 Railroad men (and those who wanted to be) throughout The Magnolia State courted him for their boards of directors.In 1880, Hardy joined longtime railroad financiers and fellow Confederate veterans, William Clark Falkner and William Wirt Adams, to revive and revise the lapsed charter for the narrow gauge Ship Island, Ripley, and Kentucky Railroad.With Fallkner's support, Hardy accepted the presidency of the Gulf and Ship Island Railroad in 1887, pending revision of that road's line to "some point on the Gulf of Mexico", and its change to standard gauge.