a narrow victory, by 270 votes out of 15,292 cast. In 1857, Taylor ran as the "American" candidate (the Whig Party having broken up) against Watkins. This proved another narrow loss, by 170 votes out of 15,118 cast. Taylor did not run in 1859. In 1860, Taylor served as a presidential elector for the Constitutional Union ticket of Bell and Everett (both former Whigs). During the Civil War, Taylor adhered to the Union cause despite Tennessee's joining the Confederacy. He joined a group to assist pro-Union residents of east Tennessee under Confederate rule, and also lectured on their behalf throughout the northeastern U.S. Tennessee was readmitted to representation in Congress in 1866. Taylor was again elected Representative from the 1st district, this time as a Unionist candidate. This was the party label adopted by President Lincoln and the Republicans in 1864, along with Unionist Democrats such as Vice-Presidential candidate Andrew Johnson (who was from East Tennessee). Taylor served in the Thirty-ninth Congress from July 24, 1866 to March 3, 1867. Taylor did not run for re-election in 1867. Instead, Johnson, now President, appointed Taylor Commissioner of Indian Affairs effective March 26, 1867. Taylor served as Commissioner for about two years, until he retired. Meanwhile, he traveled to Kansas to attempt to settle the Plains Wars, and took his 19-year-old son Alfred along. As head of the Indian Peace Commission, Taylor negotiated the Medicine Lodge Treaty, by which southern Plains Indians (the Kiowa, Apache and Comanche), agreed to remove to a reservation in Indian Territory and ceded their traditional lands including present-day Kansas. Upon retiring on April 21, 1869, Taylor returned to Tennessee and devoted himself to farming and preaching in Carter County. In 1886, when his sons Alfred and Robert ran for governor on the Republican and Democratic tickets, respectively, the Prohibition Party offered its nomination to Nathaniel Taylor in hopes of making it a three-way family race, but Taylor declined. Death Taylor died in Happy Valley, Tennessee on April 1, 1887, and is interred alongside other family members within the Old Taylor Cemetery that is, itself, landlocked within private property and located off Sylvan Hill Road in Elizabethton, Tennessee. References External links 1819 births 1887 deaths People from Elizabethton, Tennessee American people of Scotch-Irish descent Whig Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Tennessee Tennessee Know Nothings Tennessee Constitutional Unionists Unionist Party members of the United