Richard Taylor: Soldier Prince of Dixie

Richard Taylor was one of the very best Confederate Generals ,but little known--Warren Hunt III M.D.

Before reading the personal memoir of an historical figure, I always make an effort to first read a scholarly biography of that person if one is available. Since Richard Taylor's memoir "Destruction and Reconstruction" is often highly ranked among the suggested reading lists for the Civil War, I planned to read it, so I set out to first find a bio. That's when I found Parrish's "Soldier Prince of Dixie." Through Parrish's depiction of Taylor's life we are given a front row seat first into the making of an aristocratic, Yale educated, slave-holding planter, and a son of a president no less. By following Taylor we see in microcosm the story of the late antebellum South and its destruction. He became a planter by inheritance when his father died. He went from being an elitist Whig to being swept into the torrent by fire-eating democrats. With no prior military training he became an outstanding field commander for the C.S.A.; among talented amateurs he was surpassed only by Forrest and perhaps Cleburne. Early on he served in the east in the Valley with Stonewall. Later he returned to the Trans-Mississippi and eventually reached the pinnacle of his achievements by stopping Banks in the Red River campaign. As a result of the war his plantation was destroyed, and he endured the death of his young son. Still, he retained some national influence. He advised President Johnson on cabinet appointments and was a personal acquaintance of Henry Adams, author of "The Education of Henry Adams." For anyone planning on reading "Destruction and Reconstruction," Parrish's work is valuable for its maps, especially the ones that show the Trans-Mississippi areas like the Red River Valley and the Lafourche and Teche bayou regions.

It is hard to believe that other people have not written about Richard Taylor, but they need not bother now that Parrish has written this book. This book on Taylor is engaging and interesting, but also very scholarly. Although Parrish's writing style can be dry at times, his topic does not allow the book to get mired in details or become boring. Instead, Taylor's life jumps off the pages and Taylor led such a life that we, the reader, get a great overview of pre-Civil War politics, the war in the Trans-Mississippi, and the Reconstruction Era. Normally, I find the pages on the time before and after the war somewhat boring, but this was not the case with this book. The whole book really kept my attention and was very interesting. Thinking back, I really cannot think of any criticisms of this work. Just a good, solid history book.

This is a highly readable yet scholarly treatment of an important nineteenth century Southerner. Dick Taylor, son of President Zachary Taylor, was a Yale-educated aristocrat and Louisiana sugar plantation owner when the Civil War broke out. By war's end he was a Lieutenant General. Although he had no pre-war military training, he became one of the Confederacy's most able commanders. Parrish expertly covers Taylor's entire life, but naturally focuses on the Civil War exploits. In addition to being an excellent strategist and tactician, Taylor was colorful, self-confident, oblivious to what others thought of him, and a lifelong practitioner of noblesse oblige. Parrish is clearly enamored of his subject, but this does not stop him from critically examining the contradictions and hypocrisies inherent in Taylor's worldview. The book is free of the anachronisms and politically correct jargon which mar so much recent American historical scholarship.