50 Fun Facts About Zachary Taylor

Which snack did Zachary Taylor reportedly gorge on at a July 4, 1850 celebration days before he died?

Cherries and iced milk were his holiday snack, and within days a stomach illness killed him. Open sewers ran through the capital then, so tainted food or drink is the usual suspect.

Which future Southern leader married Zachary Taylor's daughter Sarah against her father's wishes?

Jefferson Davis wed Sarah Knox Taylor in 1835, but she died of fever just three months later. The two men stayed estranged for years before reconciling.

Which horse of Zachary Taylor grazed on the White House lawn as visitors plucked hairs from his tail?

Old Whitey was the general's war horse in Mexico, where he was known to sit calmly in the saddle as bullets flew past. The horse later walked in his owner's funeral procession.

Why did Zachary Taylor take weeks to answer the letter telling him of his 1848 presidential nomination?

He refused unpaid mail, having told his local postmaster not to deliver letters that carried postage fees. The convention's notice of his nomination was caught in the ban.

For which poison were Zachary Taylor's remains tested after his body was exhumed in 1991?

Arsenic was the suspect, but the tests found levels hundreds of times too low to kill. The verdict stayed natural causes: a stomach illness, probably from contaminated food or drink.

What did Zachary Taylor's wife, Margaret, reportedly pray for nightly during his 1848 campaign?

That he would lose was her nightly prayer, because she feared the presidency would shorten both their lives. He won anyway, and died 16 months after taking the oath.

Which vice president took over the White House when Zachary Taylor died suddenly in July 1850?

Millard Fillmore, a New Yorker picked to balance the ticket, had been largely sidelined by his chief. Once in charge he signed the slavery measures his predecessor had resisted.

Which nickname did Zachary Taylor earn while commanding troops in Florida in the late 1830s?

Old Rough and Ready fit a general who dressed so plainly in the field that he rarely wore anything to show his rank. Every soldier in his army still knew him on sight.

Zachary Taylor was the first US president to win the White House with which gap in his résumé?

No political office of any kind came before the presidency for this career soldier, who had spent four decades in uniform. He kept his army command until weeks before his inauguration.

Zachary Taylor won the 1848 election as one of only four US presidents ever to represent which group?

The Whig Party chose him as a war hero, hoping to repeat its 1840 win with another general. He ignored much of its platform, and the party fell apart within a few years of his death.

At which 1847 battle did Zachary Taylor's outnumbered army hold off a far larger force under General Santa Anna?

Buena Vista made him a national hero: a much larger army attacked his position near Saltillo and then withdrew. He had defied orders by marching that far south.

Which US president from the founding generation was a second cousin of Zachary Taylor?

James Madison shared great-grandparents with him through the Taylor family of Virginia. The elder cousin left the White House while the younger was still an army major.

Zachary Taylor was a third cousin once removed of which Civil War general, through a famous Southern family?

Robert E. Lee was his kinsman through one of colonial America's leading dynasties. The two never had to choose sides against each other: the older man died a decade before the war.

Zachary Taylor grew up in Kentucky, but in which state was he born on a plantation in 1784?

Virginia was his birthplace, in Orange County, before his family left its worn-out land for the Kentucky frontier when he was a baby. He spent his first years there in a small woodland cabin.

In which Kentucky city is Zachary Taylor buried, in a national cemetery that now bears his name?

Louisville holds his tomb on what was once the family farm where he grew up. His remains were moved into a new limestone mausoleum there in 1926.

Zachary Taylor was the last US president born before the adoption of which document?

The US Constitution was written three years after his birth, so he began life under the old Confederation Congress. Every president after him was born under the system it created.

Which future US president served under Zachary Taylor in Mexico and later praised his calm, plain style of command?

Ulysses S. Grant served there as a young officer and later wrote that a better army, man for man, had probably never faced an enemy. He admired a commander who made no show of uniform.

Which first-term congressman and future president backed Zachary Taylor as a war hero candidate in 1848?

Abraham Lincoln switched his support to the general once his first choice could not win the nomination. After the victory he hoped for a federal land post, but never got it.

Which rival general, nicknamed Old Fuss and Feathers, took most of Zachary Taylor's veteran troops in 1847?

Winfield Scott needed the men for his landing at Veracruz, leaving a smaller, greener army in the north. The two generals met again as rivals for the 1848 presidential nomination.

Which 1850 pact with Britain over a future Central American canal was Zachary Taylor's main diplomatic success?

The Clayton–Bulwer Treaty bound both nations not to claim sole control of any canal built through Nicaragua. Completing it was his last act as president.

Before his own name was on the ballot in 1848, what had career soldier Zachary Taylor reportedly never done?

Voted in an election: he had never done it in four decades of army life, and he kept his opinions to himself as well. He may not even have cast a ballot in his own race.

Which Democratic senator from Michigan lost the 1848 presidential election to Zachary Taylor?

Lewis Cass lost partly because a third candidate drained his support in the crucial state of New York. The winner took 163 of the 290 electoral votes.

Which former president ran against Zachary Taylor in 1848 as the candidate of the anti-slavery Free Soil movement?

Martin Van Buren took about a tenth of the popular vote after breaking with the Democrats. His strength in New York hurt the Democratic nominee far more than it hurt the general.

Which president ordered Zachary Taylor's army to the disputed Texas border, starting the road to war with Mexico?

James K. Polk picked him over more senior generals because he seemed to have no politics. The president later judged his own successor wholly unqualified for the job.

Zachary Taylor became a brigadier general after the 1837 Christmas Day Battle of Lake Okeechobee in which conflict?

The Second Seminole War kept him in Florida for years, and he rose to command every American soldier there. Critics attacked his use of bloodhounds to track his opponents.

In which conflict did young Captain Zachary Taylor first win fame by holding a besieged Indiana fort?

