Zachary Taylor: The 12th US President, 'Old Rough and Ready', and the Union Defense

1. 40 Years in Uniform: From War of 1812 to "Old Rough and Ready"

Zachary Taylor was born on November 24, 1784, in Orange County, Virginia, and raised on the rugged Kentucky frontier near Louisville. Joining the US Army as a lieutenant in 1808, Taylor spent four decades on the American frontier. During the War of 1812, he earned the nation's first brevet major promotion for his heroic defense of Fort Harrison against Tecumseh's allied warriors.

He commanded troops in the Black Hawk War (1832) and the Second Seminole War, winning the Battle of Lake Okeechobee (1837). Eschewing formal dress uniforms in favor of floppy straw hats and mud-splattered frontier coats, Taylor shared every hardship with his men, who affectionately christened him "Old Rough and Ready."

2. The Mexican War & The Legendary Battle of Buena Vista (1847)

During the Mexican-American War, General Taylor scored stunning tactical victories at Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, and Monterrey. His crowning military achievement occurred on February 22–23, 1847, at the Battle of Buena Vista.

Commanding an outnumbered force of 4,700 mostly raw volunteers against General Santa Anna's 15,000-man Mexican army, Taylor sat calmly on his horse Old Whitey amidst cannon fire and ordered artillery captain Braxton Bragg: "A little more grape, Captain Bragg!" Taylor's stubborn defensive victory broke the Mexican army in northern Mexico and made him an untouchable national hero.

4. Defying the South: Threatening to Hang Secessionists for California

Elected as a Whig in 1848, Taylor stunned his Southern plantation-owning peers. Recognizing that the status of the newly acquired Mexican territories was tearing the Union apart, Taylor proposed immediately admitting California and New Mexico directly as free states, bypassing the territorial stage entirely.

When Southern leaders threatened secession and civil war, the soldier-president bluntly warned that if anyone took up arms against the United States, he would personally lead the army into the South and hang the traitors with less reluctance than he had hung spies in Mexico.

5. The Fatal Fourth of July (1850): Iced Milk, Cherries & Sudden Passing

On a sweltering July 4, 1850, President Taylor attended Independence Day fundraising ceremonies at the unfinished Washington Monument. To quench his severe thirst in the brutal heat, he consumed large quantities of iced water, iced milk, and raw cherries.

He developed acute gastroenteritis and cholera morbus, complicated by Washington's open sewer system. After five days of agonizing intestinal fever, Taylor died in the White House on July 9, 1850, at age 65. His final words were: "I am about to die. I expect the summons soon. I have tried to do my duty. I have no regrets." In 1991, historians and forensic pathologists exhumed Taylor's body to test for suspected arsenic poisoning by pro-slavery conspirators; testing confirmed natural gastroenteritis caused by contaminated water/food.

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