Zachary Taylor

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Taylor, Gen Zachary (1784-1850), commander of US forces during the first phase of the Mexican war and later president. He commanded troops in the War of 1812 and the Black Hawk war (1832), and won promotion to brigadier general at Lake Okeechobee (1837) during the Seminole wars.

In command of an army provocatively sent by Pres Polk into the disputed Nueces Strip, he twice defeated a larger Mexican force in May 1846. An easygoing officer, he was bedevilled by non re-enlistment and desertion, while the savage behaviour of the hard-bitten Texas contingent was a constant concern. Despite this, he took Monterrey in September in brilliant style, but the generous truce he granted the surrendered garrison snapped Polk's patience. With his best troops withdrawn to join Scott at Vera Cruz, he beat off a half-hearted February 1849 attack at Buena Vista by four times his number of Mexicans under the ambivalent Santa Anna.

He returned home a hero and became the winning Whig candidate in the 1848 presidential elections. He died after sixteen miserable months of rancorous disputes over the admission of new states carved out of the conquered territories, and humiliated by revelations of flagrant corruption in his cabinet.

— Hugh Bicheno

(1784–1850), Mexican War general and U.S. president

Elected president in 1848, Zachary Taylor served only sixteen months in office before his death in 1850. Despite holding the highest office in the land, Taylor is best remembered as a general in charge of the first campaign by the American forces against Mexico during the Mexican War.

Born in Virginia, the son of a prosperous landowner, Taylor grew up in Louisville. In 1808, he gained a commission and served in the War of 1812. For the next three decades he participated in Indian wars and gained the rank of general with the nickname “Old Rough and Ready” during the Seminole Wars. As commander of the U.S. troops on the Mexican frontier with Texas, Taylor directed a series of battles near the Rio Grande. After victories at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma in May 1846, he pressed on into Mexico, eventually capturing Monterrey in September after a vigorous fight. In February 1847, his army barely repelled a powerful attack at Buena Vista.

A hero throughout the United States, Taylor was passed over as commander for the invasion of Mexico at Veracruz. In 1848, Taylor ran for president as a Whig and was elected, only to die early in his term.

Bibliography

• Henry B. Montgomery, The Life of Major‐General Zachary Taylor, Twelfth President of the United States, 1847.
• Edward J. Nichols, Zach Taylor's Little Army, 1963.
• K. Jack Bauer, Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest, 1985

Taylor, Zachary (1784-1850) U.S. army officer and 12th President of the United States (1849-1850). Born in Orange County, Virginia, on November 24, 1784, Taylor moved with his family to a farm near Louisville, Kentucky, the following year. He obtained a commission as first lieutenant in the U.S. 7th Infantry in 1808 and served on the Old Northwest frontier through the War of 1812. He was promoted to captain in 1810 and was brevetted major in 1812. He returned to the family farm in 1814 but was recalled to active duty by President James Madison in 1816 and served as lieutenant colonel and then colonel of the U.S. 1st Infantry for over ten years. He led the 1st Infantry in the Black Hawk War and commanded U.S. troops fighting the Seminoles, whom he defeated at Lake Ocheechobee (December 25, 1837), for which action he was brevetted brigadier general and gained the nickname “Old Rough and Ready.” He subsequently commanded U.S. troops in the Southern Division of the Western Department. Following the annexation of Texas in December 1845, Taylor fortified a position across the Rio Grande River from the Mexican town of Matamoros in March 1846. Taylor's position was attacked by the Mexican general Mariano Arista, and Taylor's forces repulsed the Mexicans in the Battle of Palo Alto (May 8, 1846) and then pursued Arista's retreating forces defeating them again at Resaca de la Palma (May 9, 1846). Taylor's victories at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma led to his promotion to major general. His forces were reinforced and in September 1846 he advanced on Monterrey which he attacked on September 21. The Mexicans requested a truce and withdrew after a three-day defense of the city. Taylor was then ordered to release most of his troops for Gen. Winfield Scott's expedition against City of Mexico. Taylor's diminished force was attacked by strong Mexican forces under Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna at Buena Vista on February 21-23, 1847. Again, the U.S. forces gained victory through effective artillery work. Taylor's fame as a winning general in the Mexican War led to his nomination as the Whig Party candidate for President in the election of 1848. He defeated Martin Van Buren and assumed office as the 12th President of the United States in 1849. The question of extending slavery to the new territories won from Mexico dominated his administration. Taylor died in office on July 9, 1850, after serving only sixteen months and was succeeded by his vice president, Millard Fillmore.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Zachary Taylor (1784-1850), twelfth president of the United States, was, as one of the two military heroes of the Mexican War, the last Whig president.