The War of 1812 brought him glory at Fort Harrison, where attackers set a blockhouse alight and he still held out. It counts as the first American land victory of the fighting.

Zachary Taylor's wife, Margaret, kept to her rooms upstairs, so who served as White House hostess in her place?

Her daughter Betty, then in her mid-twenties, presided over every public function, and her natural manner became her trademark. Betty's new husband served as the president's secretary.

Which Texas army post is named for the son-in-law who served as Zachary Taylor's aide and presidential secretary?

Fort Bliss honors William Bliss, a mathematician and linguist who could read thirteen languages. He died of yellow fever three years after leaving the White House.

Fort Zachary Taylor, a Civil War-era fortress that is now a state park, stands in which Florida city?

Key West's fort took his name in November 1850, a few months after his sudden death. A Union captain occupied it in 1861 to keep it out of the hands of the seceding states.

Why did Zachary Taylor take the presidential oath one day later than scheduled in 1849?

March 4 was a Sunday, and he would not be sworn in on the Sabbath. Friends of one senator later claimed that their man had been acting president for the day in between.

Which future state did Zachary Taylor urge to skip territorial status and apply directly to join the Union?

California took his advice within months: a convention there agreed to seek statehood and to ban slavery. He hoped a quick admission would keep the slavery question out of Congress's hands.

What did Zachary Taylor threaten to do if Texas sent its militia to seize disputed land in New Mexico?

Lead the army himself was his answer, and he added that he would hang rebels as readily as he had hanged deserters in Mexico. Southern allies warned that such talk would split his own side.

Which package of slavery bills, resisted by Zachary Taylor, became law only after his death?

The Compromise of 1850 stalled while he lived, since he wanted new states admitted without a grand bargain. His successor signed its bills within months of taking over.

Which veteran Kentucky statesman did Zachary Taylor defeat for the presidential nomination at the 1848 convention?

Henry Clay had many loyal delegates, but the war hero beat him and a fellow general to the prize. As president he kept his distance from the senator he had defeated.

Which fortified Mexican city did Zachary Taylor's army capture in three days of fighting in September 1846?

Monterrey fell despite its reputation as impregnable, but he was criticized for agreeing to a generous truce instead of forcing a full surrender. He stayed based there for over a year.

Which Louisiana city on the Mississippi was Zachary Taylor's family home from the 1820s until he became president?

Baton Rouge was where his wife chose a small cottage over the grander houses on offer. The city gave him a hero's welcome when he came home from Mexico in 1847.

Which new cabinet department, created just as Zachary Taylor took over in 1849, got its first secretary from him?

Interior went to Thomas Ewing of Ohio, a former senator and Treasury secretary. The post was rich in patronage jobs, a side of politics the new president despised.

Which army rank did Zachary Taylor hold when he resigned his commission in January 1849 to become president?

Major general was the rank he won in 1846 after his first victories on the Texas border. Congress gave him a formal commendation at the same time.

Which 1846 battle near modern Brownsville, Texas was Zachary Taylor's first major victory over Mexican forces?

Palo Alto was won largely by fast-moving light artillery, days before the United States formally declared war. The two armies fought again the very next day.

At which Texas coastal town did Zachary Taylor's Army of Occupation camp for months before marching to the Rio Grande?

Corpus Christi was his own choice of campsite after he was told to deploy on or near the border river. His troops waited there until March 1846, and the fighting began weeks after they moved.

Which scandal over a huge legal fee paid to the Secretary of War clouded Zachary Taylor's final months?

The Galphin affair broke when two cabinet colleagues approved an old colonial claim that paid George Crawford nearly $100,000. A House inquiry found nothing illegal but still disapproved.

Zachary Taylor's government blocked adventurer Narciso López's private armies from invading which Caribbean island?

Cuba later took the banner López designed for his raiders as its national flag. The president judged the expeditions illegal and ordered a blockade to stop them.

Zachary Taylor's government arranged two ships to help Britain search for which explorer lost in the Arctic?

John Franklin had left England in 1845 with two ships and 129 men to complete the Northwest Passage. Unknown to the searchers, he had already died in June 1847.

'General Taylor', a traditional song about Zachary Taylor recorded by Fairport Convention, belongs to which genre?

Sea shanty is the genre, and the song has outlived most memories of his presidency. Steeleye Span, Great Big Sea and The Longest Johns have all recorded it.

Reports of the day wrongly painted Zachary Taylor's reclusive wife, Margaret, as devoted to which habit?

Pipe smoking was the rumor, yet she detested tobacco. With none of her letters known to survive and few public appearances, gossip filled the gap.

Zachary Taylor alarmed fellow Southerners by hinting he would sign which ban on slavery in land won from Mexico?

The Wilmot Proviso would have barred slavery from the whole Mexican Cession. He thought plantation crops could not thrive in the West anyway, so the fight seemed needless to him.

Zachary Taylor was the last US president to do what while living in the White House?

Own enslaved people: he held more than a hundred on his Mississippi plantation. Even so, he opposed spreading slavery into the new West.

Zachary Taylor remains the only person to receive which honor three times, all for his victories against Mexico?

The Congressional Gold Medal was first given to George Washington in 1776. Congress awarded it to this general in three successive years for his battlefield wins.

In which 1832 frontier conflict did Colonel Zachary Taylor serve under General Henry Atkinson on the upper Mississippi?

The Black Hawk War ended in August 1832 and closed the last armed resistance to American settlement in the region. A young officer he met in that campaign later courted his daughter.

Which national laboratory analyzed samples of Zachary Taylor's hair and nails in 1991 to settle rumors of murder?

Oak Ridge scientists ran a neutron activation analysis on the samples and found no evidence of poisoning. The remains went back to the family mausoleum with full honors.