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George Taylor McLaurine was born near Pulaski, Tenn., May 29, 1837, and died at Birmingham, Ala., July 16, 1915. He was the eldest son of Franklin T. and Ann Laird McLaurine. There were four brothers of this family in the Confederate service and two brothers-in-law, Capt. W. D. Heflin, of Mississippi, and Col. T. M. Gordon, of Tennessee. The latter was an adjutant under Gen. B. F. Cheatham in Mexico and later a colonel in Confederate cavalry.

Mr. McLaurine was of Scotch-Irish descent, of a large and exceptionally fine family, a great-grandson of the Rev. Robert McLaurine, an Episcopal bishop, born in Scotland, who came to Virginia in 1751 and preached to the colonies. Since colonial times his descendants have been making history for our country, many of them having attained to positions of eminence in political and military circles, among them Colonel MOsby, of Confederate fame.

In April 1861, George McLaurine enlisted in the 3d Tennessee Regiment, Company B, with John C. Brown as colonel and T. M. Gordon as lieutenant colonel. Among the engagements in which he participated were those of Springdale, Chickasaw Bayou, and Port Hudson, La., previous to his capture of Raymond, Miss. As a prisoner for a period of twenty-two months he ran the gamut of human suffering in four Northern prisons, Camp Morton, Ind., Elmira, N. Y., Fort Delaware, and Point Lookout, Md.-disdaining to compromise his honor by taking the oath of allegiance as the price of liberty. He was paroled after Lee's surrender at Richmond and returned home to find it in ashes from the invader's torch.

Mr. McLaurine was endowed with the highest sense of honor, and naught could swerve him from the path of right as he saw it. He was a Mason of more than fifty years' standing and a Christian gentleman. In 1872 he married Miss Eddie Hewlett daughter of Col. T. H. Hewlett, of Huntsville, Ala., where he resided for many years, engaging in the cotton business. His widow and three children, two sons and a daughter survive him-all of Birmingham.