Zachary Taylor

Taylor, Zachary - zăkˈərē, 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.

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).

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13 of the Best Books and Articles on: Zachary Taylor

as selected by Questia School librarians.

1.

Zachary Taylor Inaugurated as 12th President of the USA, in History Today
by Richard Cavendish. 1 pgs.
2.

Presidential Anecdotes (Chap. Twelve "Zachary Taylor 1849-50")
by Paul F. Boller Jr. 451 pgs.

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Title Page

Preface

Contents

One: George Washington 1789-97

Two: John Adams 1797-1801

Three: Thomas Jefferson 1801-1809

Four: James Madison (1809-17)

Five: James Monroe 1817-25

Six: John Quincy Adams 1825-29

Seven: Andrew Jackson 1829-37

Eight: Martin Van Buren 1837-41

Nine: William Henry Harrison 1841

Ten: John Tyler 1841-45

Eleven: James K. Polk 1845-49

Twelve: Zachary Taylor 1849-50

Thirteen: Millard Fillmore 1850-53

Fourteen: Franklin Pierce 1853-57

Fifteen: James Buchanan 1857-61

Sixteen: Abraham Lincoln 1861-65

Seventeen: Andrew Johnson 1865-69

Eighteen: Ulysses S. Grant 1869-77

Nineteen: Rutherford B. Hayes 1877-81

Twenty: James A. Garfield 1881

Twenty-One: Chester A. Arthur 1881-85

Twenty-Two: Grover Cleveland 1885-89 1893-97

Twenty-Three: Benjamin Harrison 1889-93

Twenty-Four: William B. Mckinley 1897-1901

Twenty-Five: Theodore Roosevelt 1901-9

Twenty Six: William Howard Taft 1909-13

Twenty-Seven: Woodrow Wilson 1913-21

Twenty-Eight: Warren G. Harding 1921-23

Twenty-Nine: Calvin Coolidge 1923-29

Thirty: Herbert Hoover 1929-33

Thirty-One: Franklin D. Roosevelt 1933-45

Thirty-Two: Harry S. Truman 1945-53

Thirty-Three: Dwight D. Eisenhower 1953-61

Thirty-Four: John F. Kennedy 1961-63

Thirty-Five: Lyndon B. Johnson 1963-69

Thirty-Six: Richard M. Nixon 1969-74

Thirty-Seven: Gerald R. Ford 1974-77

Thirty-Eight: Jimmy Carter 1977-81

Thirty-Nine: Ronald Reagan 1981-1989

Forty: George Bush 1989-1993

Forty-One: William Jefferson Clinton 1993-

Notes

Index
3.

The Whig Party in Pennsylvania, Vol. 1 (Discussion of Zachary Taylor begins on p. 143)
by Henry R. Mueller. 290 pgs.

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Title Page

Preface

Contents

Maps

Chapter I: The Period of Subordination 1834-1838.

Chapter II: Years of Triumph and Tribulation 1839-1843.

Chapter III: Texas and the Tariff 1844-1846.

Chapter IV: A Political Interlude 1847-1848.

Chapter V: The Slavery Question in State Politics 1849-1851.

Chapter VI: The Whig Party Marks Time 1852-1853.

Chapter VII: The Disappearance of the Whig Party 1854-1856.

Chapter VIII: Characteristics of the Whig Party

Index
4.

Texas, New Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850: Boundary Dispute & Sectional Crisis (Discussion of Zachary Taylor begins on p. 85)
by Mark J. Stegmaier. 436 pgs.

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Writing from the vantage point of the Texas-New Mexico boundary issue, Mark Stegmaier provides a comprehensive analysis of the dispute, the compromise, and the overall implications for the Civil War. He meticulously examines the crisis through a close reading of Texan and New Mexican documents, U.S. government records, maps, newspapers - particularly the reports of Washington correspondents - and collections of personal letters. In addition, he introduces a revisionist analysis of roll call voting in the U.S. Congress and the Texas legislature. Stegmaier recounts how, with the support of Southern radicals, Texas attempted to extend its jurisdiction despite opposition from New Mexicans and U.S. political leaders. Threatened by military occupation, New Mexicans countered by seeking free state status, while Presidents Taylor and Fillmore committed U.S. forces to defend the territory against a Texan attack. The resolution of this issue allowed the passage of the Compromise of 1850, the last great accord on the sectional issues between North and South. Texas, New Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850 deserves the term "definitive". It will appeal to all students of the Civil War era.

