Zachary Taylor: The Valorous President

12th President of the United States (1849-1850)
Born: November 24, 1784, near Barboursville, Virginia
Nickname: "Old Rough and Ready"
Religion: Episcopalian
Marriage: June 21, 1810, to Margaret Mackall Smith (1788-1852)
Children: Ann Mackall (1811-1875), Sarah Knox (1814-1835), Octavia P. (1816-1820), Margaret Smith (1819-1820), Mary Elizabeth (1824-1909), Richard (1826-1879)
Career: Soldier
Political Party: Whig
Died: July 9, 1850, Washington, D.C.
Buried: Zachary Taylor National Cemetery, near Louisville, Kentucky

 

 

In 1808, he received his first commission as commander of the garrison at Fort Pickering, the site of what is now Memphis, Tenn. From there, he transferred to various frontier posts. In 1810, he married Margaret Mackall Smith, daughter of a prominent Maryland family. She followed him from post to post as their four daughters were born. Taylor won fame as an "Indian fighter" on the frontier. The family finally settled in Louisiana, where Taylor assumed command of the fort at Baton Rouge.

Taylor's long military career began in 1808, when he became a first lieutenant in the United States Army's 7th Infantry. Nicknamed "Old Rough and Ready," Taylor was assigned to frontier posts during the War of 1812 and remained there during much of his army service. As a colonel, he took part in the Black Hawk War and later won wide popularity as a general in the Mexican War (1846-1848). Despite his successes in the Mexican campaign, he was often in conflict with the administration of President James Polk. In 1847, Taylor disobeyed orders by going on the offensive against the Mexican leader Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, whom he defeated at the Battle of Buena Vista. A popular hero, Taylor was nominated for president in 1848 by the Whigs on the first ballot (over Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Winfield Scott).

In 1845, Texas was granted statehood (see The Republic of Texas). Mexico disputed lands along the new state border, and President James K. Polk ordered Taylor and his troops into the contested area. After winning two decisive encounters, Taylor triumphed over overwhelming odds in a battle against the Mexican Gen. Santa Anna at Buena Vista. "Old Rough and Ready" as Taylor was known, became a national hero.

On May 8, 1846, General Zachary Taylor defeated a detachment of the Mexican army in a two-day battle at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma on May 8, 1846. The Battle of Buena Vista was won by the United States on February 23, 1847. General Zachary Taylor was the commander of American troops in this victory over Mexican General Santa Anna. (Santa Anna was well-known for his Alamo conquest of 1836.)

Unlike Taylor’s contemporary and fellow Mexican-American War hero, Gen. Winfield Scott, Taylor was known as the soldier’s soldier. While not in battle, Gen. Taylor often wore civilian clothes, mingled with the common soldier, and was known for his sense-of-humor. While in military camp during the Mexican-American War and dressed in common clothes, a soldier, thinking that Taylor was a servant, asked him: “Can you tell me where I may find General Taylor?” Taylor replied, “I don’t know, but let me know when you find him.” As the soldier wondered away, Taylor displayed "a rather kindly smile."

Like his rider, Zachary Taylor’s horse became a national hero. Praised for his bravery in battle, “Old Whitey” became the subject of portraits, poetry, and music. When Taylor became President in 1850, the horse was allowed to graze on the White House lawn.

After his victory, clubs sprang to support his presidential candidacy. By then, Taylor was a wealthy slave-owner and the South hoped he would support states' rights and the expansion of slavery into the new areas won from Mexico. The North pointed to his service on the nation's behalf and hoped he would side with the Union.

At its 1848 nominating convention, the Whigs named Taylor a candidate for president, and he won the election that November. (Also, during the era of great sectional discord regarding the extension of slavery, Taylor defeated Lewis Cass in the general election and became president.) Despite the objections of Southern Whigs, Taylor, inflexible in the face of secessionist threats, favored a Union plan that would result in the admission of California and New Mexico as free states. The outstanding achievement of his administration was the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850, which gave Great Britain and the United States joint control over canal rights at the mouth of the San Juan River in Central America. Taylor died in office before passage of the Compromise of 1850.

On July 4, 1850, after attending celebrations in Washington, Taylor contracted a virulent stomach ailment that may have been cholera or typhoid fever, and he died five days later on July 9, 1850. More than 100,000 people lined the funeral route to see their hero laid to rest. Millard Fillmore, subsequently, was inaugurated as the thirteenth President of the United States.

 

In 1850, the United States also witnessed: Fifty-five thousand emigrants move west along the Oregon Trail, most bound for the gold fields of California. Levi Strauss creates the first pair of "bibless" overalls in California. Seventh Census: U.S. population - 23,191,867.

 

The president's remains, and those of his wife, who died in 1852, were initially interred in the Taylor family burying ground. In 1883, the state of Kentucky erected a granite shaft surmounted by a life-size figure of Taylor. The United States erected a new limestone neoclassical-style building with a marble interior 43 years later. Over double glass-paneled bronze doors is the inscription "1784 Zachary Taylor 1850." A 50-foot granite monument topped with the life-size figure of former president Zachary Taylor was erected by the state of Kentucky in 1883. 

 

Each year on Nov. 24, Taylor's birth date, military personnel from Fort Knox conduct a wreath-laying ceremony there. Zachary Taylor National Cemetery was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

 

Zachary Taylor's son, Richard, was a well-respected Confederate general. Renowned Confederate cavalry General Nathan Bedford Forrest stated that if the South had more generals like Richard Taylor, “We would have licked the Yankees long ago!”

