always deplored the passions of party, and was indisposed to anything like the revenge or rancour of a victorious faction.

From East Tennessee he joined Gen. Bragg's army near Chattanooga, and having, in a great measure, neutralized Burnside's forces, contributed a most important element of success to the campaign which culminated at Chickamauga. But here again a great opportunity was spoiled by diverse counsels. The victory obtained over the enemy was considered so complete that Longstreet, Polk, Hill, Buckner, and others, counselled an immediate advance across the Tennessee River, by a ford six miles above Chattanooga. This was at one time determined on; but to the surprise of the whole army, the different columns were directed upon Chattanooga, and the army sat down before that place, to invest a fortress on the only side from which supplies could not be drawn, even though the garrison might have had free access to the surrounding country. The delay before Chattanooga threatened to be so fatal to the Confederate cause, that the principal officers of the army could not refrain from respectful protests against the inaction of the Commanding General. These differences induced a visit of President Davis to Chattanooga. He maintained Gen. Bragg in command. The latter continued the partial investment of Chattanooga, and reorganized the army in the presence of a superiour enemy. This reorganization, as was predicted, resulted disastrously. The principle which seemed the basis of the new organization was to assign troops to commanders whom they did not know, and by whom they were not known; thus destroying the confidence between commanders and troops so essential to efficiency. During this partial investment, the Confederate army, already inferiour in strength to that of the enemy, was further weakened by detailing Longstreet against Knoxville. It was popularly thought that Longstreet favoured this movement. He was, in fact, opposed to it, as were Buckner and most of the senior officers of the army. In a letter to Gen. Buckner, written at the beginning of this movement, Gen. Longstreet sufficiently gave his views when he stated that he was leaving with a force not strong enough to accomplish success, yet large enough to imperil the main body of the army before Chattanooga. The result at Missionary Ridge justified the criticism.

Gen. Buckner was detained by sickness from the command of

his division in Longstreet's expedition. On rejoining the army in East Tennessee, he was assigned to the command of Hood's old division; but when the campaign of 1864 opened, and Longstreet was ordered to Virginia, Gen. Buckner was ordered to report to Gen. E. Kirby Smith, on the application of that com-. mander, supported by the wishes of the Congressional delegates from the Trans-Mississippi. On his arrival at Shreveport, he was assigned to the command of the District of Louisiana, to succeed Lieut.-Gen. Taylor, who was ordered to command in Alabama and Mississippi. He was soon afterwards promoted to the grade of Lieutenant-General. As such, in addition to his geographical command, he commanded a corps of the Trans-Mississippi army, composed of one Louisiana division of infantry, one from Arkansas, and one from Missouri, and a cavalry command composed of Missouri, Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana troops.

There were but few active operations in the Trans-Mississippi after the spring campaign of 1864. Gen. Price's invasion of Missouri had some design as an aid to Hood's movements in Georgia, but fell below expectation, and accomplished no important results. The surrender of Gens. Lee and Johnston left the Trans-Mississippi Department without any steady prospect of prolongation of the struggle, and the convention for a surrender was negotiated by Lieut.-Gen. Buckner and Maj.-Gen. Price, with Maj.-Gen. Canby, of the United States Army. By the terms of surrender, Gen. Buckner was not permitted to return at once to his home in Kentucky. He accordingly remained in New Orleans, where accident had thrown him. Having saved nothing from the wreck of his fortune, he sought, without repining over the past, to earn a support by applying himself at once to the changed condition of the country. The sword having failed him he took up the pen, and is a constant contributor to one of the daily newspapers in New Orleans. His attention to commercial pursuits had secured the confidence of the business men of New Orleans to such an extent that he was selected, in 1866, as the President of an insurance company, made up by many of the principal merchants of the city. This position he now holds.

In the character of Gen. Buckner there is a peculiar trait, besides his good qualities as a commander. It is a severe conscientiousness, a high moral courage, that never would bend

either to a consideration of expediency or a command of authority. We have noticed an evidence of this disposition when he declined to take up arms on the hypothesis of Kentucky's neutrality. It was strongly illustrated by an incident of the campaign in Kentucky. Previous to that period several summary executions had taken place in the Army of the Mississippi, under colour of the sentence of what were called "military commissions." Gen. Buckner received, at Sparta, an order to execute two soldiers of his command, who had been condemned by such an illegal tribunal. He declined compliance with the order, for the reasons, that no such tribunal was known to our laws; that the mock trial of the parties, therefore, had no legal effect; that the order of the commander was consequently arbitrary and unlawful; that to obey it would be to commit murder; and that as he had taken up arms in opposition to the arbitrary exercise of usurped authority, he could not consistently sustain such an usurpation over constitutional rights. Upon this remonstrance, the Commanding General reconsidered his action, reprieved the soldiers, and ceased the practice of summary executions, except when adjudged by courts-martial-the only legal tribunals established for the trial of military offenders.

