author
Richard Taylor
1826–1879
A vivid firsthand voice from the American Civil War, his writing mixes battlefield experience with sharp political observation. As the son of U.S. president Zachary Taylor and a Confederate general himself, he brought an unusually personal perspective to the upheavals of his time.
1 Audiobook
Destruction and Reconstruction: Personal Experiences of the Late War
by Richard Taylor
About the author
Born in Kentucky in 1826, Richard Taylor was the only son of Zachary Taylor, who later became president of the United States. He was educated in the United States and Europe, then settled in Louisiana, where he became a planter and entered state politics.
During the American Civil War, he served as a Confederate general and became known for his campaigns in the western and trans-Mississippi theaters. After the war, he turned to writing, and his best-known book, Destruction and Reconstruction, drew on his own experiences to reflect on the conflict and its aftermath.
Taylor died in New York City in 1879. Today he is remembered less as a literary figure in the usual sense than as a compelling memoirist whose work offers a direct, deeply personal account of war, leadership, and loss.