Richard Taylor (January 27, 1826 – April 12, 1879) was a Confederate general in the American Civil War. He was the son of United States President Zachary Taylor and First Lady Margaret Taylor.

During the Mexican-American War, Taylor served as the military secretary to his father.

he graduated from Yale in 1845. 

in 1850, he persuaded his father (now President Taylor by virtue of his election in 1848) to purchase Fashion, a large sugar plantation in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana.

On February 10, 1851, Richard Taylor married Louise Marie Myrthe Bringier (d. 1875), a native of Louisiana, daughter of a wealthy French creole matriarch Aglae Bringier, who would soon help them out financially after the freeze of 1856. Taylor and Marie Bringier would go on to have five children, two sons and three daughters; Richard, Zachary, Louise, Elizbeth, and Myrthe. His two sons, Richard and Zachary, both died during the war after contracting scarlet fever, the loss of which hurt the elder Richard Taylor deeply.

After Zachary Taylor's untimely death in July 1850, Taylor inherited Fashion. Steadily he increased its area, improved its sugar works (at considerable expense), and expanded its labor force to nearly 200 slaves, making him one of the richest men in Louisiana. But the freeze of 1856 ruined his crop, forcing him into heavy debt with a large mortgage on the plantation.

During the spring of 1862, Union forces came upon Taylor's plantation, called Fashion, and plundered it.

After the war, Richard Taylor wrote his memoirs, Destruction and Reconstruction,

http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/taylor/taylor.html

He died in New York City

his uncle, Joseph Pannell Taylor, served on the opposite side as a Brigadier-General in the Union Army.