Pass P 4 : 
 
 BookjELi^ 
 
A 'BRIEF REVIEW 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CAREER, CHARACTER & CAMPAIGNS 
 
 OF 
 
 /3¥ 
 
 ZACHARY TAYLORf 
 
 PRINTED AND SOLD BY J. & G. S. GIDEON,, WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
PLEASE CIRCITLATE. 
 
 (Look out for the Postmasters ! Most of these officers are upright and honorable men, but 
 there are some who will suppress " the documents," so far as they can with impunity. In- 
 quire for your neighbors, and see that all political matter intended for them gets into their hands. 
 Let all true Republicans be vigilant and active, and the People will shortly give another Buena 
 Vista reception to the cohorts of radicalism.) 
 
 GEN. TAYLOR'S ACCEPTANCE OF THE WHIG NOMINATION. 
 
 Governor Morehead's letter to General Taylor. 
 
 Philadelphia, June 10, 1848. 
 
 Dear Sir : At a Convention of the Whigs of the United States, held in this 
 city on the 7th instant, and continued from day to day until the 9th, you were 
 nominated as a candidate for the Presidency of the United States at the ensu- 
 ing Presidential election. 
 
 By a resolution of said Convention it was made the duty of their President 
 to communicate to you the result of their deliberations, and to request your 
 acceptance of the nomination. 
 
 In obedience to said resolve, I, as the organ therein designated, have the 
 honor to make to you the foregoing communication, and to ask your acceptance 
 of the nomination. 
 
 Permit me, dear sir, to indulge the hope that he who never shrinks from any 
 responsibility, nor fails to discharge any duty assigned him by his Government, 
 ■will not now refuse the enthusiastic call of his countrymen. 
 
 I am, dear sir, with sentiments of very high regard, your most obedient ser- 
 vant, J. M. MOREHEAD, 
 
 President of the Whig J\''ational Convention. 
 
 General Zachary Taylor. 
 
 GENERAL TAYLOR'S REPLY. 
 
 Baton Rouge, (La.,) July 15, 1848. 
 
 Sir : I have had the honor to receive your communication of June 10th, an- 
 nouncing -that the Whig Convention, which assembled at Philadelphia on the 
 7th of that month, and of which you were the presiding officer, has nominated 
 me for the office of President of the United States. 
 
 Looking to the composition of the Convention, and its numerous and patriotic 
 constituency, I feel deeply grateful for the honor bestowed upon me, and for 
 the distinguished confidence implied in my nomination by it to the highest 
 office in the gift of the American people. 
 
 I cordially accept that nomination, but with a sincere distrust of my fitness 
 to fulfil the duties of an office which demands for its exercise the most exalted 
 abilities and patriotism, and which has been rendered illustrious by the greatest 
 names in our history. But, should the selection of the Whig Convention be 
 .'Confirmed by the people, I shall endeavor to discharge the new duties then 
 devolving upon me, so as to meet the just expectations of my fellow citizens, 
 and preserve undiminished the prosperity and reputation of our common 
 country. 
 
 I have the honor to remain, with the highest respect, your most obedient 
 servant, Z. TAYLOR. 
 
 To the Hon. J. M. Mqrehead, 
 
 Greensboro^ Guilford county, JVorth Carolina. 
 
A REVIEW 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CAREEH, CHARACTEU AND CAMPAIGNS 
 
 OF 
 
 [Republished from the North American and United States Gazette, Philadelphia.] 
 
 HIS EARLY HISTORY. 
 
 The presentation of the name of General Taylor as a candidate for the high office of 
 President of the United States, and the unusual circumstances attending his nomination, 
 with its cordial acceptance by so large a portion of the people, as a candidate ree trora 
 any of those ultra party pledges so usually exacted from competitors for lofty public posi- 
 tions, render it equally interesting and important to understand the whole inner Irame- 
 work and nature, the mind, the character, the principles, private and public, ol a mau 
 whom overwhelming public sentiment seems already to have pointed out as the next 
 Chief Magistrate of the Republic. . ^ „ , ■ i n 
 
 The best, the fullest, and the most satisfactory exposition of all these particulars, will 
 be found in the simple narrative of some of the most important and bnl lant acmevements 
 of his life. His qualities speak in his acts ; and his acts have been always great ones : 
 his spirit, his mind, his sentiments, both moral and political, his whole character, are ex- 
 pressed, with a grand lucidness, on what is now the recorded page of his comitry s his- 
 tory : and to those acts and that history we'would commend all free citizens ot the United 
 .States, who, before casting their votes in the approaching elecuon, would know bis quali- 
 fications and peculiar fitness to occupy worthily the chair once so beneficently failed by 
 the Father of his Country. , ■, ■ c .-l ■ i„.v,«.v.t 
 
 The character of Tavlor is one that both kindles the heart and satisfies the ifS^^^^ 
 It opens scenes of glory', upon which every American can ponder with proud satislact on, 
 and with none the^ess approbation, that amid them all, the chief and ruling actor m every 
 scene is a plain, calm, frank, unafi-ected, clear-headed, kind-hearted American citizen, 
 who reconciles the lofty merits of the hero with the simple virtues of a true republican. 
 
 General Zachary Taylor comes from a sturdy and patriotic ^^^ck, worthy to give a 
 President to the United States. His father, a son of the Ancient Dominion a neighbor 
 and friend of Washington, commanded one of the Virginia regiments during ^e hevolu- 
 tionary war, through which he fought with honor. Before the Revolution, however, m 
 his early youth, he had proved his courage, and the true American SP'"^ «^,.^"i^^"^^^^^ 
 by exploring the forest mysteries of the great Mississippi Valley-then a howhng wilder- 
 ness, pastured by the buffalo, and roamed by the savage red man. „„• ,,;i,^ ^Upm 
 
 Leaving hi. brother surveying lands on the site of the present "^7 of Louisville where 
 he was soon afterwards slain by the Indians, Richard, the bravest a^veaturer of the day, 
 proceeded on a solitary expedition of discovery, westward, as far as the Mississippi river, 
 
wnence, it is said, entirely alone, he made his way safely back to Virginia, through the 
 tinknown wilds of Tennessee. At the close of the revolutionary struggle, in the year 
 1785, he went a second time to Kentucky, to revisit it, to pass his life among the scenes 
 halloAved by his brother's blood. He went as an emigrant, with a wife and three chil- 
 dren; of whom the youngest, born in Orange county, Virginia, on the 24th of Novem- 
 ber, 1784, and then less than a year old, was Zachary Taylor, a true child of the bor- 
 der, reared amid the perils, and privations, and severe labors of every kind which tliey 
 encountered who, in that day, reclaimed the desert from the barbarian, and founded the 
 institutions of freedom in the depths of the forest. 
 
 It was in this hardy school that Taylor acquired the education and quahties, the simple 
 habits and manly virtues, which have, at length, lifted him up to view as one of the re- 
 nowned men of the world, and commended him to the confidence of twenty millions of 
 American freemen, as worthy to serve them, in the Executive chair, as the representative 
 of their sovereignty. Where is the man to be found more worthy of the honor? Did the 
 father, who so anxiously guarded his little family through the dangers of the " Wil- 
 derness Road" to Kentucky, or the mother who bore the youngest born in her arms, 
 dream, in the fearful nightwatches of the woodland camp, that the helpless infant, slum- 
 bering on its bed of leaves, should, after the long interval of sixty-three years, humble the 
 pride of INIexico at Buena Vista, and return from that field of fame, to rule, three years 
 later, a mighty republic, which, at the early day of that journey, had no constitutional 
 existence? No; it was that Providence alone, which foresees and directs the affairs of 
 men, that prepared the extraordinary destiny of the little wanderer; and even President 
 Madison, a relative of the family, when, in 1808, he sent a lieutenant's commission to 
 Zachary, then a young Kentucky farmer, whose elder brother. Lieutenant Taylor, had 
 just died in the army, only deemed that he had secured to tlie country the devoted servict? 
 of another member of a patriotic family. Thirty-seven y^ars more were yet to roll, before 
 the eyes of men could be competent to read the horoscope of the young subaltern of the 
 7th regiment of United States infantry. 
 
