The rough-hewn general who rose to the nation's highest office,
and whose presidency witnessed the first political skirmishes that
would lead to the Civil War
Zachary Taylor was a soldier's soldier, a man who lived up to
his nickname, "Old Rough and Ready." Having risen through the ranks
of the U.S. Army, he achieved his greatest success in the Mexican
War, propelling him to the nation's highest office in the election
of 1848. He was the first man to have been elected president
without having held a lower political office.
John S. D. Eisenhower, the son of another soldier-president,
shows how Taylor rose to the presidency, where he confronted the
most contentious political issue of his age: slavery. The political
storm reached a crescendo in 1849, when California, newly populated
after the Gold Rush, applied for statehood with an anti- slavery
constitution, an event that upset the delicate balance of slave and
free states and pushed both sides to the brink. As the acrimonious
debate intensified, Taylor stood his ground in favor of
California's admission--despite being a slaveholder himself--but in
July 1850 he unexpectedly took ill, and within a week he was dead.
His truncated presidency had exposed the fateful rift that would
soon tear the country apart.
General
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