Living in a time when generals were politically appointed and the Army poorly trained, Zachary Taylor proved a great tactician even though he did not inspire the love of his troops. Quarrelsome with his superiors, blunt to the point of tactlessness, he nevertheless provided solid leadership as a general.

Taylor was born on Nov. 24, 1784, at Montebello, Va., the son of a lieutenant colonel who had been on George Washington's Revolutionary War staff. The family moved to Louisville, Ky., in 1785, where Zachary's father became collector of customs and an influential man. Poorly educated by private tutoring, young Taylor was intended for an agricultural life on the family plantation, but the death of an elder brother allowed him to enter the Army. In 1808 he was appointed a lieutenant by President Thomas Jefferson and assigned to Gen. James Wilkinson's command at New Orleans.

A bout with yellow fever forced Taylor into temporary retirement, but he was promoted to captain in 1810 and assigned to the command of Governor William Henry Harrison of Indiana Territory. That same year he married Margaret M. Smith of Maryland.

During the War of 1812 Taylor won prominence in his command of Ft. Harrison. His small garrison withstood an attack by 400 Indians led by Tecumseh. During the war he was promoted to brevet major, but at the war's end he reverted to captain. This so angered him that he resigned his commission and returned to Kentucky to raise "a crop of corn."

Garrison Duty

In May 1816 President James Madison restored Taylor to the rank of major and sent him to Wisconsin Territory to command the 3d Infantry. Fifteen years of garrison duty followed in Louisiana and Minnesota. In 1832 he was promoted to colonel, and during the Black Hawk War he had charge of 400 regulars, under the command of Gen. Henry Atkinson. After receiving the surrender of the Indian chief Black Hawk, he returned to Ft. Snelling as commanding officer. There, a subordinate, Jefferson Davis, sought to wed Taylor's second daughter, Sarah, but Taylor disliked Davis and forbade his entry into the Taylor home. Davis later resigned his commission and in 1835 the couple married. Three months later, at Davis's Mississippi plantation, his wife died of a fever.

In 1837 Taylor was assigned command of the Army prosecuting the Seminole Wars in Florida. On Christmas Day he inflicted a stinging defeat on them at Lake Okeechobee, for which he was breveted a brigadier general. In May 1833 he assumed command of the department. Muscular and stocky, rarely in full uniform, he was dubbed "Old Rough and Ready" by his troops. In 1840 he returned to the Department of the Southwest as commander, and that year he purchased a house in Baton Rouge, La., which he thereafter considered home. He also purchased, in 1841, Cyprus Grove, a plantation near Rodney, Miss., thus becoming a slave owner.

Mexican War

In May 1845 Taylor was ordered to correspond with the government of the Republic of Texas, then negotiating annexation to the United States, and to repel any invasion of Mexicans. In July he moved his army of 4, 000 men to the site of Corpus Christi, Tex. In January 1846 he was ordered to the mouth of the Rio Grande to support the American claim to that river as the boundary of Texas. In March he constructed Ft. Brown, opposite the Mexican town of Matamoros.