 Lieutenant Taylor commenced service, under the command of General Wilkinson, at 
 New Orleans ; whence, having been prostrated by yellow fever, he was transferred to the 
 Northwest, where he served, under General Harrison, up to the close of the war of 1812. 
 It was in that year he was made a captain, and placed in charge of Fort Harrison, on 
 the Wabash; where, commanding a petty garrison of fifty men, of whom two-thirds, 
 and himself with them, were rendered nearly helpless by fever, (for it was a very un- 
 healthy post,) surrounded and attacked by an overwhelming force of savages, he enjoyed 
 tlie first opportunity of proving that his fate was a charmed one, and that it was his par- 
 ticular lot to fight, and prevail over, superior numbers. He never has gone into battle, 
 except against the greatest odds: and he has never come out of battle except as a victor. 
 Old Sylla, the famous Roman general, who was always victorious, believed that his 
 prosperity arose from a special luck or good fortune ; and he called himself Felix, the 
 Happy or Fortunate. The same surprising success has, heretofore, always marked the 
 career of Taylor ; who, however, assumes no surname, but leaves all to his countrymen, 
 who have already decided to call him — not Taylor, the Happy or Fortunate — but Taylor, 
 the next President. We want a man of hapjnj Ibrtunes to preside over the affairs of the 
 Repubhc. But let us observe how these happy fortunes began at Fort Harrison. 
 
 DEFENCE OF FORT HARRISON. 
 
 Fort Harrison was a mere stockade or block-house fort, designed for defence against 
 Indians, containing barracks, store-rooms, a guard-house, &c., but without artillery, or 
 any other better means of resisting a siege than muskets, and the determined reso- 
 lution of a young commander, incapable of fear; and whose own sickness, with ex- 
 treme bodily debility — the weakness, and, for a time, the consternation, of his force — the 
 presence of terrified non-combatants — " nine women and children" — the number of his 
 loes — the exposed position of the fort, remote from all succor — and, let us add, the recol- 
 lection of a young wife and child, (for Taylor had married in 1810,) to whom his 
 thoughts on that dreadful night, must often have wandered — failed to drive him from his 
 balance. " My presence of mind," said the young captain, in his despatch to Generjil 
 Harrison, "did not for a moment forsake me." It was 11 o'clock^ on the night of the 
 4th of September, 1812. Hostile Indians were around, in unknown numbers. Two 
 young men had been shot and scalped, the evening before, at a little distance from the 
 fort, and their bodies fotmd and brought in that morning. In the evening a party of 
 
thirty or forty Indians rnade their appearance, attempting the treacherous stratagem of a 
 flag of truce — which did not, however, deceive the cautious Taylor— and proposing a 
 conference next morning. Captain Taylor prepared for the pretended conference, by im- 
 mediately inspecting the arms of his men, serving them with sixteen rounds of ammu- 
 nition, and, setting a guard of "six privates and two non-commissioned officers," all 
 that he could, for he had only " ten or fifteen men able to do any thing at all, the 
 others being sick or convalescent," (we copy the words of his despatch,) and ordering 
 one of the non-commissioned officers to make up for deficiencies in the guard by walking 
 the rounds all night, " to prevent the Indians taking any advantage of us, provided they 
 had any intention of attacking us." 
 
 At 11 o'clock he was awakened by a musket shot, and, rushing from his bed, he dis- 
 covered that the attack had been begun by "several hundred Indians" — that the fort was 
 in flames — and that his men, overcome by the horror of their situation, and the shrieks 
 of the women and children, were completely paralyzed by terror, so that two of them, 
 and "two of the stoutest," too, leaped the pickets, in an unavailing attempt to escape. 
 In this desperate conjuncture every thing depended upon the courage and resources of a 
 poor sick youth, who had never been in battle, but to whom, and to whom only, all 
 looked for protection. Here, m this little beleaguered post, on that night of terror, flashed 
 out the lineaments of that character which, lately shone so gloriously, Avith a matured gran- 
 deur, at Buena Vista. As calm, as resolute, as quick in expedients, as ready in "their 
 execution, the young Captain exhibited all the traits of the illustrious General. It Avas 
 the flames which caused the panic; they were rapidly opening a pathway to the fierce 
 besiegers; but it was a single block-house only wliich was on fire; and it was equally 
 possible, as he perceived, to arrest the conflagration, and to provide a neAV barrier behind 
 the burning block-house. The suggestion and the orders of Captain Taylor immediately 
 inspired the soldiers with new life; " and never," said he, "did men aci with more firm- 
 ness or desperation." Some clambered to the roofs, throwing them off, amid showers of 
 bullets and arrows, so as to intercept the flames, which were thus soon subdued ; others 
 wrought at a temporary breastwork, so that when the block-house fell, the savages found 
 themselves repelled from its ashes by a new wall of defence "as high as a man's head," 
 whence came the flash and balls of American rifles. In short, the Indians, fierce and 
 numerous as they Avere, Avere baffled — repelled. — defeated; and at six o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, abandoning their expected prey, they fled from the ruins of Fort Flarrison, as the 
 legions of Santa Anna fled, in after years, at Buena Vista, from the wrecks of the few 
 shattered regiments and broken baUalions which made up the petty, but invincible, army 
 of him Avho saved Fort Harrison. 
 
 In both these battles, the first and the last, the smallest and the greatest, fought by Tay- 
 lor, he displayed precisely the same qualities — calm fortitude, perfect equanimity, constant 
 presence of mind, great caution, unconquerable resolution, and the secret power of imbu- 
 ing his folloAvers with his own courage — which made both, though fought under desper- 
 ate circumstarices, victories. We shall find these great mihtary qualities exhibited during 
 his Av hole military career; and we shall find other qualities, analogous though diverse, 
 united and co-operating with them, under other circumstances, which combine to form 
 the elements of a great character, equally adapted to the successful rule of an army and 
 the administration of a State. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF OKEECHOBEE. 
 
 For twenty years succeeding the victory of Fort Harrison — that is, from 1812 to 1832 
 — -Zachary Taylor, though still serving in the army, may be said to have returned to the 
 life, and resumed the habits, of a simple citizen. Fortune offered him no further oppor- 
 tunities of victory, because none of battle, during the remaining term of the British war ; 
 and, after that, came a long and happy period of profound peace, in which the Republic 
 Avaxed in prosperity, and the duties of the soldier Avere to garrison posts, to Avalch the 
 frontier, to open roads of communication in the newer States and Territories — employ- 
 ments presenting none of the aspects of Avar, and not altogether incompatible Avith the 
 enjoyments of civil society and domestic happiness. Under such circumstances, and 
 amid such avocations. General Taylor Avas ahvays able to preserve unchanged the manly 
 habits and natural traits of his early life ; and the events of the Mexican Avar have made 
 all aware that, even in the camp, the character of the citizen, in him, has never been lost 
 in that of the military man. 
 
