A form of commanding hight (sp.), physique equal to any test of activity or endurance, a natural leader of men through superiority of courage and ability, William Selby Harney had for 43 years made an unsurpassed record as a commander of soldiers. He had served in the everglades of Florida, on the boundless plains west of the Mississippi, and in Mexico, during the brilliantly spectacular war which ended with our "reveling in the Halls of the Montezumas." He it was, who, eager for his country's honor and advancement, had, while the diplomats were disputing with Great Britain, pounced down upon and seized the debatable island of San Juan in Vancouver waters. For this he was recalled, but the island remained American territory. He was soon assigned to the Department of the West, with headquarters at St. Louis. 31 He had been for 12 years the Colonel of the crack 2d U. S. Dragoons, and for three years one of the three Brigadier-Generals in the Regular Army, his only seniors being Maj.-Gen. and Brevet Lieut.-Gen. Winfield Scott, the General-in-Chief; Brig.-Gen. John E. Wool, commanding the Department of the East; and Brig.-Gen. David E. Twiggs, commanding the Department of Texas. Gen. Harney's assignment, while a recognition of his eminent fitness for ruling the territory over which he had campaigned for more than a quarter of a century, was highly gratifying to him inasmuch as he was married to a wealthy St. Louis woman, and in that city he had an abundance of the luxurious social enjoyment so dear to the heart of the old warrior. A Southerner by birth and education, a large Slave-owner, with all his interests in the South, and at all times seemingly in full sympathy with the Southern spirit that dominated the Army, the Secessionists sanguinely expected that he would prove as pliant to their proposals as had Gen. Twiggs, the Commander of the Department of Texas. We shall see how soldierly instincts and training measurably disappointed them. 32