Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/733

 Rh alike wanting. Amidst these discouraging conditions General Taylor set about the task of restoring confidence, reviving enthusiasm and creating an army. In an incredibly short time his courage and resolute energy had changed the aspect of the State. Regiments began to form, then brigades and divisions, shops and depots of supplies were established, ordnance was gathered, and river boats were transformed into an armed navy. The army so greatly due to his organizing ability and enthusiasm afterward won its triumphs and had its glories as well as the armies of Tennessee and Northern Virginia. The Federal post at Bayou des Allemands was captured, Weitzel's imposing advance down the Lafourche was checked by the determined fighting of 500 men, the "Indianola" was destroyed in naval combat, and at Berwick's Bay the Federals were forced to turn over to General Taylor 1,700 prisoners, 12 guns and vast military stores. But his operations for the relief of New Orleans were rendered futile by the fall of Vicksburg. In the spring of 1864 he was called upon to encounter the formidable invasion of the Red river country, composed of nineteen gunboats under Admiral Porter, 28,000 men under Banks, and 7,000 from Arkansas under Steele. General Taylor was able to give battle at Mansfield with a force of 8,800 men and won a glorious victory, driving the enemy four miles, and capturing 2,500 prisoners and twenty pieces of artillery. On the next day, April 9th, he struck the enemy a second staggering blow at Pleasant Hill, and a month later the Federal army crossed the Atchafalaya, leaving Taylor in undisturbed possession of his department. He then sought relief from duty, but was soon called to assume command of the department of Alabama and Mississippi, with promotion to the rank of lieutenant-general. Here he did all that could be hoped in the closing months of the struggle, until after Johnston's capitulation, when having concentrated the forces of Dabney H. Maury and Forrest at Meridian, he surrendered to General Canby,