The year 1832 was the period of the Black Hawk war, in which Taylor led a regiment 
 in the battle of the Bad Axe— the only battle he has ever fought in which he did not 
 command. From 1836 to 1840 he was in Florida, engaged in the Seminole contest, in 
 which the decisive victory of Okeechobee, on the 25th of December, 1837, obtained for 
 him his brevet of Brigadier General, and the conduct of the war, as commander of the 
 Florida troops, during the two last years that he remained in the territory. We do not 
 know that the battle of Okeechobee, though interesting enough from its fierce and san- 
 truinary character, and the brilliant success that crowned it, and though pronounced by 
 General Jesup, (tlien General Taylor's superior officer,) in his despatch, as "one of the 
 best fought actions known to our history," ought to detain us from the review of the far 
 more important conflicts of tlie Mexican war, in which the great qualities of Taylor were 
 so signally and so suddenly made manifest to the Union. In the determined spirit, how- 
 ever,°with which he set out upon a march of one hundred and fifty miles, disregarding 
 all the impediments of a country impassable to artillery, and in action to cavalry, resolved 
 to storm the savages out of their swamps and hammocks, he exhibited the same energetic 
 will, afterwards so strikingly illustrated at Palo Alto and La Palma, as well as a system 
 of tactics, perhaps caught in his boyish days in Kentucky, from some of those rugged 
 hunter-heroes of the Indian wars, from whom, as tradition has it, he acquired his first 
 lessons in the military art. There is, or used to be, a story told in the west of a certain 
 character, a famous Indian fighter and scout, long remembered under the nickname of 
 Captain Dudley Bulger, derived from a circumstance which we are going to mention, 
 who used to belong to the country about Salt River, the very region in which the elder 
 Taylor had established his family. This worthy, in his capacity of scout, aceompanied 
 General Wayne in the expedition against the Northwestern Indians in 1794; and, on the 
 eve of the battle of the Fallen Timber, coming in with the latest report of the position of 
 the Indian army, (strongly posted among thickets and down- fallen trees,) was admitted 
 into the General's tent at the moment of a council of war, when Wayne, who had doubt- 
 less formed his own resolution, was about to demand the opinions of his officers. Some 
 advised one, and some another method of attack, until all had spoken ; when, Wayne, 
 perhaps for the humor of the thing, turned suddenly, and demanded the opinion of the 
 scout. "Why, General," replied the intrepid scout, "if you axes me what to do, I 
 should say, just move ahead and hnlo-e right over them !"— a sentiment highly approved 
 by Mad Anthony, who, accordinglv^ha'rged the Indians out of their lair with bayonets; 
 and so, to the ffreat delight and inm'iortal honor of his adviser, "bulged right over them." 
 
 It was the "'bulging'' system of tactics which Colonel Taylor chose to employ aganist 
 the Seminole Indians at the Okeechobee ; and this, too, in the face of obstacles greater 
 and far more formidable than those encountered by Wayne at the Fallen Timber. The 
 long forced march brought his command, of about eight hundred men, in view of the 
 Seminoles, posted in great force in one of those hammocks, or island groves, rising out 
 of deep swamps, with which Florida abounds — those Serbonian bogs amid which, three 
 hundred years before, the chivalry of De Soto melted away, horse and man, in the vain 
 effort to reduce the fierce ancestors of the Seminoles to the Spanish yoke. The swamp 
 surrounding the hammock, of Okeechobee was three-quarters of a mile wide, " totally 
 impassable," as Taylor himself says, "for horses, and nearly so for foot"— a wilderness 
 of mud and water, and thick saw-grass, five feet high, and deep creeks and quagmires, 
 extending " as far as the eye could reach;" and behind this desperate approach lay the 
 savages, in the gloom of the hammock, covering and commanding every step with their 
 rifles. Nevertheless, Colonel Taylor had made up his mind ; he does not seem to have 
 thought it necessary to call a council of Avar : he had marched one hundred and fifty 
 miles to find the Indians, and he had them before him. He made his dispositions, there- 
 fore, without delay, and proceeded to execute his plan of battle, which was to "' bulge 
 right over them." Into the swamp! March— charge ! First line, second line— firm 
 and steady ! Right through the torment of the tangled saw-grass ; right through bayou 
 and quagmire ; right through the sudden hurricane of Indian bullets and the storm of 
 triunrphant war-whoops, answered by the splash of the death-fall, and the dying groans 
 of men mingUng their blood in the pestilent pools. Gentry down, mortally wounded; 
 Thompson dead ; Van Swearingen, Brooke, and Canter dying : nearly one hundred and 
 forty officers and men among the killed and wounded. The charge was still pursued, 
 the marsh was passed, and in three hours the whole force of savages, fighting with un- 
 common ferocity, was driven at the point of the bayonet from the stronghold— marched 
 over — utterly routed and shattered to pieces — and the victory of Okeechobee won. 
 
 It was, under the circumstances of the Seminole war, a highly important success ; of 
 the consequences of wliich, iu brealdng the spirit of the Indians, and disposm'g them 
 
sooner or later to make peace, Taylor must have been immediately conscious. Read his 
 despatch, however, for a picture of the feelings natural to a victor on such an occasion! 
 Well, it is, and long has been, before the people of the United States. The battle is de- 
 scribed, the success recorded, but not one word of pride and triumph; no indulgence 
 of a single feeling of elation: the thoughts of the victor run only on his killed and 
 wounded — the loss of his dead, the sufferings of his bleeding followers. "Here," says 
 the victor, his heart full only of this melancholy theme, "I trust I may be permitted to 
 say, that I experienced one of the most trying periods of ray life; and he who could have 
 looked on it with indifference, his nerves must have been differently organized from my 
 own. Besides the killed, there lay one hundred and twelve wounded officers and soldiers, 
 who had accompanied me one hundred and lorty-five miles, most of the way through an 
 unexplored wilderness, without guides, who had so gallantly beaten the enemy under my 
 orders, in his strongest position, and who had to be conveyed back, through swamps ani 
 hammocks, from whence we set out, without any apparent means of doing so." No: 
 the feeling that breaks out here — the first feeling — is not that of gratified ambition, but of 
 the tenderest humanity, to which "the nerves" of the brave old soldier are peculiarly 
 "organized." And it was here, among the hammocks of Florida, as in the pitched fields 
 of Mexico, that his acts declared the sentiments which he has since proclaimed to the 
 v\'orld in words, "that the joy and exultation of the greatest victories " — we use his own 
 language, spoken in December last at New Orleans — "are always, after the heat and ex- 
 citement of the battle, succeeded by feelings of poignant sorrow and pain; and that war, 
 after all, is a great calamity, and his the greatest glory who can terminate it." 
 
 Humanity is, indeed, one of the first, one of the most striking, and one of the noblest 
 of the attributes of General Zachary Taylor. 
 
 WAR WITH MEXICO. 
 
 Few persons ever doubted that the annexation of Texas, urged as it was by Mr. Polk, 
 m a spirit of contempt and defiance to Mexico, and with the haughtiest disregard of con- 
 sequences, could fail to lead to a war with tliat country. The war was foreseen, if not 
 actually desired — if not really sought and intended to be provoked, as a new element of 
 pobtical intrigue, and a means of popularity for the administration. At all events, the 
 probability of such a war was manifest enough, (the whole country anticipated it;) and 
 it was provided for, apparendy, by those who wished it as a happy possibility, from 
 which great honor and profit might be expected. The great mistake of the contrivers 
 was in vainly supposing that the prizes of victory would fall to their share. They did 
 not dream that a Fate above them, of which they were the blind instruments, was using 
 them, their plans and their projects, to build up the reputation of a new and great spirit, 
 before whose superior fortunes theirs should bow, like the genius of Anthony before that 
 of Octavius. It has happened with the last as with the drst of American rulers who 
 planned the conquest of Mexico. When old Velasquez, the governor of Cuba, in 1520, 
 projected the invasion of the empire of Montezuma, his grand desire was to procure a 
 general to execute his will, sufficiently competent for that purpose, but not famous, — oh, 
 no! — an obscure and modest man, and so perfectly destitute of ambition as to be willing 
 to fight and conquer in the name and for the benefit of Velasquez merely, without any 
 selfish aspirations of his oAvn. The result was that Velasquez chose the humble Cortes, 
 as the agent to win his laurels; and we know how it all ended, immortal renown for 
 Cortes, contempt and oblivion for Velasquez. 
 
