Destruction and Reconstruction: Personal Experiences of the Late War

by Richard L. Taylor and Richard Taylor

Book Overview

Richard Taylor was born to one of America's most prominent military families. His grandfather, Richard Lee Taylor, had served in the American Revolution, while his father, Zachary Taylor, rode... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809442795
• ISBN13: 9780809442799
• Release Date: January 1983
• Publisher: Time Life Medical
• Length: 274 Pages
• Weight: 1.34 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A literary gem of history

Without question, Taylor's memoir is the most literary first-person account of the war. His narrative is studded with allusions to history, literature and classical mythology. Taylor has a very sarcastic wit. It is worth noting that Taylor -- son of U.S. president Zachary Taylor -- opposed secession. He provides an account of his efforts at the 1860 Democratic Party convention to prevent the split that resulted in Lincoln's election. He remarks bitterly about the lighthearted disregard for the potential consequences of war, a sentiment that was widespread in the South before Sumter. His accounts of Stonewall Jackson's 1862 Shenandoah Valley campaign and the 1864 Red River campaign are must-reads for any serious student of the war. And his personal evaluations of such major figures of the Confederacy as Jefferson Davis, Joseph Johnston, Jackson, Nathan Bedford Forrest are invaluable, being written by one who knew them directly. Also, his account of Reconstruction is insightful, given Taylor's personal interactions with such figures as Andrew Johnson, U.S. Grant, Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner.

Not just an academic curiosity

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.

read before gone

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.