Walter H . Taylor Walter Herron Taylor ( June 13 , 1838 – March 1 , 1916 ) was an American banker , lawyer , soldier , politician , author , and railroad executive from Norfolk , Virginia . During the American Civil War , he was an officer in the Confederate States Army , attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel as an aide to General Robert E . Lee . He was later a Senator in the Virginia General Assembly , and attorney for the Norfolk and Western Railway and later the Virginian Railway . Early life . Taylor was born on June 13 , 1838 , in Norfolk , Virginia . He was the son of Walter H . Taylor Sr . and Cornelia Wickham Cowdery , and was a descendant of English colonist Adam Thoroughgood and his wife Sarah . Throughgood ( 1604 – 1640 ) was an early leader and is widely credited for the naming of various forms of Norfolk County and the Lynnhaven River in the earliest colonial days of the 17th century . Walter graduated from Virginia Military Institute ( VMI ) at Lexington , Virginia in 1857 . He became a merchant and banker in Norfolk . American Civil War . During the American Civil War ( 1861 – 1865 ) , Taylor joined the Confederate States Army on the secession of Virginia in 1861 and joined the staff of General Robert E . Lee . When General Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia in June 1862 , during the Peninsula Campaign , Taylor became assistant adjutant general of that army . Taylor was no ordinary staff officer , but an exceedingly capable and tireless worker with many responsibilities . He was effectively the Chief Aide - de - camp to General Lee throughout the war . And since Lee was noted for his small , over - worked staff , Taylor carried an enormous burden on his young shoulders . He wrote dispatches and orders for Lee , performed personal reconnaissance , and often carried messages in person to corps and division commanders . ( The famous " if practicable " order from Lee to Richard S . Ewell below Cemetery Hill in the Battle of Gettysburg was verbally transmitted by Taylor . ) He greeted all persons who came to see Lee , and usually decided whether they would be announced to the General . Taylor eventually attained a rank almost commensurate with his great staff responsibilities , being promoted to lieutenant colonel on December 12 , 1863 . ( In postbellum writings , he is generally referred to as " colonel " , but this is a customary abbreviated title for addressing a lieutenant colonel . ) Taylor ' s fiancée was Elizabeth Selden " Bettie " Saunders , daughter of United States Navy Captain John L . Saunders and Mrs . Martha Bland Selden Saunders . Miss Saunders lived during the war with the family of Lewis D . Crenshaw in Richmond , Virginia where she worked in the Confederate Mint and for the Surgeon General in the Confederate Medical Department . In the last few days of the Siege of Petersburg , as it became clear to Lee and his staff that Petersburg was lost and Richmond should be evacuated , 26 - year - old Taylor received special permission from General Lee to go to Richmond to give Miss Saunders " the protection of his name . " He sent a messenger ahead to Richmond to advise his bride - to - be and have her make arrangements with Reverend Dr . Charles Minnigerode , the rector of St . Paul ' s Episcopal Church . After midnight , in the wee hours of April 3 , 1865 , while the evacuating Confederates fired the city and looters ran wild in its streets , Taylor and Miss Saunders were married in the parlor of the Crenshaw house . Afterward , Lewis Crenshaw accompanied Taylor as far back toward the Confederate lines as safety permitted . One week after the surrender at Appomattox Court House , Taylor returned to Richmond with General Lee , picked up his bride , and drove her back to Norfolk in a buggy . After the war . After the war , Taylor resumed the banking business at Norfolk , Virginia , and also worked as an attorney . He held municipal offices and was elected to the Virginia General Assembly , where he served as a State Senator from 1869 until 1873 . He was president of the Marine Bank , and served on the board of directors of the Norfolk and Western Railway . On April 30 , 1870 , General Lee paid his last visit to the Norfolk area , accompanied by his daughter , Agnes Lee . He arrived in Portsmouth via railroad from North Carolina , and was met by Colonel Taylor . His former aide escorted him through the waiting crowds to ride to Norfolk on the Elizabeth River ferry . He died less than five months later . Taylor devoted a considerable portion of his postwar years to settling controversies related to the Army of Northern Virginia . He was recognized by former generals from both sides of the war as an unofficial court of last resorts in settling disputes about their wartime reputations . Col . Taylor was petitioned by so many of the war ' s generals for so much information , he decided to write a book to set the record straight . He asked for permission from the U . S . government to view the national archives related to the Army of the Potomac and was the first man ever granted such a privilege . In 1877 , he wrote a book , " Four Years with General Lee " , which was the source for dozens of anecdotes about Lee . This book , heavily documented by the records from the National Archives , read more like a situation report than a novel so it was not widely popular at the time . Many of the former Confederate generals , General James Longstreet in particular , claimed that if Col . Taylor ever wrote another book about the war , they hoped he would tell the " rest of the story . " Col . Taylor wrote another book , published in 1906 , " Robert E . Lee , His Campaign in Virginia , 1861 – 1865 " . This book had the same statistical information as his previous work , but it read more like a novel , and was thus an instant best seller . Late in the 19th century , Taylor was active in the development of the Ocean View area , located along the south shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Norfolk County . The project had been surveyed and laid out before the American Civil War by William Mahone , who also later served under General Lee . Served by a narrow gauge railroad from Norfolk , which operated a steam locomotive named the " Walter H . Taylor " , Ocean View blossomed as both a popular resort area and grew to become a streetcar suburb of the City of Norfolk , which annexed the area in 1923 . In April 1907 , while Taylor was the attorney for the new Virginian Railway , then under construction , he met the founder , millionaire industrialist Henry Huttleston Rogers and humorist Mark Twain when they arrived in Hampton Roads aboard Rogers ' steam yacht " Kanawha " . They were in Norfolk to attend the opening ceremonies of the Jamestown Exposition held at Sewell ' s Point . According to published newspaper reports of the day , Twain drove off with Taylor in an " infernal machine , " better known in modern times as an automobile . Walter Herron Taylor died of cancer on March 1 , 1916 . He is buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Norfolk . Walter H . Taylor Elementary School of the Norfolk City Public Schools is named in his honor . In popular media . Taylor is portrayed by Bo Brinkman in the films " Gods and Generals " and " Gettysburg " .