 When Mr. Polk sent Brigadier General Zachary Taylor, with the troops of the United 
 States, to Texas, to fight his three months' war on the Rio Grande, it never entered into 
 his calculations that the then comparatively obscure hero of Okeechobee might return 
 from the campaign to baffle all his ingenious schemes of re-election, and even oust him 
 from the seat of honor he so unworthily occupied. There is, however, a special Provi- 
 dence in the fall of a sparrow, and there is, certainly, not less in the unexpected uprise 
 of a great man, modest and unambitious, to power and dignity aniong the chiefs of man- 
 kind. It was upon the Rio Grande, remote from his country and from succor, amid 
 deserts, surrounded by Mexican chaparrals and Mexican armies, outnumbering, three or 
 four to one, his own small and ill-appointed force; sent thither, in the midst of all those 
 dangers, to perform, at the President's order, the needless bravado of planting the Ameri- 
 can flag on the banks of the long-coveted Rio del Norte, and the still more superfluous 
 duty of protecting the Texan frontier from Mexican invasion; it was there, in the first 
 clash of the President's war, the country suddenly became aware that it possessed in Mr. 
 
8 
 
 Polk's general, a greater man than Mr. Polk, a towering spirit, with new and mighty 
 destinies, worthy to be united with its own. There was the thunder of battlej the smoke 
 of cannon ascended to the firmament, and with it a name — a thought — a vision of future 
 eminence, which, in a moment, struck upon the imagination of every man in the United 
 States. 
 
 It is not necessary that we should review the detailed history of the appearance and 
 progress of General Taylor in Texas, at the head of the Army of Occupation, from his 
 landing at Aransas Bay, in July, 1845, until he met the Mexicans at Palo Alto, ten 
 months afterwards. All the circumstances of this period, described in his official corres- 
 pondence, have long been before the public, Avhich is familiar Avith every detail. All 
 that we need pause to remark is, that Gen. Taylor, however destined to win renown in 
 the approaching war, went to Texas iwt to make war — not desiring, not even expecting 
 war to occur; but, manifestly, hoping or thinking — "the wish was father to the 
 thought" — that there would be no war, and that the presence of his army on the new 
 frontier would have the good effect of removing the only danger, by preventing the other- 
 wise possible inroads of exasperated Mexicans into Texas. This appears undeniable, 
 both from his official letters and his acts, and from nothing more clearly than his calm 
 and just accounts of tne Mexican forces and military preparations on the Rio Grande; 
 for he ahyays scouted the wild rumors of gathering armies, that designing men, anxious 
 for hostilities, sent home; from his indisposition to "call for volunteers from the United 
 States." which he did not believe would "become necessary, under any circumstances;" 
 and from tlie fact, that although instructed by Mr. Bancroft, acting Secretary of War, as 
 early as June 15, 1845, to occupy a post on or near the Rio Grande," he avoided doing 
 so (Mexico having made "no declaration of war, or committed any overt act of hostili- 
 ties, he did not feel at liberty," he said, "to make such a movement") until constrained 
 by the President's orders of January 13, 184G, "to move forward with his force to the 
 Rio Grande;" and there he selected the site opposite Malamoros, instead of the more 
 distant Loredo, because that was the nearest place to his depot at Point Isabel, and he did 
 not think it "entirely safe" to "separate his force further" at the time. 
 
 No: it is obvious, as from his letter of November 7, 1845, that the veteran's mind was 
 full of kindlier thoughts than tliose of battle and victory — tliou^hts about the health and 
 lives of his poor soldiers, if compelled upon summer marches, in that unhealthy climate, 
 to found the posts contemplated by Government on the Rio Grande. "I cannot urge too 
 strongly upon the Department," he says, "the necessity of occupying those posts before 
 the warm weather shall set in. A large amount of sickness is, I fear, to be apprehended, 
 with every precaution to be taken; but the information Avhich I obtain leads me to believe 
 that a summer movement would be attended with great expense of health and lite." 
 
 Sent to Texas, ostensibly, and as he felt and believed, only to guard the new frontier 
 of the republic, in the vicinity of a people whom he considered "well disposed towards 
 our Government," no General in the world could have entertained more pacific views 
 and wishes; none could have acted more faithfully and judiciously upon the resolution, 
 by a purely defensive and conciliatory course, to preserve peace and avert the horrors of 
 war. Reluctant to move, and moving only, upon the Rio Grande, when positively 
 ordered by the American Government to do so, he went desirous of peace, but prepared 
 for war, and ready to repel and punish any assault which his forbearance might not pre- 
 vent. It was not until March 29th, 1846, while on the banks of the Rio Grande, that 
 he was compelled to abandon his hopes, and acknowledge that the attitude ol' the Mexi- 
 cans was "decidedly hostile." It is foreign to our present purpose to comment on the 
 order of Government which induced, or exasperated, them to assume such an attitude; 
 but when they threw doAvn the gauntlet and drew the sword, the soldier of Okeechobee 
 sighed; yet he was in a moment in his harness; and iu six weeks, Palo Alto, and La 
 Palma, and Zacharv Taylor, were names for history. 
 
 PALO ALTO. 
 
 Who can forget the state of public feeling in the United States produced by intelligence 
 of the events on the Rio Grande, between the 10th of April and the evening of the 7th 
 of May, 1846. Between those two dates had occurred all the events, successive steps in 
 the progress of war, between the murder of Colonel Cross in the chaparral, and the de- 
 parture of General Taylor from Point Isabel, at the head of twenty-three hundred men, to 
 cut his way to the relief of Fort Brown, through the as yet unnumbered hosts of Arista. 
 The public mind, in fact, was on a sudden stunned and alarmed by the novel aud dan- 
 
gerous circumstances that had arisen. There was not merely war on the Rio Grande, 
 but formidable, urgent war; and at the same moment, th^ garrisons at Fort Brown and 
 Point Isabel, and the little army of Taylor, marching and counter marching to support 
 both, seemed about to be swept away by the rolling avalanche. Arista lyid crossed tke 
 Rio Grande in superior numbers; the chaparrals were swarming with his troops; Fort 
 Brown had been suffering bombardment for four days (from May 3d:) it was entirely 
 surrounded and cut off from any communication with the American General, except 
 such as could be effected through the intermedium of signal guns and the desperate 
 agency of the daring Walker. Then it was that the whole public mind was filled with 
 anxiety and boding fear. Then was felt, and bitterly accused, the wanton improvidf^nce 
 of Government which had sent so small a force of Americans to encounter, in that re- 
 mote spot, far from reinforcements, the shock of the Mexican war it had so rashly pro- 
 voked. Then, too, it was that the words of Taylor's last despatch, on leaving Point 
 Isabel — •' Should the enemy meet me, in whatever Ibrce, I shall fight him" — disclosed a 
 hero equal to any emergency; but, at the same moment, that hero, marching with his 
 petty twenty-three hundred men, plunged again into the Mexican desert, and was for 
 awhile, lost to the sight of his countrymen. All was, for some days, suspense, doubt, 
 and painful speculation. Every man had for his neighbor an anxious query about the 
 American army and Gen. Taylor: "Had he not marched that army to inevitable destruc- 
 tion? Had he not been surrounded, in those thickets, by overpowering numbers, and 
 there been crushed, cut to pieces, or compelled to seek safety in the calamity of capitula- 
 tion? If he should have the good fortune to reach and shut himself up in Fort Brown, 
 how long could he maintain himself there, waiting for reinforcements'?" In short, the 
 country was full of such speculations, and the anxiety became, if possible, still more 
 intense, when it was suddenly put an end to by a fresh arrival from the seat of war, with 
 the astounding account of two marvellous victories. Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma! 
 how- those names sounded over the land as with a clang of clarions! Palo Alto and 
 Resaca de la Palma! and these two Mexican names were suddenly the joy and happiness 
 of the whole American people. There was no loss, there was no dishonor; the army 
 was not only safe, but covered with glory. The hosts of Arista had fled; Point Isabel 
 and Fort Brown were permanently relieved; and Matamoros and all of the Mexican 
 towns of the Rio Grande remained at the discretion and mercy of the American com- 
 mander. 
 