When Mexican forces attacked his troops, Taylor did not wait for Congress to declare war. On May 8, 1846, at Palo Alto he defeated a Mexican army three times the size of his own force, largely through the accuracy of his artillery. The next day he won the Battle of Resaca de la Palma and then occupied Matamoros. President James K. Polk thereupon named him commander of the Army of the Rio Grande and promoted him to brevet major general. A grateful Congress voted him thanks and two gold medals.

With 6, 000 men Taylor set out in September 1846 for Monterrey, Mexico, which he captured on September 20-24, granting the Mexicans an 8-week armistice. The Polk administration criticized Taylor's leniency toward the Mexicans and would have replaced him but for his growing popularity. Because of that, and because Taylor's name was being prominently mentioned as the Whig nominee for president, the Democrat Polk reassigned half his troops to Gen. Winfield Scott, who was to invade Mexico at Veracruz. Taylor was ordered to hold at Monterrey and be on the defensive.

Taylor ignored his orders, advancing southward until he came into contact with Antonio López de Santa Ana's Mexican army of 15, 000-20, 000 men. On February 22-23 they fought the Battle of Buena Vista. Many of Taylor's men, mainly volunteers, broke and fled, but his artillery proved so effective that the Mexicans were forced to retreat. In gratitude for this victory, Congress voted him another gold medal, but Polk continued to hamper and demean his activities. Taylor remained in Mexico until November 1847, when he returned to campaign in his peculiar fashion for the presidency.

Whig Nomination

In June 1846 Taylor had written that he would decline the presidency even "if preferred and I could reach it without opposition." In August 1847 he stated, "I do not care a fig about the office." Yet by the late fall of 1847 he was becoming interested and writing his views on political issues. He said that the Bank of the United States was a dead issue, that he favored internal improvements, and that he would use the veto to protect the Constitution. His political backers, appalled at such statements, preferred that his views remain unknown.

The Whigs nominated Taylor on the fourth ballot, passing over Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Winfield Scott, even though Taylor had never even voted in a presidential election. The Democrats chose Lewis Cass. Because of a split in the Democratic party, Taylor carried New York State and thereby won the election. People voted for him in the North because he was a war hero; in the South he was admired as a slave owner.

The President

In his inaugural address Taylor advocated military and naval effectiveness; friendly relations with foreign powers; Federal encouragement of agriculture, commerce, and manufacturing; and congressional conciliation of sectional controversy. Four of his seven Cabinet members were Southerners, and the Cabinet contained no men of real ability.

Because of Taylor's political inability, he suffered in his relations with Congress. He also contributed to the ruination of the Whig party because he thought himself above partisan politics. "I am a Whig, " he stated, "but not an ultra Whig." The result was discord and dissension within party ranks.

Although a slave owner, Taylor gradually came to support the Wilmot Proviso (mandating that there be no extension of slavery into the territory taken from Mexico at the end of the war). He encouraged Californians to seek admission as a free state, just as he did New Mexicans, despite the Texan claims to all land east of the Rio Grande. Southern Whigs thereupon turned against Taylor and the party. His steadfast opposition to the Texan claims heated the sectional controversy; yet when there was talk of secession, he stated forthrightly, "Disunion is treason." His strong stand discouraged secession and perhaps delayed the Civil War.

Taylor little understood foreign affairs and blundered badly on several occasions. His one major accomplishment in this area was the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850, which dealt with English-American efforts to build an Isthmian canal.

A lifelong admirer of George Washington, Taylor attended the laying of the cornerstone of the Washington Monument on July 4, 1850, sitting for hours in the hot sun. Afterward he drank quantities of ice water and then ate cherries with iced milk. That night he suffered what the doctors described as a cholera attack; he died 5 days later. He rallied at his deathbed to make a last statement: "I have tried to discharge my duties faithfully. I regret nothing." He was buried near Louisville, Ky.

