prowess as he proved himself capable both in the field and in departmental command. Nathan Bedford Forrest commented about Taylor, "He's the biggest man in the lot. If we'd had more like him, we would have licked the Yankees long ago." Charles Erasmus Fenner, an officer in the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department and post-war Louisiana Supreme Court justice, asserted that, "Dick Taylor was a born soldier. Probably no civilian of his time was more deeply versed in the annals of war, including the achievements and personal characteristics of all the great captains, the details and philosophies of their campaigns, and their strategic theories and practice." Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson and Richard S. Ewell frequently commented on their conversations with Taylor about military history, strategy and tactics. In particular, Ewell stated that he came away from his conversations with Taylor more knowledgeable, impressed with the amount of information Taylor possessed. It was Stonewall Jackson who recommended promoting Taylor to major general and putting him in command of Confederate forces in western Louisiana. Taylor was one of only three lieutenant generals in the Confederacy who did not graduate from West Point (the others being Forrest and Wade Hampton III). In his 1879 memoir, Taylor modestly attributed his progress as commanding officer during the war to two habits: Postbellum life The war resulted in the destruction of Taylor's home, including his much prized library, and his sugar cane property and facilities. He moved his family to New Orleans at the end of the war and lived there until his wife died in 1875. He was president of The Boston Club 1868–1873. After his wife's death, he moved with their three daughters to Winchester, Virginia. From there he traveled regularly to see friends and colleagues in Washington, D.C. and New York City. Taylor wrote a memoir, Destruction and Reconstruction: Personal Experiences of the Late War (1879), which is considered one of the most creditable accounts of the Civil War. The historian T. Michael Parrish wrote that, "Taylor finally gave enhanced dignity to defeat and surrender." Taylor continued to be active in Democratic Party politics. He interceded with President Andrew Johnson to gain the release of former Confederate President Jefferson Davis, then still held in Fortress Monroe; and was a leading political opponent of Northern Reconstruction policies. He died on April 12, 1879, of dropsy (edema related to congestive heart failure) in New York City. He