Destruction and Reconstruction - Personal experiences of the late war (Collector's Library of the Civil War)
by: Taylor, Richard

Hardcover. NY, Time Life, reprint, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 274 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Dark blue leather bound with gilt titles to front cover and spine. Embossed decoration on front cover. Gilt text block edges, red ribbon marker. Clean, tight copy. This memoir by Confederate General Richard Taylor is usually considered one of the best and least biased by a general officer. The work is full of considered analysis on both the strategy of the war and the personalities of his fellow officers. Taylor is always fair in his criticism and seems to have no real scores to settle. While he makes little mention of his own talents, his tactical brilliance and strategic insight does shine through. Many contemporaries said Richard Taylor was one of the best soldiers of the war, but he is comparatively little known due to his posting to peripheral theaters. While he was a man of his time, the work (with the exception of some of his Reconstruction writings) is much less tainted by Lost Cause polemics than most Confederate memoirs.