Further Reading

There are three satisfactory biographies of Taylor. The best is Holman Hamilton's two-volume work, Zachary Taylor: Soldier of the Republic (1941) and Zachary Taylor: Soldier in the White House (1951). The others are Brainerd Dyer, Zachary Taylor (1946), and Silas B. McKinley and Silas Bent, Old Rough and Ready (1946). The standard history of the Mexican War is still Justin H. Smith, The War with Mexico (2. vols., 1919).

• Born: Nov. 24, 1784, Orange County, Va.
• Political party: Whig
• Education: tutored through elementary grades
• Military service: Kentucky Militia, 1806; U.S. Army, 1808–49
• Previous civilian government service: none
• Elected President, 1848; served, 1849–50
• Died: July 9, 1850, Washington, D.C.

Zachary Taylor was the second and last Whig to be elected President of the United States, and like his predecessor William Henry Harrison, he did not complete his term of office. Taylor had spent his whole life as a career military officer, on garrison duty in frontier posts and in the thick of battle against Indians in Florida and during the Mexican–American War. He was the first President without experience in elective or appointive office, though not the last. Taylor had never even cast a vote in a Presidential election before being elected to the office.

Taylor was born in Virginia but grew up on a large farm on the Kentucky frontier. He was tutored but never went to school. He entered the army with a commission as a lieutenant, which his cousin, Secretary of State James Madison, obtained for him. He was promoted to major for his defense of Fort Harrison, Indiana, against attacks by the Indian chief Tecumseh. As a colonel, he defeated the Black Hawk Indians in 1832, and he later defeated the Seminole Indians in 1837, rising to the rank of general after the Battle of Lake Okeechobee. In February 1847, Taylor defeated the Mexican general Santa Anna at the Battle of Buena Vista.

The Whigs nominated Taylor in 1848 for the same reasons they had nominated Harrison: he was a war hero. Taylor was also a Southerner and a slaveholder (in 1841 he had bought a Mississippi plantation with many slaves) who would attract support in the South from a party with little popular following there. He won the Whig nomination on the fourth ballot over Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Winfield Scott. Helped by a split in the Democratic party, with Martin Van Buren running on a Free–Soil ticket and Lewis Cass running as a regular Democrat, Taylor was elected with fewer popular votes than Cass and Van Buren combined. However, his solid electoral college majority, in part due to electoral votes from four Southern states, proved the soundness of the Whigs' “Southern strategy.”

Taylor took little role in policy–making, leaving it to Whig congressional leaders in accordance with the party's view that Presidents should preside but not attempt to govern. After the California gold rush of 1849, Taylor ordered the state's military governor to hold elections in the territory. Ironically, those elections resulted in a state constitutional convention that wrote a state constitution outlawing slavery. The new state government began to function in 1850 and sought admission to the Union, strongly backed by Taylor.

Taylor wanted California, New Mexico, and Utah all to be admitted to the Union. This proposal caused him to split with Whig congressional leaders, who were more mindful of Southern opposition to the admission of “free” states that would outlaw slavery and end the balance in the Union of 15 slave and 15 free states. Taylor took a strong stand against the Southerners in Congress who threatened secession if California entered the Union as a free state, and he threatened senators from Georgia that he would crush any attempt at secession. Taylor was opposed to the Compromise of 1850, proposed by Henry Clay, that resolved the issue. The compromise, consisting of five separate laws, admitted California as a free state and abolished the slave trade in the nation's capital but balanced these measures with a stringent new law for the return of runaway slaves and the organization of Utah and New Mexico state governments without any determination about slavery. Taylor referred to this compromise as the “Omnibus Bill” and probably would have vetoed the measures had he lived.

Taylor's most significant achievement in foreign affairs was the negotiation of the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty (1850) with Great Britain, which provided that any canal built in Central America would be under joint Anglo–American control. This defused a crisis that might have led to hostilities that neither nation wanted.

Taylor died in office on July 9, 1850, of acute gastroenteritis and was succeeded by Millard Fillmore.

