my service
in western Louisiana. Coming to me with the rank of colonel, his
conspicuous services made it my pleasant duty to recommend him for
promotion to brigadier and major-general. Upright, modest, and with the
simplicity of a child, danger seemed to be his element, and he rejoiced
in combat. His men adored him, and would follow wherever he led; but
they did not fear him, for, though he scolded at them in action, he was
too kind-hearted to punish breaches of discipline. In truth, he had no
conception of the value of discipline in war, believing that all must be
actuated by his own devotion to duty. His death was a public calamity,
and mourned as such by the people of Texas and Louisiana. To me he was a
tried and devoted friend, and our friendship was cemented by the fact
that, through his Virginia mother, we were related by blood. The great
Commonwealth, whose soil contains his remains, will never send forth a
bolder warrior, a better citizen, nor a more upright man than Thomas
Green.

The brigade of horse brought by General Green to Louisiana, and with
which he was so long associated, had some peculiar characteristics. The
officers such as Colonels Hardiman, Baylor, Lane, Herbert, McNeill, and
others, were bold and enterprising. The men, hardy frontiersmen,
excellent riders, and skilled riflemen, were fearless and self-reliant,
but discharged their duty as they liked and when they liked. On a march
they wandered about at will, as they did about camp, and could be kept
together only when a fight was impending. When their arms were injured
by service or neglect, they threw them away, expecting to be supplied
with others. Yet, with these faults, they were admirable fighters, and
in the end I became so much attached to them as to be incapable of
punishing them.

After the affair at Blair's Landing on the 12th, the horse returned to
Pleasant Hill, and thence joined Bee in front of Grand Ecore, where
Banks had his army concentrated behind works, with gunboats and
transports in the river, Bee occupying the town of Natchitoches, four
miles away. On the morning of the 13th General Kirby Smith visited me at
Mansfield. Relieved of apprehension about the fleet, now at Grand Ecore,
he expressed great anxiety for the destruction of Steele's column. I was
confident that Steele, who had less than ten thousand men and was more
than a hundred miles distant from Shreveport, would hear of Banks's
disaster and retreat; but General K