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The politically inexperienced Taylor, a career soldier for 40 years and a hero of the Mexican-American War, became the Whigs' successful candidate for president in 1848. (National Archives)

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Gen. Zachary Taylor

Postwar Popularity Took 'Old Rough And Ready' Into Presidency

By Bethanne Kelly Patrick
Military.com Columnist

Victories at Mexican cities Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma made Gen. Zachary Taylor a national hero and earned him his second star. More important, they resulted in an official declaration of the Mexican-American War, and nearly 7,000 volunteer troops detailed to Taylor’s Sept. 21, 1846, attack on Monterrey, northern Mexico’s largest and best-defended city. Monterrey fell to the Americans on Sept. 24.

While Gen. Pedro de Ampudia’s Mexican army held a homefront advantage, the man who gained the nickname "Old Rough and Ready" for his battles against Florida’s Seminole Indians soon turned the urban battle to his advantage. On the heels of this and a subsequent victory at Buena Vista, Taylor in 1848 became the first true career soldier to be elected president of the United States.

Taylor’s was a short-lived presidency of scarcely 500 days, but it was a tumultuous and decisive period of American history. The stocky, craggy old soldier from Kentucky owned homes in Louisiana and Mississippi, as well as slaves, which he considered part and parcel of the cotton-growing business. Yet Taylor was a staunch Jacksonian Unionist who did not wish to see slavery spread outside of the cotton-dependent states. During his tenure in office, as debates raged about states’ rights and the Missouri Compromise, Taylor made it clear that he would be willing to use the full authority of his office in order to stop any rebellion amongst the Southern secessionists.

In February 1850, President Taylor told Southern leaders that he personally would lead the Army and persons "taken in rebellion against the Union, [I] would hang … with less reluctance than hanging deserters and spies in Mexico." But Taylor would not live to follow through on his pledge. After July 4, 1850, ceremonies at the unfinished Washington Monument, Taylor fell ill. He died five days later. Ironically, when civil war came 11 years later, the staunch unionist's only son, Richard, served as a general in the Confederate Army. Jefferson Davis, the widower of Taylor's daughter Sarah, became the president of the Confederacy.