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Title Page

Contents

List of Maps

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter One: The Boundary Dispute From Its Origins to the Mexican War

Chapter Two: Santa Fe County, Texas, Or New Mexico Territory, U.S.A.? 1846-1850

Chapter Three: Neighbors, Munroe, and Mccall Three Men & the Fate of New Mexico

Chapter Four: The Momentous Thirty-First Congress Begins

Chapter Five: New Mexico Seeks Statehood

Chapter Six: Texas--New Mexico And the Omnibus Bill Debate, May 8- July 9, 1850

Chapter Seven: The Fillmore Administration's Baptism Texas-New Mexico Destroys the Omnibus

Chapter Eight: Carrot and Stick The Pearce Bill & Executive Firmness

Chapter Nine: The U.S. Military Response To the Boundary Dispute

Chapter Ten: Texan Rage, Summer 1850

Chapter Twelve: Completion of Victory

Conclusion

Appendix A: Blocs in Texas Senate on New Mexico Jurisdiction Resolution, January 1850

Appendix B: Roll-Call Votes in U.S. Senate (thirty-First Congress, First Session) That Define Pro- and Anti-Compromise Blocs

Appendix C

Appendix D

Appendix E: The Texas--New Mexico Boundary Dispute In Comparative Perspective

Appendix F: The Popular Vote on the Compromise In Texas Reported in the Austin State Gazette, January 11, 1850

Notes

Essay on Sources

Index
5.

Slavery and the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War (Discussion of Zachary Taylor begins on p. 88)
by Michael A. Morrison. 400 pgs.

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"A fresh and provocative contribution to our understanding of the process of party disorganization and sectional mobilization that brought the union to its final crisis". Peter S. Onuf, University of Virginia
How the territorial question and the extension of slavery led to the sectionalization of American politics
Tracing the sectionalization of American politics in the 1840s and 1850s, Michael Morrison offers a comprehensive study of how slavery and territorial expansion intersected as causes of the Civil War. Specifically, he argues that the common heritage of the American Revolution bound Americans together until disputes over the extension of slavery into the territories led northerners and southerners to increasingly divergent understandings of the Revolution's legacy.
Manifest Destiny promised the literal enlargement of freedom through the extension of American institutions all the way to the Pacific. At each step -- from John Tyler's attempt to annex Texas in 1844, to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, to the opening shots of the Civil War-the issue of slavery had to be confronted. Morrison shows that the Revolution was the common prism through which northerners and southerners viewed these events and that the factor that ultimately made consensus impossible was slavery itself. By 1861, no nationally accepted solution to the dilemma of slavery in the territories had emerged, no political party existed as a national entity, and politicians from both North and South had come to believe that those on the other side had subverted the American political tradition.

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Title Page

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1: John Tyler's Hobby Territorial Expansion and Jacksonian Politics

2: Milton's Devil Slavery Restriction and the Revolutionary Heritage, 1820-1846

3: Washington Redux the Whig Party and the Politics of Slavery, 1846-1848

4: Tower of Babel

5: Of Pegasus and Bellerophon Popular Sovereignty, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Origins of the Kansas-Nebraska Act

6: A House Dividing

7: To the Egress Humbug and the Disruption of the Democracy

8: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Disruption of the Second Party System

Conclusion We Stand Where Our Fathers Stood

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index
6.

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Discussion of Zachary Taylor begins on p. 59)
by James M. McPherson. 910 pgs.

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Filled with fresh interpretations and information, puncturing old myths and challenging new ones, Battle Cry of Freedom will unquestionably become the standard one-volume history of the Civil War. James McPherson's fast-paced narrative fully integrates the political, social, and military events that crowded the two decades from the outbreak of one war in Mexico to the ending of another at Appomattox. Packed with drama and analytical insight, the book vividly recounts the momentous episodes that preceded the Civil War--the Dred Scott decision, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry--and then moves into a masterful chronicle of the war itself--the battles, the strategic maneuvering on both sides, the politics, and the personalities. Particularly notable are McPherson's new views on such matters as the slavery expansion issue in the 1850s, the origins of the Republican Party, the causes of secession, internal dissent and anti-war opposition in the North and the South, and the reasons for the Union's victory. The book's title refers to the sentiments that informed both the Northern and Southern views of the conflict: the South seceded in the name of that freedom of self-determination and self-government for which their fathers had fought in 1776, while the North stood fast in defense of the Union founded by those fathers as the bulwark of American liberty. Eventually, the North had to grapple with the underlying cause of the war--slavery--and adopt a policy of emancipation as a second war aim. This "new birth of freedom," as Lincoln called it, constitutes the proudest legacy of America's bloodiest conflict. This authoritative volume makes sense of that vast and confusing "second American Revolution" we call the Civil War, a war that transformed a nation and expanded our heritage of liberty.