See also Fillmore, Millard

Sources

• Jack K. Bauer, Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985).
• Elbert B. Smith, The Presidencies of Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1988)

(1784-1850), twelfth president of the United States. Taylor grew up in Kentucky, where his father was a moderately prosperous planter. Despite his family's social standing, he received little formal schooling; as a result, his writing was ungrammatical, and he found reading difficult all his life.

Aided by his family's political connections, he received an army commission in 1808. Prior to the Mexican War, most of his service was spent on the frontier dealing with Indian affairs. His informal attire and indifference to physical hardship led his troops to nickname him Old Rough-and-Ready. During these years, Taylor successfully speculated in land. Eventually he purchased cotton plantations in Louisiana (which he made his home) and Mississippi and became a wealthy slave owner.

When relations with Mexico deteriorated following the annexation of Texas, the Polk administration ordered Taylor to move his army of four thousand men to the Rio Grande. War commenced shortly after his arrival in March 1846 when Mexican forces attacked units of Taylor's army. In May, Taylor defeated the Mexican army at Palo Alto and quickly won another victory at Resaca de la Palma. His subsequent capture of Monterrey and his victory at the Battle of Buena Vista (February 22-23, 1847), where he was outnumbered three to one, firmly established his popular reputation as a military hero.

He was a brave commander who remained calm in the heat of battle, but not a brilliant military leader: he was excessively cautious, failed to plan campaigns adequately, and displayed limited tactical ability. His successes stemmed more from his opponents' blunders, effective leadership by his subordinates, and his own dogged determination.

Up to this point in his life, Taylor, who harbored moderate Whig sympathies, had evidenced only limited interest in politics. As his popularity increased, however, a number of Whig leaders, looking for an available candidate, boomed Taylor for president. He was nominated without a platform and elected in November 1848.

Taylor's political inexperience caused him to oversimplify complex problems as president. This quality was most apparent in his response to the growing controversy over the expansion of slavery. Although a defender of slavery, he nevertheless believed that lack of rainfall would exclude the institution from the territory acquired from Mexico, and thus he dismissed the issue as pointless. He proposed to bypass the territorial phase and organize the entire Mexican Cession into two huge free states, California and New Mexico.

Taylor's proposal exacerbated the sectional controversy. Southern Whigs angrily denounced the president and threatened secession, while Henry Clay introduced a more extensive compromise plan early in 1850. Habitually suspicious of other men's motives, Taylor stubbornly clung to his plan, and his saber-rattling against Texas in its boundary dispute with New Mexico did nothing to defuse tensions. Matters were at a stalemate when the president died suddenly on July 9, 1850, from an attack of cholera.

Taylor was honest and well intentioned, but his blunt manner and unsophisticated mind handicapped him as president. An ardent nationalist, he did not appreciate southerners' fears, and his inflexible will, which had served him well in the military, was less useful in working with Congress. Under different circumstances, he might have been a successful president, but he lacked the intellectual subtlety or political tact necessary to handle the sectional crisis.

Bibliography:

K. Jack Bauer, Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest (1985); Elbert B. Smith, The Presidencies of Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore (1988).

Author:

William E. Gienapp

See also Elections: 1848; Mexican War. For events during Taylor's administration, see Compromise of 1850; Gold Rushes.

