Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/William J. Hardee

Soldier, convert, b. at Savannah, Georgia, U.S.A., 1817, d. at Wytheville, Virginia, 6 Nov., 1873. He graduated from the U. S. Military Academy at West Point in 1838, and served in the second dragoons in the Florida Indian war. In 1839 he was sent to the French military training school at St. Maur for professional study and attached to the French cavalry department. On his return to the United States he was stationed in the West and promoted to be captain of dragoons on 18 Sept., 1844. During the Mexican War his services were conspicuous. At its close he was made of the twentieth cavalry and ordered to prepare a manuel of tactics for the army. This he finished in 1856 and was then appointed commandant of cadets at West Point. At the breaking out of the Civil War he joined the Confederacy and was given the rank of colonel in its army. He served all through the contest, attaining the rank of lieutenant-general and corps commander. After the war he retired to live on his plantation in Alabama. His book, "United States Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics", published in New York, 1856, was eclectic rather than original, and drawn chiefly from French sources.

Encycl. of Am. Biog., s.v.

THOMAS F. MEEHAN