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W.H. Taylor
(1838 - 1916)
Home State: Virginia
Education: Virginia Military Institute (VMI), Class of 1857
Command Billet: Staff
Branch of Service: Infantry
Before Sharpsburg
He was a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, and was a merchant and banker before the war. He was appointed Lieutenant and Assistant Adjutant General (AAG) in the Virginia forces on early 1861, and Lieutenant, CSA on 16 July. He was appointed Captain and AAG to General Lee on 10 December 1861 and promoted to Major and assigned as aide-de-camp (ADC) to General Lee on 21 April 1862.
On the Campaign
He was an aide de camp (ADC) to General Lee on the Maryland Campaign.
The rest of the War
He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and again AAG on 21 December 1863 and was with General Lee to the surrender at Appomattox Court House, VA on 9 April 1865.
After the War
After the war he returned to the banking business in Norfolk, VA, where he held municipal offices and was elected to the state senate (1869-73).
He was the author of Four Years with General Lee (1878).
References & notes
His bio basics from Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography (1887-1889). His service from Krick.1 His gravesite is on Findagrave. His picture is from a Brady photograph taken soon after Appomattox in Richmond (1865) - a portrait of Robert E. Lee, seated, flanked by Taylor and Lee's son Washington Custis.
Birth
06/13/1838; Norfolk, VA
Death
03/01/1916; Norfolk, VA; burial in Elmwood Cemetery, Norfolk, VA
1 Krick, Robert E.L., Staff Officers in Gray; A Biographical Register of the Staff Officers in the Army of Northern Virginia, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003, pg. 283 [AotW citation 29373]