Zachary Taylor, twelfth president of the United States, was a Kentuckian
save for his accidental birth near Orange, Virginia, September 24, 1784.
His father, Richard Taylor, had been planning for many years to remove
to Kentucky, but his vacillation gave Virginia another president. When
but nine months old Zachary Taylor was brought to Kentucky, the family
settling near Louisville. He "grew up to manhood with the yell of the
savage and the crack of the rifle almost constantly ringing in his
ears." The first twenty-four years of his life were passed wholly in
Kentucky amid all the dangers of the Western wilderness. He was
fighting Indians almost before he could hold a rifle at arm's length,
and in such an environment his education was, of course, very limited.
Taylor entered the army, in 1808, serving in the War of 1812, in Black
Hawk's war of 1832, and against the Seminole Indians (1836-1837). In
1837 he was brevetted brigadier-general. In 1838 General Taylor was
placed in command of the military stations in Florida; and in 1845 he
took command of the army on the Texas border. The next five years of
General Taylor's life is the history of the Mexican War. At Palo Alto,
Monterey, and at Buena Vista, on February 22-23, 1847, where he crushed
Santa Anna, he was the absolute man of the hour, the hero of the
country. On the strength of his military renown, General Taylor was
elected as the Whig candidate for president of the United States, in
1848, defeating General Lewis Cass of Michigan, and former president,
Martin Van Buren, of New York. He was inaugurated in March, 1849, but he
died at the White House, Washington, July 9, 1850. The country was torn
asunder with many important questions during Taylor's administration,
which, though brief, was a stormy one. His remains were interred at his
old home near Louisville--the only president ever buried in this
State--and a ruined monument marks the grave at this time. In 1908 a
volume of his _Letters from the Battlefields of the Mexican War_
appeared.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Some Notable Families of America_, by Annah
Robinson Watson; _The War with Mexico_, by H. O. Ladd (New York,
1835); _General Taylor_, by O. O. Howard (New York, 1892).