Richard Taylor (January 27, 1826 – April 12, 1879) was an American plantation owner, politician and Confederate general in the American Civil War. He was born in 1826 in Kentucky. His father was Zachary Taylor, who was a U.S. general and later a U.S. president. Richard Taylor graduated from Yale University in 1845. When his father died in 1851, he inherited a sugar cane plantation in Louisiana.