The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1879-04-16
GENERAL RICHARD TAELOx.
Life and Incidents of the Late Distin-
guished Confederate General,
As Written by Colonel Preston johnston
of Virginia.

OF Virginia. tr-si
General Richard Taylor, of whose life the
is brief sketch, died at New
York on Saturday, April IL, after long and
painful illness
This melancholy intelligence reviyes |
sadly and suddenly the images of an epoch |
which though 80 years removed from us in |
mote antiquity, so profoundly changed are |
all the conditions of our natural being, |
political, social and commercial, since the |
hero of Buena Vista was borne on the en-
thusiasm OF an exuiting and united people
have been modified for the better ameng us
since 1S4s the popciar model OF an Ameri-
can military idol has not been. Zachary
Taylor, who 80 years ago was themost power
full and popular man in the United States,
was also the NEST modest and the most
simple-kearted nan in the United States.
He can not be better described than IN the
words of Colonel Preston Johnston, of Vir-
ginia. sa
Without ever STIR ing for fame or power,
they had come to him unsought IS the re-
werds of duty well performed. Ee he'd been
a successful general under adverse influences,
and the popular Imagination caught at the
salient points of the man and made him for
the moment its idol. The confidence OF the
people has rarely been given on better guar
antees The nickname Rough and Ready
indicated certain superfci al traits, but some
of the ablest and wisest of the men who
knew him well regarded him as very great
man and extraordinary soldier. He was q
gentleman born, and hsd inherited a good
estate which by careful management became
a great fortune. He was a good neighbor a
kind friend and a thorough master of the
practical business of wer in this country. Ee
was truthful to bluntRess resolute to Stub
bornness, sagacious and absolutely fearless.
He had great common sense, and was alto
Gether grand, simple, noble old man. 1t is
not strange that when the people once
turned their eyes upon this massive, some
what rugged figure, les very mpsrfections
were seized upon as signs of better things.
Though General TayIor's pen, like his
thought was lucid and direct, he was slow
incapable of -oratorical effort. Deeds, not
words was the ready apology" In short,
he was an admirable and heroic character of
type fading If not lost. among our public
men.
President Taylor's only son, Richard, was
named after his grandfather, a hard fighting
colonel of the Ninth Virginia regiment of
the line in the Revolutionary war. With
some underlying and inherited traits which
proved him his fathers son, Richard Taylor
signally marks the progress of our country
from its primitive virtues to q more elegant
anu IeuueO CINliZdtOu. AL Tue T6StlltS OF
more complex social conditions, of more
varied experience and of the influence of
European manners found expression in his
acts and character. With frame and intel
lect more delicately organized 9 nature open
and sensitive to the kaleidoscope world of
thought and material development, subtle
and analytic mind, a vivid Imagination. a
restless energy, a facile pen, an eloquent
tongue, the finished manners of the coUrtier
and man of the world fitting like a silken
mantle over certain chain arm0r habits of
command and native haughtiness-what was
there left to remind Els of Zachary Taylor?
Nothing outward to the eye. BIT this gentle
man, whose talk was too dliettante for the
multitude, had fiber with the twist of the
original stock. To 'sOld Zack's'' stubborn
tenacity and intrepidity he added slight
touch almost of ferceness; to his shire wdness
tinge of cynicism; but with wider self
consciousness he possessed that clear insight
into men and their motives, that aggressive
habit, that ability in organization and ad-
ministration and those powers of combine
ton which go so far to make a successful
general. He was this. He was more He
was an able general. In the opinion of sound
military critics the late sectional war did not
develop many men capable of commanding
large army, but Richard Taylor was one of
these. His political sagacity was great, and
if his popular talents had been at all COM
mensurate with his address in council he
would have welded a commanding influ-
ence. As a force in Southern politics he was
definitely felt in the days when General
Grant was supervising the process by which
Mr.. Tilden was counted out
January %, 1926. His early education was
desultory. He picked up French in Louisi-
ana almost as a mother tongue. Among his
kindred in Kentucky he took In the yir-
ginia ideas prevalent there. At Fort Shell
ing, in Minnesota. a missionary taught him
=
white boy in school of Indians and half
breeds. He seems to have been
touched with the spirit of these
lawless sons OF the forest, and
on one occasion when impatient of the re-
straints of the school room, and envious of
the freedom of the humble bee and the buff
falo, they broke bounds and fled to the
woods. He accompanied them, and was not
captured for two days. As his father moved
from cost to post along the frontier, from
Baton Rouge to Jefferson Barracks, and
| thence to Fort Smelling, he followed the
drum, like Hannibal imbIbing knowledge
OF war in the nurture of the camps Proba-
bly, in the hope of giving a more methodieal
education to his son, General Taylor sent
him, when about Is years of age, to Edin-
burg, Scotland, where he was thoroughly
drilled for three years in Latin and other
studies. He then spent about a year in
France Returning to America, he received
private tuition for two years from Mr..
Brooks of Lancaster, Mass, and entered the
| Junior class at Harvard in 1913. Though
perhaps technically less OF scholar than
many of his classmates, he was the most
mature among them, from travel and wider
experience of life. He has all his life been
voracious devourer Of books, constant
/ though desultory reader.
| He was graduated in 1915. He went di-
rectly from college to his fathers camp on
the Mexican frontier, and was attached to
his person as q sort of military secretary, or
aid-de-camp. He was present at the battles
! of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma and Monte
rey. General Taylor's troops were then
withdrawn from him, and, as it appeared
thai military operations on that line were at
an end young Taylor, who was suffering
from rheumatism, returned to Louisiana,
and thus missed Buena Vista, where his
father crowned his reputation with glori.
| Gus victory. His heath had been much i'm.
j naired in Mexico and Was not restored for q