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Title Page

Preface

Contents

Maps

Editor's Introduction

Prologue from the Halls of Montezuma

1: The United States at Midcentury

2: Mexico Will Poison Us

3: An Empire for Slavery

4: Slavery, Rum, and Romanism

5: The Crime Against Kansas

6: Mudsills and Greasy Mechanics for A. Lincoln

7: The Revolution of 1860

8: The Counterrevolution of 1861

9: Facing Both Ways: The Upper South's Dilemma

10: Amateurs Go to War

11: Farewell to the Ninety Days' War

12: Blockade and Beachhead: The Salt-Water War, 1861-1862

13: The River War in 1862

14: The Sinews of War

15: Billy Yank's Chickahominy Blues

16: We Must Free the Slaves or Be Ourselves Subdued

17: Carry Me Back to Old Virginny

18: John Bull's Virginia Reel

19: Three Rivers in Winter, 1862-1863

20: Fire in the Rear

21: Long Remember: The Summer of '63

22: Johnny Reb's Chattanooga Blues

23: When This Cruel War is Over

24: If It Takes All Summer

25: After Four Years of Failure

26: We Are Going to Be Wiped off the Earth

27: South Carolina Must Be Destroyed

28: We Are All Americans

Epilogue to the Shoals of Victory

Abbreviated Titles

Bibliographical Note

Index
7.

The Self-Inflicted Wound: Southern Politics in the Nineteenth Century (Discussion of Zachary Taylor begins on p. 57)
by Robert F. Durden. 150 pgs.

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Title Page

Contents

Editor's Preface

Preface

Chapter One: The Jeffersonian Ascendancy

Chapter Two: The South and The Second Party System 1828-1846

Chapter Three: From Sectional Crisis To the Eve of Disunion 1846-1860

Chapter Four: Secession and War 1860-1865

Chapter Five: Reconstruction and Redemption 1865-1890

Bibliographical Note

Index
8.

The Year of Decision, 1846 (Discussion of Zachary Taylor begins on p. 14)
by Bernard Devoto. 528 pgs.

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Title Page

Dedication

Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Calendar for the Year 1846-1847

Invocation

Chapter 1:: Build Thee More Stately Mansions

Chapter 2: the Mountain Man

Chapter 3: Pillar of Cloud

Chapter 4: Equinox

Chapter 5: Spring Freshet

Interlude: Doo-Dah Day

Chapter 6: Oh Susanna!

Chapter 7:: "Cain, Where Are Thy Brothers?"

Interlude: World of Tomorrow

Chapter 8: Solstice

Chapter 9: the Image on the Sun

Chapter 10: Sonorous Metal

Chapter 11: Continental Divide

Interlude: Friday, October 16

Chapter 12: Atomization

Chapter 13: Trail's End

Chapter 14: Anabasis in Homespun

Chapter 15: Down from the Sierra

Chapter 16: Whether It Be Fat or Lean: Canaan

Chapter 17: Bill of Review -- Dismissed

Notes

Statement on Bibliography

Index
9.

Facts about the Presidents: A Compilation of Biographical and Historical Data ("Zachary Taylor: 12th President" begins on p. 83)
by Joseph Nashan Kane. 360 pgs.