 

Recommended Reading: Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest. Description: Zachary Taylor was one of the most unlikely men to ever serve as president of the United States. Self-educated, an average and conservative military leader, considered by many to be less than intellectual, but General Zachary Taylor, affectionately referred to as the soldier’s soldier, was thrust into the limelight because of his success in the Mexican War. Although a southerner, Taylor opposed the extension of slavery and threatened dire consequences to secessionists. (Ironically, his son, Richard Taylor, became one of the South’s greatest Civil War generals.) Continued below...

He died unexpectedly after serving only sixteen months as president. His death occurred just as he was reorganizing his administration and attempting a recasting of the Whig Party. Mr. Bauer does a good job of describing the effect that Zachary Taylor had on the nation as well as that “personal side” of the soldier’s soldier.

The political storm reached a crescendo in 1849, when California, newly populated after the Gold Rush, applied for statehood with an anti-slavery constitution, an event that upset the delicate balance of slave and free states and pushed both sides to the brink. As the acrimonious debate intensified, Taylor stood his ground in favor of California’s admission—despite being a slaveholder himself—but in July 1850 he unexpectedly took ill, and within a week he was dead. His truncated presidency had exposed the fateful rift that would soon tear the country apart.

 

Recommended Reading: President Zachary Taylor: The Hero President (First Men, America's Presidents) (Hardcover). Description: Zachary Taylor (November 24, 1784 - July 9, 1850) was an American military leader and the twelfth President of the United States. Taylor had a 40-year military career in the U.S. Army, serving in the War of 1812, Black Hawk War, and Second Seminole War before achieving fame while leading U.S. troops to victory at several critical battles of the Mexican-American War. Continued below…

Taylor's short Presidency was shadowed by the issue then dominating all aspects of American national affairs - that of slavery. However, the immediate issue was the admission of New Mexico and California as states. Taylor confounded his Southern supporters, who had assumed that since the President owned slaves, he would support the pro-slavery position and refuse entry into the union to two states settled by Northerners and likely to be anti-slavery. Taylor recommended that the two territories develop their own constitutions and then request admission based on those constitutions. When Southern states threatened secession he warned them that he would use all his resources as commander-in- chief to preserve the union. He stated that if they seceded he would track them down like he had the Mexicans, and handle them in the same manner that he had deserters. Taylor's brief term in the White House also featured the still on-going question of balancing power between the Congress and the presidency.

 

Recommended Reading: Letters Of Zachary Taylor From The Battlefields Of The Mexican War (1908). Review: If you are interested in this influential episode of US history, this book conveys it straight from the proverbial horse’s mouth. In contrast with often one-sided accounts like President Polk's and others’ memoirs, this book displays the human side of the invasion of Mexico. General Taylor reveals that he was conflicted in many standpoints ranging from ethical to military and political. Although he understood that it was his duty to serve his country and fight in a war against the weaker neighbor, Mexico, he shows us an emotional and personal side rarely seen in America’s top brass.

 

Recommended Reading: American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic (Hardcover). Review: From the prizewinning author of the best-selling Founding Brothers and American Sphinx, a masterly and highly ironic examination of the founding years of our country. The last quarter of the eighteenth century remains the most politically creative era in American history, when a dedicated and determined group of men undertook a bold experiment in political ideals. It was a time of triumphs; yet, as Joseph J. Ellis makes clear, it was also a time of tragedies—all of which contributed to the shaping of our burgeoning nation. Continued below..

From the first shots fired at Lexington to the signing of the Declaration of Independence to the negotiations for the Louisiana Purchase, Ellis guides us through the decisive issues of the nation’s founding, and illuminates the emerging philosophies, shifting alliances, and personal and political foibles of our now iconic leaders—Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and Adams. He casts an incisive eye on the founders’ achievements, arguing that the American Revolution was, paradoxically, an evolution—and that part of what made it so extraordinary was the gradual pace at which it occurred. He shows us why the fact that it was brought about by a group, rather than by a single individual, distinguished it from the bloodier revolutions of other countries, and ultimately played a key role in determining its success. He explains how the idea of a strong federal government, championed by Washington, was eventually embraced by the American people, the majority of whom had to be won over, as they feared an absolute power reminiscent of the British Empire. And he details the emergence of the two-party system—then a political novelty—which today stands as the founders’ most enduring legacy. But Ellis is equally incisive about their failures, and he makes clear how their inability to abolish slavery and to reach a just settlement with the Native Americans has played an equally important role in shaping our national character. He demonstrates how these misjudgments, now so abundantly evident, were not necessarily inevitable. We learn of the negotiations between Henry Knox and Alexander McGillivray, the most talented Indian statesman of his time, which began in good faith and ended in disaster. And we come to understand how a political solution to slavery required the kind of robust federal power that the Jeffersonians viewed as a betrayal of their most deeply held principles. With eloquence and insight, Ellis strips the mythic veneer of the revolutionary generation to reveal men both human and inspired, possessed of both brilliance and blindness. American Creation is a book that delineates an era of flawed greatness, at a time when understanding our origins is more important than ever. About the Author: Joseph J. Ellis received the Pulitzer Prize for Founding Brothers and the National Book Award for his portrait of Thomas Jefferson, American Sphinx. He is the Ford Foundation Professor of History at Mount Holyoke College. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, with his wife, Ellen, and their youngest son, Alex.