Zachary Taylor
12th President of the United States
1784 CE to 1850 CE
Zachary Taylor (November 24, 1784 – July 9, 1850) is the 12th President of the United States (1849–1850) and an American military leader.
Initially uninterested in politics, Taylor runs as a Whig in the 1848 presidential election, defeating Lewis Cass.
He is a planter and slaveholder based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Known as "Old Rough and Ready," Taylor has a 40-year military career in the United States Army, serving in the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War, and the Second Seminole War.
He achieves fame leading American troops to victory in the Battle of Palo Alto and the Battle of Monterrey during the Mexican–American War.
As president, Taylor angers many Southerners by taking a moderate stance on the issue of slavery.
He urges settlers in New Mexico and California to bypass the territorial stage and draft constitutions for statehood, setting the stage for the Compromise of 1850.
Taylor dies July 9, 1850, 16 months after his inauguration; the third-shortest tenure of any President.
He is thought to have died of gastroenteritis.
President Taylor is succeeded by his Vice President, Millard Fillmore.
Taylor is the last President to own slaves while in office.
He is the second of three Whig presidents, the last being Fillmore.
Taylor is also the second president to die in office, preceded by William Henry Harrison, who died while serving as President nine years earlier, as well as the only President elected from Louisiana.
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General Thomas Jesup organizes a sweep down the Florida peninsula with multiple columns, pushing the Seminoles further south.
On Christmas Day 1837, Colonel Zachary Taylor's column of eight hundred men encounters a body of about four hundred Seminoles on the north shore of Lake Okeechobee.
The Seminoles, led by Sam Jones, Alligator, and the recently escaped Coacoochee, are well positioned in a hammock surrounded by sawgrass.
Taylor's army comes up to a large hammock with half a mile of swamp in front of it.
On the far side of the hammock is Lake Okeechobee, were the saw grass stands five feet high and the mud and water are three feet deep; horses will be of no use.
It is plain that the Seminole mean this to be the battleground.
They have sliced the grass to provide an open field of fire and have notched the trees to steady their rifles.
Their scouts are perched in the treetops to follow every movement of the troops coming up.
At about half past noon, the sun shining directly overhead and the air still and quiet, Taylor moves his troops squarely into the center of the swamp.
His plan is to make a direct attack rather than encircle the Indians.
All his men are on foot.
In the first line are the Missouri volunteers.
As soon as they come within range, the Indians open with heavy fire.
The volunteers break; their commander, the fatally wounded Colonel Gentry, is unable to rally them.
They flee back across the swamp.
The fighting in the saw grass is deadliest for five companies of the Sixth Infantry; every officer but one, and most of their noncoms are killed or wounded.
When that part of the regiment retires a short distance to re-form, they find only four men of these companies unharmed.
The Seminoles are eventually driven from the hammock, escaping across the lake.
Taylor loses twenty-six killed and one hundred and twelve wounded, while the Seminole casualties are eleven dead and fourteen wounded.
Nevertheless, the Battle of Lake Okeechobee is hailed as a great victory for Taylor and the Army.
Seminole chiefs Tuskegee and Halleck Hadjo had approached General Jesup in February with the proposition that they would stop fighting if they would be allowed to stay south of Lake Okeechobee.
Jesup favors the idea but has to write to Washington for approval.
The chiefs and their followers camp near the Army while awaiting the reply.
When the secretary of war rejects the idea, Jesup seizes the five hundred natives in the camp, sending them west.
In May, Jesup's request to be relieved of command is granted, and Zachary Taylor assumes command of the Army forces in Florida.
With reduced forces in Florida, Taylor concentrates on keeping the Seminoles out of northern Florida by building many small posts at twenty-mile (thirty-kilometer) intervals across northern Florida, connected by a grid of roads.
The heaviest fighting is done by General Winfield Scott's Army of Occupation, which lands at Veracruz on March 9, 1847.
Rather than attempt to occupy the city outright, Scott positions his forces west of it, cutting off Veracruz's supply line from the capital.
After several days of heavy naval bombardment that kills hundreds of civilians, Veracruz surrenders on March 27, 1847.
The idea of incorporating Texas into the United States has gained support both in Texas and in the United States Congress since Texas attained its independence from Mexico.
Definitive action on the measure has been delayed for several years, however, because of the divisive issue of admitting another slave state into the United States and the likely prospect that annexation would provoke a war with Mexico.
In early 1845, the United States Congress passes a resolution in favor of the annexation of Texas, which prompts Mexico to sever diplomatic relations with the United States.
The Mexican congress had never ratified Santa Anna's secret treaty with the Texans, and to underscore its opposition to Texas's independence, the Mexican congress passes a law that retroactively annuls any treaties signed by a Mexican negotiator while in captivity.
Further aggravating the dispute is the fact that the Texans have issued a dubious territorial claim that expands the republic's southern and western boundary from the previously accepted Nueces River to the Rio Bravo del Norte.
By claiming all of the land up to the headwaters of the Rio Bravo del Norte, the Texans have more than double the size of their republic to include parts of present-day New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, and all of present-day western Texas.
The Mexican president, José Joaquín de Herrera, had been willing to recognize an independent Texas but is under intense domestic pressure to reject United States annexation and Texas's expanded territorial claim.
As a result, he refuses to meet Slidell and begins reinforcing Mexican army units along the Rio Bravo del Norte.
Shortly after the two sides declare war, Santa Anna is recalled from exile in Cuba to once again lead Mexican troops against a foreign invasion.
California and New Mexico fall with little bloodshed.
Northern Mexico is the scene of fierce battles between Taylor and Santa Anna's armies at Buena Vista.
Santa Anna initially strikes hard at the outnumbered United States forces, but he later abandons the battle and returns to Mexico City, prematurely claiming victory.
Antonio López de Santa Anna, president once again, denounces both congress and his own subordinates in the executive branch for their lack of resolve in preparing the defense of the capital.
They, in turn, denounce him for his failures in battle.
On August 20, 1847, the Army of Occupation asks for the surrender of Mexico City, but the battle continues until September 13, 1847, when the last bastion of Mexican resistance falls during the famous Battle of Chapultepec.
During the battle, young cadets from the Mexican military academy, the Niños Héroes (or "boy heroes") leap to their deaths rather than surrender.
The United States victory marks the end of the war and the beginning of negotiations for peace.
Mexico is now required to relinquish its territories of New Mexico and Upper California (the present-day states of California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming) and to accept Texas's incorporation into the United States.
As compensation, the United States agrees to pay fifteen million U.S. dollars for the territories and to assume more than three million U.S. dollars in claims from private citizens of these areas against the Mexican government.
Mexico loses more than one-half of its territory as a result of the war with the United States.
The territorial losses and the brief but traumatic occupation of Mexico City by United States troops engenders a deep-seated mistrust of the United States that still resonates in Mexican popular culture.
Anti-United States nationalist sentiment will be a major intellectual current in the Mexican Revolution and will continue to manifest itself in some aspects of Mexican society.