 It was, undoubtedly, the previous anxiety and alarm which gaVe such unusual depth 
 to the impression made on the national feelings by these two victories. But, intrinsically, 
 and in every aspect, they were great events, full of a strange and most sublime interest. 
 They settled, as it were, the whole question of the result of the Mexican war — there 
 never was a doubt of it from that moment; and ihey satisfied the country and convinced 
 Europe that the military energies of the American people had not suffered from a long 
 peace, and from devotion to commerce and the arts of industry — that, in fact, nothing 
 was easier or more natural than for Americans to follow the lessons of Washington, "in 
 peace to prepare for war," and so be always in readiness for every exigency of fate. The 
 history of the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma Avill ever be as captivating to 
 American minds as national hymns are, full at once of music and the associations of 
 national glory. 
 
 Was it not the " bulging" system of tactics, which General Taylor resolved to employ 
 even against Arista, with all his might of armed men, occupying defensive positions 
 selected by that General himself? Nothing v/as ever heard of, in the history of the war, 
 more daring than that march of Taylor, on the 8th and 9th of May, to Fort Brown, in 
 which, to proceed at all, he was obliged to charge right upon and over the lines of 
 Arista's army of upwards of six thousand men. It was at noon on the 8th, that Arista, 
 in complete order of battle, posted at Palo Alto, and occupying the whole road to Fort 
 Brown, was perhaps surprised — if not actually confounded — by the return of General 
 Taylor, whom, four days before, in the Matamoros newspaper, some Mexican idiot — 
 perhaps the General of the North himself— had charged "with flying in so cowardly a 
 manner to shut himself up at the Point." There he was again, with his little army — 
 eighteen hundred infantry against Arista's four thousand — two hundred horse against 
 two thousand — encumbered, too, with a train of no less than three hundred wagons, 
 carrying the supplies for Fort Brown; there he was, indeed, that "cowardly" American 
 General, who was soon, of course, brought to a halt by the majesty and terror of the 
 Mexican arms ! 
 
 Did he intend to run away a second time 1 Poor foolish Mexicans ! At two o'clock 
 the Americans were in motion — retreating? No, advancing to the charge; advancing 
 
10 
 
 in good order, firraly and resolutely — until it was necessary to bring the Mexican cannon 
 into requisition to compel the fearless desperadoes to halt at seven hundred paces, and 
 unlimber their own artillery. But why should we repeat the oft-told tale, now familiar 
 to every boy, nay, to every girl, in the United States. All the boasts, the promises, the 
 efforts of the Mexican chief came to naught ; volleys of grape — stratagems — and charges 
 of horse, were alike in vain ; and at night-fall, the hosts of Arista retired behind the 
 shelter of the chaparral, and the Americans slept victoriously on the field of battle. But 
 the battle was not yet over. Mortified, but enraged, and reinforced with more troops, in 
 number gready exceeding his losses, Arista fell back to the strong, the vtnj strong posi- 
 tion of Resaca de la Palma, where he hoped to enjoy a great success, but, in reality, only 
 awaited his own final and overwhelming overthrow. 
 
 RESACA DE LA PALMA 
 
 The Americans slept on Palo Alto, on a field of victory — nine killed, and forty-nme 
 wounded ; but among these v/ere Ringgold and Page, whose names will remain identi- 
 fied forever with the recollection of the Army of Occupation and the campaign on the 
 Rio Grande. The next day, the 9th of May, dawned with the assurance of another 
 batde. Arista, drawing together all his forces, with reinforcements from beyond the 
 river, was entrenched in the ravine of La Palma, in the very heart of the chaparrals ; 
 whence, although, on the preceding day, the two armies had measured strength in a kind 
 of formal duello of artillery, at which Arista had been beaten, it Avas manifest he could 
 not be driven unless, in close fight, in hand to hand rencontre, at the point of sword and 
 bayonet. And this was precisely the character of the fierce and sanguinary battle of La 
 Palma, in which Taylor renewed the attack witli only about seventeen hundred men. 
 Cannons roared and horsemen charged, at first, as on the preceding day ; but the fight 
 was soon characterized by regiments of foot approaching closer and closer to each other 
 — breaking into parties to thread the dense thicket — and so engaging,' at last, squad to 
 squad, man even to man, in a kind of general melee; in which the superior qualities, 
 moral and physical, of the North American over the mongrel Mexican, soon gave the 
 victory to the former. In no other battle in modern time were there ever so many op- 
 portunities given for the display of personal courage and gallantry; and in no other were 
 there so many instances in which individuals, and especially privates and non-commis- 
 sioned officers, distinguished themselves by exploits of chivalrous daring. In the heat 
 and in the most critical period of the battle, it was precisely such a struggle ; every bush 
 had its combatant, every lilde opening in the thicket a fray of persons or of files ; and for 
 a time, so close and furious was the fight, so inextricably interwoven were the American 
 and Mexican infantry, that both Duncan's and Ridgley's batteries became useless — they 
 could not be pointed at any group or force of Mexicans which Americans were not charg- 
 mg through and through, and driving before them. 
 
 At last, however, numbers, pride, every thing on the Mexican side, yielded before the 
 unconquerable resolution of Taylor and his little army. The spirit that dictated the re- 
 niarkable des patchy-remarkable as the utterance of a resolution at once so calm and so 
 gigantic — " should the enemy meet me, in whatever force, I will fight him," — meant 
 the last clause to be understood as the promise, not of a fight merely, but of a victorious 
 one. Taylor had set out to reheve Fort Brown, and meant to do it; not an American 
 in his army but had set out in the same spirit, meaning to do the same thing. In 
 whatever way effected, the General had infused his own determination and confidence 
 into the hearts of all his soldiers ; and hence it was that seventeen hundred men, this 
 day, rushed at once right into close quarters with seven thousand, driving them, pell 
 mell, from their redoubts, their guns, their ravine, their thickets, nay, their camp itself; 
 until the Mexican defeat was an utter rout, and Arista and his troops, chased by a hand- 
 ful of American horse, rather for observation than injury, to the Rio Grande, seized 
 upon the friendly opportunity of night to place its waters as a barrier between them and 
 their now terrible conquerors. Taylor remained again upon a field of victory — lament- 
 ing, however, the loss of thirty-nine killed, and eighty-three wounded, officers'and men 
 — of whom Lieutenants Inge, Cochrane, and Chadbourne, where the highest in rank of 
 those slain ; while Lieutenant Colonel Mcintosh and Captain Hoe, of the 5th Infantry, 
 ■were, both by rank and tlie severity of their injuries, most distinguished among the 
 ■wounded. 
 
11 
 
 Tke loss of the Mexicans was never accurately known, but was always believed to 
 have been eight or ten times that of the Americans, who gathered nearly two hundred of 
 their dead. But the injury to Mexico could not be counted by her killed and wounded> 
 picked up on this fatal field. Here fell her pride, the dream of her martial merit, every 
 thought of her ability to contend in arms with the Republic of the North. Tlie eagle of 
 the prickly-pear and serpent, after two severe buflets, had flown away, screammg, from 
 the bird of the arrows and the olive-branch. The rampart of the Rio' Grande was anni- 
 hilated, and the republic of the silver mountains stood open and defenceless, incapalde of 
 being any thing higher than the victim of our vengeance, or any thing lower than the 
 object of our magnanimous pity. The victory of Resaca de la Palma was, in effect, the 
 conquest of Matamoros — of the Rio Grande — of all the country to the foot of the moun- 
 tains — to Monterey ; and all these mighty results, which immediately followed that great 
 feat of arms, were magnificent trophies, won for and presented to the Republic by a 
 General who had sought to prevent war — who was always anxious to lessen its calami- 
 ties and bring it to an end — and who, even then, in the moment of his great triumph,, 
 while doing full justice to the heroism of his officers and men, who had fought so well 
 and bravely, yet indulged in no exultation unworthy of his calm, humane, unselfish, his 
 truly lofty character. Did these victories, which intoxicated so many Americans, and 
 begot all those novel notions about the conquest of " all Mexico," " inevitable destiny," 
 &c., produce any change whatever in General Taylor's views or wishes? Did he ever 
 show any increase of \yar-appetite 1 Did he not,' in fact, remain fill the last, the same 
 calm, moderate, merciful spirit, who had no burning passion to go on indefinitely killing 
 Mexicans and conquering Mexican territory, but was anxious that peace should be re- 
 stored, and tliouglit that the United States could afford to treat her — as he himself always 
 treated her — magnanimously, with a gentle and pitiful forbearance in all things. Had 
 his moderate spirit prevailed in the councils of the Administration, we should probably 
 hare had an earlier peace; and, we can well believe, it would not have been less 
 honorable. 
 
