ry and blood,--of glory and grief. A bright and glowing page was
added to our Nation's history; but then, too, in eternal silence, lay
Clay and McKee and Yell and Lincoln, and our own beloved Hardin.

This was also General Taylor's last battle. He remained in active
service in Mexico till the autumn of the same year, when he returned to
the United States.

Passing in review General Taylor's military history, some striking
peculiarities will appear. No one of the six battles which he fought,
except, perhaps, that of Monterey, presented a field which would have
been selected by an ambitious captain upon which to gather laurels. So
far as fame is concerned, the prospect--the promise in advance--was,
"You may lose, but you cannot win." Yet Taylor, in his blunt,
business-like view of things, seems never to have thought of this.

It did not happen to General Taylor, once in his life, to fight a battle
on equal terms, or on terms advantageous to himself--and yet he was
never beaten, and he never retreated. In all, the odds were greatly
against him; in each, defeat seemed inevitable; and yet in all he
triumphed. Wherever he has led, while the battle still raged, the issue
was painfully doubtful; yet in each and all, when the din had ceased,
and the smoke had blown away, our country's flag was still seen,
fluttering in the breeze.

General Taylor's battles were not distinguished for brilliant military
maneuvers; but in all he seems rather to have conquered by the exercise
of a sober and steady judgment, coupled with a dogged incapacity to
understand that defeat was possible. His rarest military trait was a
combination of negatives--absence of excitement and absence of fear. He
could not be flurried, and he could not be scared.

In connection with General Taylor's military character may be mentioned
his relations with his brother officers, and his soldiers. Terrible as
he was to his country's enemies, no man was so little disposed to have
difficulty with his friends. During the period of his life, dueling was
a practice not quite uncommon among gentlemen in the peaceful avocations
of life, and still more common among the officers of the Army and Navy,
yet, so far as I can learn, a duel with General Taylor has never been
talked of.

He was alike averse to sudden and to startling quarrels; and he pursued
no man with revenge. A notable and a noble instance of this is found in
his conduct to the gallant and now lamented General