Destruction and Reconstruction

General Richard Taylor (1826-1879) was the son of President Zachery Taylor and brother-in-law to President Jefferson Davis. Taylor was educated at Yale, and his father's famous career had given him fame and distinguished connections in the North. Considered one of the outstanding leaders of his day, Taylor served as his father's adjutant in the Mexican War and in the Louisiana state government before offering his services to the Confederacy. Taylor proved an exceptional officer, although he had no formal military training. He led his men under Stonewall Jackson in the Valley Campaign before returning to Louisiana to reckon with the fall of New Orleans in 1862. Taylor boldly campaigned against the encroaching Federal forces in the Mississippi Valley, capturing isolated depots and finally winning against a force three times his number at Mansfield in 1864: the last strategic Confederate victory in the West. He surrendered his forces soon after Appomattox, ending the War as a Lieutenant General. Immediately after the War he met with President Johnson to intercede for Jefferson Davis and began networking with the Democratic Party in the North.

Taylor's memoirs are of the most famous and erudite that the War produced in America, and Richard Weaver writes that "the Old South could wish for nothing better than to be judged by this scholar-gentleman type, a fine representative of its men of force, character, and distinction."

Included in this volume as an appendix is the eyewitness testimony of Frederick Law Olmstead, who visited Taylor's sugar plantation, Fashion, some years before the Civil War. Olmstead interviewed Taylor and his slaves, and writes perceptibly about Taylor and the management and labor of antebellum plantations.

''The temptation to quote Taylor is practically irresistible."

-Dumas Malone

"The one Confederate general who possessed literary art that approached the first rank."

-Douglas Southall Freeman

This work has been formatted and reprinted for Tall Men Books. It is not a facsimile reprint.