 MONTEREY. 
 
 Great and meritorious as were the victories so admirably — we might almost say, so 
 unexpectedly — won by Taylor, in the moment of national anxiety, at Palo Alto and 
 Resaca de la Palma, the calm judgment of the intelligent citizen cannot but concede that, 
 amid the circumstances following these exploits, oppressed by new difficulties which 
 they brought upon him, he exhibited even higher qualities than those which had blazed 
 out so gloriously on the field of batde. The v/ar was no longer a calamity to be 
 prevented; it had begun, and was to be fought; the enemy was to be followed into his 
 own land, and compelled to peace; everything was to be thought of and resolved on, 
 without delay, by a victor whose Government had left him without sufficient supplies, 
 and particularly without the means of transportation. Troops were at first wanting, but 
 they soon came pouring in, enthusiastic volunteers, in embarrassing numbers — in num- 
 bers beyond Taylor's wants and requisitions; but as nothing else came, tliey only made 
 bad worse, and increased the difl[iculties of his position. 
 
 But, in the midst of these difficuhies, his thoughts and resolutions were equally active. 
 Within nine days after the aflair of La Palma, his flag floated over Matamoros and the 
 whole lower right bank of the Rio Grande; and as early as the 20th of May, only 
 twelve days after the first blow at Palo Alto, as we Imow from his official corres- 
 pondence, he had already medhated the enterprize, the march, the very route to be 
 pursued, against the city of Monterey. This march, in fa^ct, against Monterey — made 
 with insufficient transportation, and, therefore, with insufficient subsistence and ammu- 
 nition; this march, which, considering the consequences that must have flowed from a 
 repclse. timid crifics would have regarded as an overdaring hazardous adventure, is one 
 of the most decided proofs of Taylor's judgment as well as heroism. His very destitution 
 rendered it necessary. There were food and ammunition enough in Monterey; and 
 whh young and zealous volunteers, anxious to see the foe, there was less loss to be 
 apprehended from a hard march, and a harder fight, than from the pining inacfivity of 
 sickly camps on the Rio Grande. The autumn was coming, nay, was already at hand; 
 there were pure waters and breezes, and mountain health, at Monterey — what difference 
 did it make if there were tremendous fortifications and (the standing rule) Mexicans in 
 superior numbers? The march was resolved on, pushed in every way; and, about the 
 
12 
 
 •same period, almost the same day, when Santa Anna was "passed" into Vera Cruz, 
 to raise and head that army which was to meet Taylor at Buena Vista, the latter 
 advanced the first division of his army from Camargo to Ceralvo, on the expedition 
 against Monterey. It was on the 15th September that Santa Anna arrived at the 
 Capital, and, in proud array, amid roaring festivities and the clamor of Mexican oaths 
 of patriotism, swore to drive the "perfidious Yankees," the "barbarians of the North," 
 from the sacred soil of the "magnanimous" republic. Four days later, on the 19th, the 
 Mexican cannon at Monterey was playing upon Gen. Taylor, as with a little recon- 
 noitering party, he rode up to inspect for himself the formidable defences of citadel, 
 redoubts, fortified heights, and stone houses with parapets, each a Moorish fortification, 
 or a part of one great Moorish fortification, embracing the whole city, which it was now 
 necessary he should carry by storm, and that, too, within a few days, to prevent the 
 effects of an entire want of all the necessaries of war and of life in his own army. 
 
 And so he carried it. What need of repeating the details of this glorious seige, of 
 which every particular has become a part of the recollections of every American mind — 
 the chivalrous exploits of Worth's division, on the west, carrying the armed heights, and 
 hemming in the Mexicans in the rear, and the bloody assaults upon the town itself, on 
 the east, made under the orders of Taylor himself. On the second day the weak man 
 had the strong man at his mercy — six thousand American regulars and volunteers had 
 wrapped in a girdle of bayonets and grape shot, a Mexican city of fifteen thousand 
 inhabitants, defended by a garrison of ten thousand soldiers; and on that second day the 
 city threw up its hands' for quarters, and the ten thousand Mexican soldiers hoisted a flag 
 of truce, and capitulated. This was the third glory of Taylor in this war. How this 
 nation exulted! It was only the newborn malice of political jealousy — for on a sudden 
 the wondrous popularity acquired by Taylor, as if by magic, and the presentation of his 
 name as a candidate for the high office of President by vast numbers of citizens, and in 
 particular by the entire Whig party, had rendered him an object of terror to the scheming 
 Administration Avhich had made the war; it was only the strangely unnatural and 
 ungrateful hatred of Locofocoism which strove, for a moment, to censure that capitula- 
 tion, and to reprehend, nay, if possible, to crush, the brave old victor tor the sin of not 
 having finally captured or exterminated the whole garrison, and put, perhaps, the whole 
 wretched population of Monterey to the sword. 
 
 Who forgets the attempt made so shamelessly by Locofoco adherents of the Executive 
 in Congress to nullify the vote of thanks to General Taylor for that immense success of 
 Monterey, Iiy a proviso censuring the capitulation granted by him to the Mexicans — in 
 other words, to affix upon him the stigma of having failed in the performance of his 
 whole duty as an American commander in battle against the enemy ? The attempt only 
 recoiled with injury upon its authors. The first reflection convinced every right-minded 
 American that the capitulation of Monterey was, in itself, the greatest of General 
 Taylor's acts, and that one of them all which was by far the most honorable to his 
 country; and in a moment the sentiment of generous pride in, and lofty appreciation of, 
 the true merit of the Monterey capitulation became universal, which in the memorable, 
 Senate debate on that subject, had been proclaimed by Mr. Clayton in tones which went 
 to every heart in the Republic. 
 
 "I say, therefore," (said Mr. Clayton) "that from the bottom of my soul I thank the 
 brave, generous, and merciful Commander of the American troaps. I thank him not 
 only for his gallantry and skill, his conduct and bravery, but eminently and above aE 
 other considerations, as an American Senator, I thank him for his humanity! I honor 
 him because he thought of, and spared, feeble and unoffending woman in that hour of 
 her utmost peril. I honor him because he spared tottering age and helpless infancy; and 
 I glory that an American general has shown himself thus alive to the best feelings of the 
 human heart." 
 
 No, from the moment of that debate, it has been felt that the laurels of Monterey are 
 all the more glorious, and will be so regarded forever, because they associate, not the 
 horrid brutalities of a city taken by sack, but recollections of a generous humanity 
 worthy to be prized as the noblest attribute of the American character. The victor of 
 Monterey, the hero of that capitulation, is a true representative of the people, who admire 
 and love him the more for that reason. 
 
13 
 
 BUENA VISTA. 
 
 In the last and greatest act of his military life, fortune seemed resolved to prove, in the 
 most unanswerable manner, how much of General • Taylor's fame was due to himself, to 
 his wonderful resolution of character, and his power of infusing his own courage into 
 the hearts of the men under his command, even when undisciplined volunteers, who had 
 never seen a foe. 
 