MAJ.-GEN. JOHN B. FLOYD.

CHAPTER LXXIII.

Family record of the Floyds.-Adventures of George Rogers Clarke.-John Floyd, the elder. His services as Governor of Virginia.-Early life of young Floyd.—A planter in Arkansas.-His political career in Virginia.-A member of President Buchanan's Cabinet.-His political views and services in the Cabinet.-PRIVATE DIARY OF SECRETARY FLOYD.-Extraordinary statement of President Buchanan, justifying the secession of the Southern States, in a certain event.-Private views of Washington politicians.-How Secretary Floyd came to resign his position in the Cabinet.-Clamour and recriminations of the Republican party.-Floyd appointed a Brigadier-General in the Confederate States service.-His campaign in Western Virginia.-Battles of Fort Donelson. He is relieved from command.Appointed by Virginia a Major-General of State troops.-Operations on the headwaters of the Big Sandy.-His death.-A great and generous character assailed by partisan influences.

THE subject of this sketch had but a slight military record in the war. But he was one of the most important politicians of the South, and one of the most remarkable characters of Virginia.

His family record is closely interwoven with the public history of the country, and is intensely interesting. The Floyds were of Welsh extraction. The ancestor of the name in America settled on the eastern shore in Virginia. The family soon di vided into three branches: one of them remaining in Virginia; another established himself in New York; and the third emigrating to Georgia. The Virginia stirps moved up into the interiour country, now Amherst county of that State. There the head of the family intermarried with a half-breed Indian girl. Shortly before the era of the Revolution, a young and enterprising descendant of this union, John Floyd, proceeded still further westward, and became the assistant of a notable surveyor, William Preston, in what is now Montgomery county, Virginia. This lat

ter was the nephew of James Patton, an emigrant from the north of Ireland, a retired captain of the British navy, after the treaty of Utrecht, who had come to America, bearing as a reward for approved services, grants or patents from the crown for indefinite acres of the royal lands. These the nephew, William Preston, assisted by young Floyd, found abundant occupation in locating upon the richest soils of Southwest Virginia; and it was probably the same object that soon took the latter to a more distant field of labour.

The search for good lands and a taste for adventure, after a few years, had identified young Floyd with Kentucky; where, Washington-like, he surveyed and located lands, industriously, for several years. We soon find him in intimate companionship there with Daniel Boone, the pioneer. The histories of that young State, and the records of the family, make him one of the party that rescued Boone's daughters from the Indians, who had kidnapped them while fishing alone and unprotected. We find John Floyd's name among those of the first bench of justices of the peace that were commissioned for the county of Kentucky by the Virginia Executive. John Floyd also became intimately associated with Gen. George Rogers Clarke, who commanded troops of the colony of Virginia on the Ohio waters; and who, at the head of these troops, subsequently conquered for the Commonwealth of Virginia, from the British crown, the territory between the Ohio River and the great lakes, called the Northwestern Territory; a splendid domain, which Virginia ceded to the Union. What command Floyd held under Clarke is not known; but he was with that patriot when he rejected the title of nobility proffered him in the name of the British king, to secure his fidelity to the crown at the beginning of the Revolution.*

*Gen. Clarke spent a large private fortune in maintaining his Virginia army on the waters of the Ohio, during, and subsequently to the Revolutionary struggle. He was never reimbursed, and lived and died in straitened circumstances. After many years, Virginia ceded the territory, thus cheaply acquired, to the Union, and voted Clarke a sword; which, when taken to him, he ran into the ground and broke; remarking that she should first pay her debts, and bestow compliments afterwards. When the grandson of his companion in arms, John B. Floyd, became Secretary of War at Washington, he caused a portrait of Gen. Geo. Rogers Clarke to be accurately copied from one in his family possession, and placed in the War Office at Washington.