Zachary Taylor
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50 free Zachary Taylor trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Zachary Taylor spent four decades in an army uniform and barely more than a year in the White House. A soldier who had shown little interest in politics, he rode his battlefield fame to the presidency in 1848, then was gone before the great argument of his day was settled. These questions follow him from frontier outposts to the war with Mexico, through an unusual election campaign and into a short, stormy presidency. They also cover his family, his famous in-laws and rivals, and the rumors that surrounded his death for well over a century. The quiz suits history students, presidential trivia fans and anyone preparing a US presidents round. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn the story as you play.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which snack did Zachary Taylor reportedly gorge on at a July 4, 1850 celebration days before he died?
Cherries and iced milk
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.
Q 02Which future Southern leader married Zachary Taylor's daughter Sarah against her father's wishes?
Jefferson Davis
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.
Q 03Which horse of Zachary Taylor grazed on the White House lawn as visitors plucked hairs from his tail?
Old Whitey
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.
Q 04Why did Zachary Taylor take weeks to answer the letter telling him of his 1848 presidential nomination?
He refused unpaid mail
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.
Q 05For which poison were Zachary Taylor's remains tested after his body was exhumed in 1991?
Arsenic
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.
Q 06What did Zachary Taylor's wife, Margaret, reportedly pray for nightly during his 1848 campaign?
That he would lose
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.
Q 07Which vice president took over the White House when Zachary Taylor died suddenly in July 1850?
Millard Fillmore
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.
Q 08Which nickname did Zachary Taylor earn while commanding troops in Florida in the late 1830s?
Old Rough and Ready
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.
Q 09Zachary Taylor was the first US president to win the White House with which gap in his résumé?
No political office
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.
Q 10Zachary Taylor won the 1848 election as one of only four US presidents ever to represent which group?
Whig Party
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.
Q 11At which 1847 battle did Zachary Taylor's outnumbered army hold off a far larger force under General Santa Anna?
Buena Vista
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.
Q 12Which US president from the founding generation was a second cousin of Zachary Taylor?
James Madison
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.
Q 13Zachary Taylor was a third cousin once removed of which Civil War general, through a famous Southern family?
Robert E. Lee
Q 21Before his own name was on the ballot in 1848, what had career soldier Zachary Taylor reportedly never done?
Voted in an election
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.
Q 22Which Democratic senator from Michigan lost the 1848 presidential election to Zachary Taylor?
Lewis Cass
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.
Q 23Which former president ran against Zachary Taylor in 1848 as the candidate of the anti-slavery Free Soil movement?
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.
Q 14Zachary Taylor grew up in Kentucky, but in which state was he born on a plantation in 1784?
Virginia
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.
Q 15In which Kentucky city is Zachary Taylor buried, in a national cemetery that now bears his name?
Louisville
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.
Q 16Zachary Taylor was the last US president born before the adoption of which document?
US Constitution
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.
Q 17Which future US president served under Zachary Taylor in Mexico and later praised his calm, plain style of command?
Ulysses S. Grant
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.
Q 18Which first-term congressman and future president backed Zachary Taylor as a war hero candidate in 1848?
Abraham Lincoln
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.
Q 19Which rival general, nicknamed Old Fuss and Feathers, took most of Zachary Taylor's veteran troops in 1847?
Winfield Scott
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.
Q 20Which 1850 pact with Britain over a future Central American canal was Zachary Taylor's main diplomatic success?
Clayton–Bulwer Treaty
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.
Martin Van Buren
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.
Q 24Which president ordered Zachary Taylor's army to the disputed Texas border, starting the road to war with Mexico?
James K. Polk
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.
Q 25Zachary Taylor became a brigadier general after the 1837 Christmas Day Battle of Lake Okeechobee in which conflict?
Second Seminole War
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.
Q 26In which conflict did young Captain Zachary Taylor first win fame by holding a besieged Indiana fort?
War of 1812
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.
Q 27Zachary Taylor's wife, Margaret, kept to her rooms upstairs, so who served as White House hostess in her place?
Her daughter Betty
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.
Q 28Which Texas army post is named for the son-in-law who served as Zachary Taylor's aide and presidential secretary?
Fort Bliss
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.
Q 29Fort Zachary Taylor, a Civil War-era fortress that is now a state park, stands in which Florida city?
Key West
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.
Q 30Why did Zachary Taylor take the presidential oath one day later than scheduled in 1849?
March 4 was a Sunday
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.