Destruction and Reconstruction: Personal Experiences of the Late War (Southern Classics Series) (Paperback)

by Richard Taylor (Author)
Key Phrases: New Orleans, Grand Ecore, Red River (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Taylor's recollections focus on his service in Virginia under Stonewall Jackson and later as commander of the department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana.

About the Author
Richard Taylor, the only son of President Zachary Taylor, was born at his father's plantation, Springfield, outside Louisville, Kentucky, in 1826. His early years were spent largely on frontier army posts, including an eightyear stint at remote Fort Crawford in what is now Wisconsin. He was sent to a private school in Louisville and graduated from Yale in 1845. He spent most of the succeeding years in Mississippi and Louisiana, where he became a sugar planter and earned a reputation as a politician, gentlemanscholar and raconteur.

A delegate to the Democratic convention in Charleston in 1860, he worked to avert the disruption of the Northern and Southern wings; failing that he attended the rump Southern Democratic convention in Baltimore which nominated John C. Breckinridge for President.

Although a pessimist about the prospects of Southern secession, he was a delegate to the Louisiana secession convention. After the outbreak of war in 1861 he first attached himself to the staff of General Braxton Bragg at Pensacola, then accepted a commission from the governor of Louisiana as colonel of the Ninth Louisiana Infantry Regiment and was sent to the Virginia front. He commanded the Louisiana Brigade under Stonewall Jackson in the 1862 campaigns in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Afterwards he was transferred to the TransMississippi Department, where he led outnumbered Confederate forces to victories in the Red River Campaign. In the waning days of the war he was transferred to command in Alabama and Mississippi, surrendering only after the surrenders of Lee and Johnson and the capture of Jefferson Davis.

After the war Taylor returned to Louisiana, living in New Orleans and participating in the politics of the Reconstruction era.

Richard Taylor died in 1879 while on a trip to New York City, and was buried in New Orleans. His memoir, completed before his death, was published a few days later.

Clyde N. Wilson is a professor of history at the University of South Carolina and editor of The Papers of John C. Calhoun. He is the author of Carolina Cavalier: The Life and Mind of James Johnson Pettigrew. He is a contributor to many periodicals.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: J.S. Sanders & Co. (November 25, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 187994121X
• ISBN-13: 978-1879941212
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #869,654 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars read before gone, September 17, 2007

By	David Caskey (Shreveport, La. United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a must read for anyone who desires a true understanding of the war and aftermath before our historical perspectives are forever changed with the new history being written by liberal professors. It clearly accounts for the crimes of the reconstruction which is a topic that is definitely being rewritten by those that desire to protray the US as some type of force for good.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just an academic curiosity, October 2, 2008

By	William S. Grass "Bill Grass (Wsgrass)" (Plano Texas, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

At the time I write this review I am surprised to find there are only two others before me, and they are both from Louisiana, the state in which Richard Taylor resided at the outbreak of the war and which he so tirelessly strove to defend from Union depredations. A complex man, Taylor could be a stern martinet one moment, and then wax eloquent, displaying an artistic appreciation of life the next. Early on we see him ordering the execution of two of Wheat's Tigers for insubordination. Later, we see him transfixed by a flying bluebird the morning of First Winchester.

Taylor's memoir deserves to be preserved not just as an academic curiosity, but because it is the expression of a now extinct class of men who, regardless of their lofty status in society, considered it their personal responsibility to put themselves into harm's way, to lead from the front instead of sending young men out to die while they remain safely at home. As a memoir of war Destruction and Reconstruction is non pareil, due to its flourishes of erudition and vivid accounts of the battles and personalities described therein. The biblical, mythological, historical and literary references are legion and display an education unlike any in the nineteenth century South. Some graduate student should make a project of cataloging and footnoting these references for an expanded edition. Be sure to mention me in the acknowledgements.

I strongly encourage anyone wanting to read Destruction and Reconstruction to first obtain and read Parrish's bio on Taylor, for a broader background in understanding Taylor and where he came but also for the maps which are absent from the memoir.

4.0 out of 5 stars The South's best take on the War between the States and its aftermath, June 3, 2009

By	Quilmiense (USA/Spain) - See all my reviews

The most interesting thing about this book is that you get to read a first hand account of the War between the States, from one of the greatest military heads of either the North or South. And also a very cultured man. His culture comes out prominently, almost too much so. When one just wants to read about how it was, the War and the so-called Reconstruction, it becomes a little tiring to have to take in with it also all the references to European military history, ancient history et al. Those names of old generals and foreign politicians of by-gone times are just a bother to the reader.

And that brings me to -what I think is- the reason for the failing aspect of this book: It was meant for Taylor's contemporaries. It just feels from the start that the man is taking for granted that the reader knows much of the "story", and he is just telling another side to it: his own side. It is a readable book though, and entertaining, if you discount the pretension alluded to. And it is a definite contribution to the South's take on the whole conflict and the times. Elegant, sad, and full of Southern sentiment.