William Joseph Hardee, one of the South’s highest-ranking officers during the Civil War, died November 6, 1873. He was 58.

Hardee was born October 10, 1815 in Savannah, Georgia. A West Point graduate in 1838, he became a very respected officer in the United States Army during the Seminole and Mexican Wars.

A career solider, Hardee returned to West Point where he taught tactics and was commandant of cadets. He authored a text called Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics, a highly acclaimed book used by both sides during the Civil War.

After 23 years in the United States Army, Hardee resigned his lieutenant colonel commission in January 1861, and joined the Confederate army in March. He was commissioned a brigadier general in command of cavalry troops in Arkansas. There he became good friends with General Patrick Cleburne.

Hardee and Cleburne were two of several southern generals who did not get along with General Braxton Bragg, a confidante of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. They believed Bragg was not qualified as a field commander, and was not suited as a close advisor to Davis.

Hardee had served under Bragg in Kentucky, and when he got the chance as a corps commander to distance himself from Bragg, he accepted a post with General Joseph Johnston in Mississippi. He was later reassigned to the Army of the Tennessee and tried to stop General Sherman’s assault on Atlanta in 1864.

Hardee did accomplish the evacuation of his hometown of Savannah, Georgia before the Union forces moved in.

As commander of the Army of the Tennessee during the last months of the war, his decimated army was no match for reinforced Union troops. He surrendered his forces on April 26, 1865.

After the war, Hardee lived on a plantation in Selma, Alabama. He died in Witheville, Virginia on November 6, 1873.