 The fine army — the veterans of Monterey, were gone — drawn away to open a new 
 path of glory oo the route between Vera Cruz and Mexico, which Taylor himself had 
 indicated as the only suitable one on which to attack Mexico with effect; and, when 
 shorn of his strength but not his valor, and strong in judgment, he had gone to watch 
 the designs of the enemy at the farthest outpost of Agua Nueva, rather than shut him- 
 self up within the citadelled safety of Monterey, he had, as the world has long known, 
 but 4,073 men — of whom only about one-tenth were regulars— artillery and horse — not 
 a single company of infantry — to meet the 21,340 men, composing the Mexican army. 
 These, well armed and equipped, Santa Amia had provided at San Luis Potosi, ready 
 for a sudden swoop upon, and, what he deemed, an assured victory over, an illustrious 
 victim, provided to his hand (wonderful coincidence of folly! for we do not, of course, 
 impute it to a designed guilt) by the same unfortunate administration which had so 
 foolishly sent himself to Mexico, to re-animate and re-organize his defeated countrymen. 
 
 There, then, lay, Avith his feeble force, the deserted hero, in that solitary post among 
 the Mexican mountains, entirely beyond the reach of relief or of any hope out of his own 
 camp — or heart; many a weary mile in advance of Monterey — many a league from the 
 hne of the Rio Grande; but calm and constant, as if at the head of the proudest army on 
 the frontiers of his own country; expecting the attack, which he had already provided 
 for, even to the field of battle, on which he was resolved to bring Santa Anna to a stand, 
 and to beat him. We say, to "beat him;" for, incredible though it may seem, all the 
 circumstances prove that General Taylor knowing, for he was perfectly aware of, Santa 
 Anna's immensely superior forces — five to one — never once had the shghtest doubt that 
 he should repulse and vanquish him. The selection of a field of conflict at the narrow 
 pass of Buena Vista, — a kind of Thermopylae for the Americans, — where a small army 
 might best oppose a large one, and the continued refusal to fall back behind the Sierra 
 Madre, showed this plainly enough, which never, however, was declared in boastful 
 words or promises ; though it once broke out in a hasty expression, significant of all the 
 General's thoughts, when an officer one day — as the anecdote has it — ventured, rather 
 freely, to ask what he thought would be the result of General Santa Anna's making a 
 sudden march upon them from San Luis; to which Taylor quickly replied, that the 
 result would be — his making " a sudden march back again." And so it happened! 
 
 It was on the 2lst of February, 1847, that Taybr, apprised by his scouts of the ap- 
 proaching host, fell back, in good order, to his intended ratde-field; where the "magnani- 
 mous " Benemerito (or well-deserving) of Mexico, on the next day, informed him that 
 he was " surrounded by 20.000 men," and proposed to allow him the humane privilege 
 of surrendering at discretion. Here General Taylor was guilty of the rudeness of affect- 
 ing to consider Santa Anna's summons as a request, (as not deeming that a Mexican 
 General would dare make any demands on him,) and the further incivility of "declining 
 to accede to it." The captain of four thousand men to reply in that way to the com- 
 mander of twenty thousand! But it was on the 22d of February, — the birthday of 
 Washington, — the second national holiday of American freedom. On such a day, 
 indeed. Gen. Taylor might laugh Santa Anna and his summons to scorn; on such a day, 
 young Crittenden, in the midst of the Mexican host, might proudly declare — " General 
 Taylor never surrenders." 
 
 Who does not remember the first accounts that reached the United States of the results 
 of Santa Anna's attack — Mexican accounts, fabulous, bewildering, but fearfully exciting, 
 which represented Taylor as retreating before the immense hosts of Santa Anna, fighting 
 his way back to Monterey, there to turn, like a lion at bay, upon his pursuer, charging 
 into the midst of his legions, and covering the earth with the slain. Well, he was sur- 
 rounded, but he never fled ; the lion was at bay, but it was the favorite lair of Buena 
 Vista; and it was there that the multitude of Mexicans fell, lying side by side with heaps 
 of American volunteers. 
 
 The day gone — the night closing around the mountain peaks and deep gorges, and that 
 puny army not yet driven from its lines! Yet a second day dawned, and the conflict 
 
14 
 
 -was resumed as obstinately, as furiously, as destructively as ever. Then came a second 
 night ; and the brave old General and his brave young troops — so raw and yet so eoura- 
 geous — flung themselves down exhausted, upon the bloody earth, beside their cannons, 
 to snatch a short, uneasy slumber, and then up once more for a third day ^f battle. The 
 third day was soon there — but where were the Mexicans? Vanquished — routed — utterly 
 fled — their dead and wounded left, hke the whole exposed rear of their anny — to the 
 humanity of the General who had been so short a time before recommended to surrender 
 :at discretion! 
 
 Where, in modern times, was there such a battle? where such a victory? No 
 wonder, Avhen the news of this great field reached the country, a field at once so romantic 
 and so heroic, — so exciting and so saddening, for, oh, the dead of those two days, whose 
 "blood brought us this glory! — that the fame of Monterey was eclipsed by the greater 
 splendors of Buena Vista, and that Zachary Taylor was enshrined in the very hearts of 
 his countrymen ; and no wonder that the purpose of those hearts was confirmed, to call 
 his great qualities into a new field of civil action, in which it was felt that precisely such 
 qualities were wanted. Integrity and honor — a spodess life and rigid code of moral 
 principles; simplicity, frankness, kindness of heart; moderation of views and feelings, 
 prudence, excellent good sense and judgment: add to these, invincible constancy of pur- 
 pose and a bravery always so calm and reflective — and we assuredly have presented to 
 us many of those noble traits which went to compose, the solid character of Washington, 
 and fitted him to shine so well — so equally well — in the camp and the cabinet. 
 
 It is from the strongly marked analogies of character that the people of the United 
 States have formed their opinions of the fitness of General Taylor for the ofl[ice of Presi- 
 dent of the United Slates; to which, if we can believe the signs of the times, they have 
 manifestly made up their minds to elect him. 
 
 THE POPULAR APPRECIATION OF HIS CHARACTER. 
 
 In an eloquent sketch of the life of the Father of his Country, contained m a volume 
 entitled "Washington and the Generals of the Revolution," may be found the following 
 remark, which will strike the reader as one full of profound interest: 
 
 "It is a truth, illustrated in daily experience, and yet rarely noticed or acted upon, that, 
 in all that concerns the appreciation of personal character or ability, the instinctive im- 
 pressions of a community are quicker in their action, more profoundly appreciant, and 
 more reliable, than the intellectual perceptions of the ablest men in the community. 
 Upon all those subjects that are of moral apprehension, society seems to possess an 
 intelligence of its own, infinitely sensitive in its delicacy, and almost conclusive in the 
 certainty of its determinations ; indirect and unconscious in its operation, yet unshunnable 
 in sagacity, and as strong and confident as nature itself. The highest and the finest 
 qualities of human judgment seem to be in commission among the nation, or the race. 
 It is by such a process that, whenever a true hero appears among mankind, the recogni- 
 tion of his character, by the general sense of humanity, is instant and certain: the belief 
 of the chief priests and rulers of mind follows later, or comes not at all. The perceptions 
 of a public are as subtly-sighted as its passions are blind. It sees, and feels, and knows 
 the excellence, which it can neither understand, nor explain nor vindicate." 
 
 This principle of the instinctive faculty of a people to detect greatness even in the 
 .germ, the writer applies with force to the case of Washington, — to his immediate accep- 
 tance by the nation-builders of '76, and the uninterrupted command over their entire con- 
 fidence, which he enjoyed to the last. 
 
 " From the first moment of his appearance as a chief," says the writer, " the recogni- 
 tion of him, from one end of the country to the other, as the man — the leader, the coun- 
 sellor, the infallible, in suggestion and in conduct — was immediate and universal. From 
 that moment to the close of the scene, the national confidence in his capacity Avas as 
 spontaneous, as enthusiastic, as immovable, as it was in his integrity. Particular 
 persons, affected by the untoward course of events; sometimes questioned his sufficiency; 
 but the nation never questioned it, nor would allow it to be questioned." 
 