Taylor, Zachary (zăk'ərē), 1784-1850, 12th President of the United States (1849-50), b. Orange co., Va. He was raised in Kentucky. Taylor joined the army in 1808, became a captain in 1810, and was promoted to major for his defense of Fort Harrison (1812) in the War of 1812. He became a colonel (1832) and served in the Black Hawk War and in the campaigns against the Seminole in Florida, winning the nickname of "Old Rough and Ready." Sent to the Southwest to command the army at the Texas border, Taylor began (1845) to prepare for hostilities with Mexico regarding the annexation of Texas, pushing into disputed territory S of the Nueces River. In the Mexican War he defeated the Mexicans at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, drove them across the Rio Grande, and took Matamoros. Later he forced the surrender of the Mexican stronghold at Monterrey. In 1847 he won the decisive battle of Buena Vista in the face of great odds. A popular hero, Taylor was nominated for President on the Whig ticket, was elected, and assumed office in 1849. His nonpartisan tendencies were changed under the influence of Senator William H. Seward, and Taylor was soon a strong supporter of Whig policy. As President, he supported the Wilmot Proviso, which excluded slavery from all the territory acquired as a result of the Mexican War. He favored rapid admission of both California and New Mexico to the Union and strict limitation of Texas boundary claims. His free-soil views put him in opposition to the measures that were to become the Compromise of 1850. After charges of corruption were lodged against members of his cabinet, he promised a reorganization, but was stricken with cholera morbus and died on July 9, 1850. He was succeeded by Millard Fillmore.

Bibliography

See biographies by H. Hamilton (2 vol., 1941 and 1951; repr. 1966), B. Dyer (1946, repr. 1967), and S. B. McKinley and S. Bent (1946); E. J. Nichols, Zach Taylor's Little Army (1963).

Zachary Taylor served as the twelfth president of the United States from 1849 until his death in 1850. A famous military general, Taylor was an apolitical leader who accomplished little during his sixteen months in office.

Taylor was born on November 24, 1784, in Orange County, Virginia, but moved as a child to Kentucky. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1808 and was commissioned as a first lieutenant in the infantry that same year. Taylor quickly emerged as a military hero during the War of 1812 while serving under General WilliamHenry Harrison. He distinguished himself during the Black Hawk War in 1832 and the Second Seminole War in Florida between 1835 and 1842. He was promoted to brigadier general in 1837 after his victory at the Battle of Lake Okeechobee.

In 1845, soon after the annexation of Texas, President James K. Polk ordered Taylor and an army of four thousand men to the Rio Grande. Border hostilities with Mexico over the boundary between the two countries escalated into full battles in May of 1845. Taylor's troops defeated an invading Mexican army at the Battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. That same month the United States declared war on Mexico.

Taylor and his army invaded Mexico and advanced to Monterrey, capturing the city in late September. His military career was put in doubt, however, when a letter became public in which Taylor criticized President Polk and his secretary of war, William L. Marcy. An angry Polk could not relieve the popular war hero of his command, but he stripped Taylor of his best troops and ordered him to adopt a defensive posture. Taylor, who was nicknamed "Old Rough and Ready," disobeyed Polk's orders and defeated a Mexican army that outnumbered his troops by four to one at the Battle of Buena Vista in February 1847. This stunning victory guaranteed Taylor the status of national hero.

The Whig party nominated Taylor as its presidential candidate in 1848, even though Taylor had no interest in politics (he had never voted in an election) and was a slave owner. Taylor defeated the Democratic candidate, Lewis Cass, in the November general election.

Taylor's brief service as president was unremarkable. Having no political background, Taylor was unprepared for the give-and-take of Washington politics. The biggest issue facing him was statehood for California and New Mexico, which had been acquired from Mexico as a result of the war. Although he owned slaves, Taylor was opposed to the expansion of slavery into the new territories, a position that alienated Southern Whigs and Democrats in Congress. When California voted to prohibit slavery, the South opposed its admission to the Union. Attempts by Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky to negotiate a compromise were rebuffed by Taylor.

As this political conflict unfolded in the summer of 1850, Taylor contracted cholera. He died on July 9, 1850, in Washington, D.C.

Taylor was succeeded by Vice President Millard Fillmore, who quickly agreed to resolve the Mexican territories issue with the Compromise of 1850. This act admitted California into the Union as a free state, gave the territories of Utah and New Mexico the right to determine the slavery issue for themselves at the time of their admission to the Union, outlawed the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and gave the federal government the right to return fugitive slaves in the Fugitive SlaveAct (9 Stat. 462).

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