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Title Page

Preface

Contents

Part I: Washington -- Eisenhower

George Washington: 1st President

John Adams: 2nd President

Thomas Jefferson: 3rd President

James Madison: 4th President

James Monroe: 5th President

John Quincy Adams: 6th President

Andrew Jackson: 7th President

Martin Van Buren: 8th President

William Henry Harrison: 9th President

John Tyler: 10th President

James Knox Polk: 11th President

Zachary Taylor: 12th President

Millard Fillmore: 13th President

Franklin Pierce: 14th President

James Buchanan: 15th President

Abraham Lincoln: 16th President

Andrew Johnson: 17th President

Ulysses Simpson Grant: 18th President

Rutherford Birchard Hayes: 19th President

James Abram Garfield: 20th President

Chester Alan Arthur: 21st President

Grover Cleveland: 22nd President

Benjamin Harrison: 23rd President

Grover Cleveland: 24th President

William Mckinley: 25th President

Theodore Roosevelt: 26th President

William Howard Taft: 27th President

Woodrow Wilson: 28th President

Warren Gamaliel Harding: 29th President

Calvin Coolidge: 30th President

Herbert Clark Hoover: 31st President

Franklin Delano Roosevelt: 32nd President

Harry S. Truman: 33rd President

Dwight David Eisenhower: 34th President

Part II: Comparative Data

The Presidents

The Presidency

Index
10.

Encyclopedia of American Parties, Campaigns, and Elections ("Taylor, Zachary (1784-1850)" begins on p. 403)
by William C. Binning, Larry E. Esterly, Paul A. Sracic. 467 pgs.

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In this comprehensive guide to the language of contemporary American politics, Binning offers clear descriptions of terms such as "soft money," "gerrymandering," and "blanket primary." Examples are frequently offered to help clarify definitions. Particular attention is given to the ever-changing organizational structure of parties and contemporary electoral systems. This encyclopedia explains campaign finance reform laws and the Voting Rights Act. The more significant Supreme Court decisions in these areas are summarized, with an eye to giving readers a greater understanding of how these laws have been interpreted and applied. Brief biographies of important political figures such as presidents, vicepresidents, and congressional and party leaders are also included, along with a concise summary of every presidential election since 1789.

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Title Page

Contents

Introduction

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

Y

Appendix: Presidents, Vice-Presidents, and Party Control of Congress, 1789-Present

Selected Bibliography

Index

About the Authors
11.

Richard Taylor, Soldier Prince of Dixie (Chap. One "Young Southern Prince")
by T. Michael Parrish. 560 pgs.

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The only son of President Zachary Taylor and the brother-in-law of Jefferson Davis, Richard Taylor (1826-79) epitomized the ideals of the Old South, graduating from Yale to become a prominent Louisiana sugar planter and influential politician.

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Title Page

Contents

Maps

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter One Young Southern Prince

Chapter Two Paternalistic Planter

Chapter Three Aristocrat in Political Bedlam

Chapter Four Tamer of Louisiana Tigers

Chapter Five Jackson's Swift Sword in the Valley

Chapter Six Spectator on the Peninsula

Chapter Seven Defender of Louisiana

Chapter Eight Nemesis of Yankee Invaders

Chapter Nine Hero of the Red River Valley

Chapter Ten Outraged Subordinate

Chapter Eleven Dutiful Departmental Commander

Chapter Twelve Democratic Party Insider

Epilogue

Bibliography

Index
12.

Essays on the Mexican War (Discussion of Zachary Taylor begins on p. 34)
by Wayne Cutler. 100 pgs.

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Title Page

Contents

Illustrations

Preface

Introduction

President Polk's New England Tour: North for Union

The Monarchist Conspiracy and the Mexican War

Andrew Trussell in Mexico: a Soldier's Wartime Impressions, 1847-1848
13.

How America Fought Its Wars: Military Strategy from the American Revolution to the Civil War ((Discussion of Zachary Taylor begins on p. 236)
by Victor Brooks, Robert Hohwald. 496 pgs.

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The new American nation fought for its survival against a variety of enemies, both foreign and domestic; during a series of wars from 1775 to 1865. The authors examine in considerable detail the various battles and campaigns of the early wars fought by the young republic, in search of common factors that may have led to the nation's survival and triumph. The vast distances, sparse population, and supply problems endemic to all the campaigns in North America are carefully examined. In all its early wars, the United States relied upon a small force of professional soldiers backed up by larger numbers of short-term volunteers: the positive and negative effects of this policy in each war are considered. For each war, the commanders for each side are rated as to performance, and an analysis made of how their individual strengths and weaknesses may have influenced the outcome of the conflict.
At the end of each part of the book, the authors rate the generals' performances (find out why they think Longstreet earned a "B" while Johnston flunked).
A specially commissioned series of maps make clear the various strategic and tactical issues at stake from the American Revolution to the end of the Civil War.

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