President Taylor Dies of Cholera
Zachary Taylor, the 12th president of the United States, dies
suddenly from an attack of cholera morbus. He was succeeded by Millard
Fillmore.
Raised in Kentucky with little formal schooling, Zachary Taylor
received a U.S. Army commission in 1808. He became a captain in 1810 and was
promoted to major during the War of 1812 in recognition of his defense of Fort
Harrison against attack by Shawnee chief Tecumseh. In 1832, he became a colonel
and served in the Black Hawk War and in the campaigns against the Seminole
Indians in Florida, winning the nickname of “Old Rough and Ready” for his
informal attire and indifference to physical adversity.
Sent to the Southwest to command the U.S. Army at the Texas
border, Taylor crossed the Rio Grande with the outbreak of the Mexican-American
War in 1846. In May, Taylor defeated the Mexicans at the battles of Palo Alto
and Resaca de la Palma, and in September he captured the city of Monterrey. In
February 1847, he achieved his crowning military victory at the Battle of Buena
Vista, where his force triumphed despite being outnumbered three to one. This
victory firmly established Taylor as a popular hero, and in 1848, despite his
lack of a clear political platform, he was nominated the Whig presidential
candidate.
Elected in November, Taylor soon fell under the influence of
William H. Seward, a powerful Whig senator, and in 1849 he supported the Wilmot
Proviso, which would exclude slavery from all the territory acquired as a
result of the Mexican War. His inflexible responses to Southern criticisms of
this policy aggravated the nation’s North-South conflict and revealed his
political inexperience. Matters were at a stalemate when he died suddenly on
July 9, 1850.