(1) Hij is getrouwd met Margaret MacKall Smith.
Zij zijn getrouwd op 21 juni 1810 te Jefferson Co., Kentucky, hij was toen 25 jaar oud.
Kind(eren):
(2) Hij is getrouwd met Mary Mulatto.
Zij zijn getrouwd te Not Married.
Kind(eren):
He was a U.S. general in the Mexican War. Taken to Kentucky as a child,
he grew up on his father's plantation near Louisville, where he was
educated by local tutors. He was married and had four children; one of
these was the first wife of Jefferson Davis, later Confederate president;
another became a Confederate general.
Military Career
In 1808 Taylor joined the regular army as an infantry officer. After
distinguishing himself under William Henry Harrison in the War of 1812 and
briefly returning to civilian life, he saw active duty on various frontier
posts in the Northwest and Louisiana, where he established a second home.
He participated in the Black Hawk and Second Seminole wars and in 1838
defeated the Seminole in the Battle of Lake Okeechobee. Although not
decisive, this engagement earned him promotion to the rank of brigadier
general, and he was given overall command of the campaign against the
Seminole in Florida.
In the early 1840s Taylor was stationed at the southwestern boundaries of
the United States. Sent to Texas shortly before the outbreak of war with
Mexico, he was ordered to advance into the disputed territory between the
Nueces River and the Rio Grande, where he defeated Mexican detachments at
Palo Alto and Roseca de la Palma (May 8-9, 1846). These battles made him
famous and led to the U.S. declaration of war on Mexico. Taylor, now a
major general, subsequently captured Matamoros and Monterrey. Part of his
command was detached to join General Winfield Scott in central Mexico.
Nevertheless, on February 22-23, 1847, Taylor routed a numerically
superior force assembled under Mexican president Antonio López de Santa
Anna at Buena Vista, a feat that thrilled the nation.
Political Career
Taylor, who had never bothered to vote, had little political experience,
but he had quarreled with President James K. Polk and sympathized with the
Whigs, and thus seemed a perfect candidate for the opposition. Although he
declared himself nonpartisan and was a slave owner, which might have made
him unpopular in the North, the Whig party nominated him for the
presidency in 1848. In the ensuing election, he defeated both his
Democratic and Free-Soil opponents.
The Taylor administration encountered severe difficulties. To end British
encroachments in Central America, it concluded the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty
(1850) neutralizing any future Atlantic-Pacific canal in that area, an
arrangement that proved unpopular in the U.S. Taylor favored granting
immediate statehood to California and New Mexico, which had been acquired
as a result of the war, but when California prohibited slavery, the South
opposed its admission to the Union. The president, however, refused to
reconsider. Adamantly resisting Henry Clay's compromise proposals, which
sought to balance southern with northern concessions, he declared himself
ready to use force to prevent secession or a threatened seizure of eastern
New Mexico by Texas. His stand completely alienated southern Whigs, and it
contributed to an impasse in the U.S. Congress. In the midst of this
controversy Taylor fell ill and died. His death removed the principal
obstacle to the ultimate passage of the Compromise Measures of 1850.
Taylor was an adequate but by no means brilliant general, who reached the
presidency without preparation at a critical moment. Whether, as has been
suggested, a continuation of his hard-line policy toward the South might
have prevented the American Civil War will never be known.
Zachary Taylor | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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