May 4, 1865: General Richard Taylor surrenders all remaining Confederate forces east of the Mississippi River.
You are there: Richard Taylor is born in 1826 as the only son of military hero and President Zachary Taylor. Instead of attending West Point, he graduates from Yale before working on his father’s cotton plantation in Mississippi and then inheriting his own sugar plantation in Louisiana in 1850. Over 200 enslaved Africans work the land and it makes him a rich man until 1856 when cold weather ruins his crop.
Taylor is elected to the Louisiana Senate in 1856, at various times a Whig and Know Nothing then a Democrat. As regional tensions rise, he is a moderate before finally voting for secession. He is named Colonel of the 9th Louisiana Infantry in July 1861 and promoted in October to Brigadier by Jefferson Davis, who is his brother-in-law by marriage.
Despite a total lack of military training, he is considered a “born soldier,” and begins to earn his reputation with 1862 victories under Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley. At a youthful 36 years he advances to Major General and wins the pivotal battle at Mansfield, Louisiana, defeating General Banks in his ill-fated Red River campaign.
He is serving as head of the Confederate Department of Alabama in August 1864 when Admiral Farragut issues his famous “damn the torpedoes” order and conquers the city of Mobile. While that loss signals the end of his hopes, a series of successes by his cavalry commander, Nathan Bedford Forest, allows him to hang on until after Lee gives up on April 9 at Appomattox.
But the end comes quickly, on May 4, 1865, when Taylor surrenders to Major General Edward Canby at the town of Citronelle in the southwest most corner of Louisiana. After the war, he publishes his memoirs before dying in 1879.
