Joseph Pannell Taylor was a career United States Army officer and Union general in the American Civil War. He was the younger brother of Zachary Taylor, the 12th President of the United States.

During the American Civil War, the United States Army, the land force that fought to preserve the collective Union of the states, was often referred to as the Union Army, the Grand Army of the Republic, the Federal Army, or the Northern Army. It proved essential to the restoration and preservation of the United States as a working, viable republic.