, he removed his family 

 to Winchester, Virginia, the residence of Mrs. 

 Dandridge, his sole surviving sister. He turned 

 his attention to literature, and became a fre- 

 quent contributor to periodicals, both French 

 and English. He spoke both tongues with 

 equal facility, and was wont to boast that he 

 acquired "French in Louisiana, English at Fort 

 Snelling, and American in the Old Dominion." 

 Unfortunately, his sparkling wit and fund of 

 anecdote are without record. His work on the 

 war, "Destruction and Reconstruction," was 

 written when the hand of disease was already 

 upon him. He was in New York supervising 

 its publication, when fatal symptoms manifest- 

 ed themselves. 



TENNESSEE. The General Assembly met 

 January 9th. The first question considered was 

 that of reducing the emoluments of many of 

 the officers of the State and counties. Func- 

 tionaries who were paid by fees and perqui- 

 sites were required to pay over to the State 

 Comptroller, or to the County Trustee if a 

 county officer, the amount of these fees which 

 was in excess of $2,000 per annum. Many op- 

 posed this measure on constitutional grounds, 

 as embodying an unauthorized mode of taxa- 

 tion. Many officers receiving stated salaries 

 had their stipends reduced. A bill requiring 

 insurance companies. to pay the full amount of 

 insurance named in the policy in the case of 

 the total destruction of property by fire, and 

 to pay on the basis of the value named in the 

 policy in the case of partial destruction, was 

 vetoed by the Governor, on the grounds that in 

 the first instance named it would prove an in- 

 centive to incendiarism, negligence, and fraud, 

 and was thus opposed to public policy, and 

 that in the second class of cases it would prove 

 prejudicial to policy-holders, as they usually 

 undervalue their property in insurance policies. 



The question which engrossed the attention 

 of the Legislature to the exclusion of all others 

 for a great part of the session, and on which 

 steps were taken for an adjustment for the first 



