Lentorama 2023: It Happened on Holy Saturday

Day 5: To (not) live and die in (not) Dixie

Richard Taylor was the only son of President Zachary Taylor, and despite being born in what would become a border state (Kentucky) and educated in Union states (Massachusetts and Connecticut), he spent most of his adult life in the south and would become a general in the Confederate army during the US Civil War.

Taylor had no military experience prior to the war, but was a wealthy planter in Louisiana, where he built a fortune on the backs of the 200-plus slaves who grew and processed his sugar cane. He was chosen to be a commander of a Louisiana militia unit in the Civil War because his (then deceased) sister had been married to Confederate president Jefferson Davis.

Potential cronyism aside, Taylor proved to be an able commander, leading troops that played a pivotal role in the Shenandoah campaign. He would be sent back to Louisiana to raise troops and fight Union incursions into the state. He defeated Nathaniel Banks during the Red River campaign, was promoted to lieutenant general, and would wind up commanding both a Confederate military department and, briefly, the Army of Tennessee. 

After the war, his plantation ruined, he lived in New Orleans, but relocated to Winchester, Virginia after his wife died. From there he often visited friends in Washington and New York while staying active in Democratic Party politics. It was during a visit to New York that he died, on April 12, 1879.