Nathan Bedford Forrestand his excellent
cavalry, but neither man could curtail a large
cavalry raid by Gen. James H. Wilson later
that spring. By May 1865, all hopes for Con-
federate independence were dashed, and Tay-
lor surrendered at Citronelle, Alabama, to
Gen. Edward R.S. Canby. Defiant to the end,
he became the last Confederate leader east of
the Mississippi to capitulate.
After the war Taylor relocated to New Or-
leans, where he became an active figure in De-
mocratic politics. As such he strongly op-
posed and denounced Reconstruction and
became a vocal proponent of Southern rights.
Following his wife’s death in 1875, Taylor
moved again, to Winchester, Virginia, then
New York City, where he campaigned actively
for presidential aspirant Samuel J. Tilden.
Shortly before his death there on April 12,
1879, Taylor penned a set of memoirs that are
regarded as one of the most lucid ever pub-
lished. He was one of the most capable Con-
federate leaders of the west and—with suffi-
cient resources—might have exerted decisive
impact in that hard-fought theater.
See also
Davis, Jefferson; Forrest, Nathan Bedford; Hood, John
Bell; Jackson, Thomas J. “Stonewall”Bibliography
Bergeron, Arthur W. “General Richard Taylor as a Mili-
tary Commander.”Louisiana History23 (1982):
35–47; Brookshear, William R. War Along the Bay-
ous: The 1864 Red River Campaign.Washington,
DC: Brassey’s, 1998; Collins, Darrell L. The Battles
of Cross Keys and Port Republic.Lynchburg, VA:
H. E. Howard, 1993; Lale, Max S. “New Light on the
Battle of Mansfield.” East Texas Historical Jour-
nal25, no. 2 (1987): 34–41; Parrish, T. Michael.
Richard Taylor: Soldier Prince of Dixie.Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992;
Prushankin, Jeffrey S. “A Crisis in Command:
Richard Taylor and Edmund Kirby Smith in Confed-
erate Louisiana During the Red River Campaign.”
Unpublished master’s thesis, Villanova University,
1996; Riley, Harris D. “General Richard Taylor,
C.S.A., Louisianan.” Southern Studies1, no. 1
(1990): 67–86; Taylor, Richard. Destruction and Re-
construction: Personal Experiences of the Late
War.New York: D. Appleton, 1879.TECUMSEH
Tecumseh
(ca. 1768–October 5, 1813)
Shawnee War Chief
T
ecumseh is the best known and most
admired Native Indian opponent of
white frontier expansion. He combined
military skill and oratory brilliance to fashion
the biggest pan-Indian alliance since the days
of Pontiacand Little Turtle. He was also
unique among contemporaries by discourag-
ing the traditional slaughter and torture of
captives. However, Tecumseh’s inspired lead-
ership was alien to the usual norms of Native
American leadership, and many older chiefs,
feeling their authority threatened, refused to
join his confederation. When Tecumseh died,
his dream of a unified Indian state perished
with him. He nonetheless remains an Ameri-
can folk hero of equal stature to Crazy Horse
and Sitting Bull.
Tecumseh (Shooting Star) was born into
the Crouching Panther clan of the Shawnee
nation around 1768, near present-day Piqua,
Ohio. His father was a Shawnee chief and his
mother a Creek Indian. The frontier was then
in a period of unrest, as colonial Americans
were flooding over the Appalachian Moun-
tains and into traditional Indian hunting
grounds. Friction between the two groups re-
sulted in Lord Dunmore’s War of 1774, in
which Tecumseh’s father was killed. From