 To our own feelings there is something repulsive, as if bordering at once on adulation 
 and irreverence, in instituting a complimentary comparison between the Father of his 
 Country and any living man — between him who, in the world of departed spirits, stands 
 on that glorious pinnacle of immortal fame, above the Caesars and Napoleons of the 
 ^earth, and the best and purest creature that can walk its surface, aspiring to similar ex- 
 
15 
 
 cellence and equal acceptation hereafter. We do not therefore, mean to attempt any 
 parallel between the character of Zachary Taylor and that of George Washington. But 
 we may declare, and our readers will feel, that the history of the former, during the last 
 two years, and his present position as the foremost man of this Republic, bring him 
 within the rule which measures the greatness of Washington, and testify to those un- 
 common qualities of Taylor which were detected, as by instinct, in a moment, without 
 any suggestion or instruction, by the whole American people. From the hour when 
 the news of Palo Alto flew over the land. General Taylor was accepted by the popular 
 feeling as a great man, fit and worthy to occupy the highest place of public trust; and 
 from that hour to the present the popular feeling has never altered. 
 
 Perhaps the writer we have quoted finds something too wonderful or supernatural in 
 the popular instinct alluded to ; and he is still more mistaken in supposing that the 
 faculty is one not shared in by "the ablest men in the community," the " chief priests 
 and rulers of mind," as well as by the masses of the community. The Henrys and 
 Adamses were among the first to detect" the gigantic capacities of Washington ; and there 
 were Claytons and Crittendens and others among the chief men of the United States, to 
 rise up, like seers, and declare the true character of the new-found hero of the Rio 
 Grande, and express to him the first salutations of the Americaa people. Why, indeed, 
 should not all natures act alike, in such cases? The instinct is not a blind one. It is 
 notf properly, a mere inexplicable intuition or inspiration : it is an act — an inconceivably 
 rapid and energetic one — but still an act, and nothing nlore than an act, of the mind — an 
 operation of the reason, a verdict of the judgment, in which every man's intellect, draw- 
 ing direct inferences from simple facts, dwells over the same thoughts and ends in the 
 same conclusions. The popular opinion, in this case, seldom changes, because it is 
 seldom erroneous. 
 
 The people of the United States formed their immediate estimate of General Taylor's 
 greatness by those qualities, already so often alluded to by us in these pages, which burst 
 out upon the American world at Palo Alto, just as they actually glared out befor(^— 
 though then unnoticed — in the humble siege of Fort Harrison. The Indian block-house 
 — where a few sick soldiers and settlers defended their lives against Indians, was an in- 
 considerable object to a pubhc mind just stunned by the overwhelming humiliation of 
 Hull's defeat, only to be relieved by the glorious retaliation of the capture of the Guerriere. 
 Palo Alto, on the contrary, was the stage of a new theatre of war, upon which the whole 
 community was gazing with doubt and fear, lest the rising of the curtain should disclose 
 a scene of calamity. It rose upon an exhibition of chivalry and glory, that seemed 
 almost a phantasma of magic, it was so strange and splendid ; and there, most prominent 
 upon the scene, the observed of all observers, was the brave old enchanter who had 
 created the picture, even as with a call of his voice, a flash of his eye, or a wave of his 
 knightly steel. The battle of Palo Alto revealed enough of the character of General 
 Taylor to satisfy the whole American mind, thenceforward and for ever, that he was a 
 great man — great in all those republican characteristics, those virtues, at once homely 
 and lofty, unpretending yet impressive, natural yet heroic, which, experience teaches us, 
 go to form the truest pattern of an American citizen, and the best model of a safe and 
 patriotic public officer. Two years' acquaintance with him has only proved the truth 
 and reliableness of the prepossession. 
 
 Modest, unambitious ;— moderate in all his views, thoughts, feelings ;— of a pure life 
 and exemplary habits;— calm and courageous, yet prudent, uniting the utmost caution 
 with the greatest firmness and most daring resolution ;— a soldier, yet in feeling and 
 reason opposed to offensive war, and declaring " his to be the greatest glory" who can 
 bring it to a close ; — most humane, merciful, and magnanimous in his disposition ; of 
 such perfect integrity that he has never been suspected of a wrong act, of such excellent 
 judgment and good sense that he has never been charged with a foolish one; perfectly 
 frank, unaff'ected, unassuming,— disposed to think less highly of his own qualifications 
 for administrative life than of those of the eminent statesmen he has so often recommend- 
 ed as his choice, and rather inclined, generally, to doubt the fitness of military men for 
 important civil employment ; a man who has never changed with circumstances,— who 
 has been the same, ever, upon slight and upon great occasions, and always equal to 
 every emergency : there is every thing in the character of such a man to warrant the 
 conclusions of the popular " instinct" as to his greatness, as well to encourage the belief 
 ofhis more than common fitness for that high office of the Presidency which he has 
 shown so little eagerness to attain, but which so vast a portion of the American people 
 are now most anxious that he should fill. ,. • , 
 
 But the office of the President of a free people demands, necessarily, poUucal, as well 
 
16 
 
 as intellectual aud moral, qualifications; and here General Taylor's party foes think they 
 discover incompetency in that very moderation of views which has commended — and 
 deserved to commend — him the more strongly to the confidence of the country. " I am 
 a Whig — but not an ultra Whig," has ever been his fixed and honest declaration — a de- 
 claration perfectly well understood by all persons, of whatever party, to define a man of 
 conservative feelings, approving, personally, of the great principles of public policy 
 known to all as the Whig system: but — and here his second declaration on the subject 
 of the Veto power explains all that might be supposed mysterious in regard to the mean- 
 ing of the word "ultra" — not disposed nor willing, under any circumstances, to compel 
 that system, against their wishes, upon a majority of the people of the United States, as 
 expressed by a majority of their Representatives in Congress. Gen. Taylor avows — and 
 that is one of the oldest and most conservative of Whig doctrines — that a President of 
 the United States ought not to employ the veto power to prevent or nullify the acts of 
 Congress, except in clear cases of unconstitutional or inconsiderate legislation. 
 
 In his brief and simple declaration of political feilh. General Taylor has declared him- 
 self a Whig and RepubUcan; a true Democrat, who expects — should the people elect 
 him their Chief Magistrate — not to rule the Republic, but to execute its laws ; not to 
 domineer over Congress, the law-making power, but to carry its acts into effect; to be the 
 faithful servant, not the master, of this great nation; the friend, not the betrayer, of 
 liberty ; to he no mere great man of office, no haughty monarch, vain, proud, egotistic, 
 and tyrannical, but the frank, unaS'ected, worthy, honest, plain citizen, who can perform 
 his duties in the chair of President calmly, conscientiously, rightfully, in the same char- 
 acter and way in which he performed them at Buena Vista. There is no mystery in the 
 Presidential duties beyond the performance and understanding of every practical honest 
 man in the Republic. Demagogues may refine, and abstractionists split hairs about it; 
 but every intelligent citizen can understand every line in the Constitution of the United 
 States, as well as every law of Congress requiring to be executed by the President. The 
 great qualifications required for President are precisely those which General Taylor so 
 manifestly and so pre-eminently possesses. 
 
 It is between him and General Lewis Cass that the American people are now to choose 
 their Chief Magistrate. We do not wish to indulge in any injurious description of the 
 latter gentleman. He has been long before the public, which is well acquainted with his 
 life and character, and all his quahfications — or want of qualifications — for an office in 
 which such sentiments as he has avowed, while a Senator, would soon bring upon the 
 country the horrors of war, which the soldier of Buena Vista has proclaimed himself 
 ahvays anxious to avert. We leave General Cass, as we leave General Taylor, to die 
 good sense and the good feehng of the people of the United States. As between two 
 such competitors — and one or other of them must be President — we do not think the 
 people will have much difficulty in making the proper selection. 
 
 LRBJa,