Like his colleague William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, 1784-1850, came from a landed Virginia family. Despite their social position, they left Virginia when Zachary was still a child and settled in Louisville, Kentucky. His father became wealthy in real estate. Kentucky was still frontier and there was little opportunity for formal schooling. Whenever he could go to school, Zachary was a quick learner. He grew to manhood and enlisted in the Army in 1808. Despite the family's wealth in land, he would need a day job and the army promised steady pay and relatively light duty while he quietly invested in land, slaves, and bank stocks. In 1810, he married Margaret Mackall, also a settler in Kentucky, but from a prominent Maryland family. The couple would have six children.
In the windup to the War of 1812, he was called to Indiana to take over command of what was then called Fort Knox, now Vincennes, Indiana (not the Fort Knox we know today). He restored ordered to an unruly garrison and won the praise of Indiana Governor William Henry Harrison. At that time, James Wilkinson, the commander of the American Army, ended up under court martial and Taylor was called to Washington to testify, missing the Battle of Tippecanoe and Tecumseh's Rebellion in the process. He was soon back in Indiana, defending Fort Harrison and taking part in an expedition to what is now Illinois. His first serious encounter with Native warriors, in the Battle of Wildcat Creek on November 22, 1812, ended up in a retreat. He later won a colorfully named battle at Credit Island. He was only a captain when the War ended. He resigned his commission in 1815, and reenlisted a year later as a major.
The next few years saw Taylor in command of various outposts, rising from major to lieutenant-Colonel. He was promoted to colonel in time for the Black Hawk War of 1832. However, aside from a few skirmishes, the war soon fizzled and it was back to garrison duty. However in 1837, he was dispatched to Florida and met the Seminoles at the Battle of Lake Okeechobee on December 25, 1837. There, he faced a Native command team consisting of Billy Bowlegs, Abiaka, and Coacoochee, among others, none of them happy that, just weeks before, Osceola and Coacoochee had been taken prisoners under a flag of truce. Technically, the battle was a draw, with the Seminoles inflicting casualties on already rattled U.S. troops and Taylor's men depleting cattle and other food sources the Seminoles couldn't afford to lose. However, the U.S. government needed a diversion from the dying hero at Fort Moultrie who'd captured the public's imagination and billed Okeechobee as a victory, promoting Taylor to Brigadier-General.
At about this time in his life, Taylor began to think about politics, using his new military fame to transition to a peacetime career. The Mexican War intervened in 1846-1848, but after the war was over, it was Taylor's turn to run for President. He was inaugurated in March, 1849, and served for little over a year. On July 4, 1850, he attended a picnic in Washington, D.C. and ate cherries washed down with milk on a hot day. Within a few hours, he was complaining of stomach troubles. Days later he was dead of cholera, most likely food poisoning from whatever he'd eaten on July 4th, compounded with the crude medical tactics of the day such as purging and bleeding. A 20th century autopsy on his remains found no evidence of poisoning or other foul play.
Years later, after having agreed to remove to Oklahoma, Billy Bowlegs would come Washington D.C. on a delegation. Touring the U.S. Capitol, he saw a picture of Taylor and smiled. He pointed to himself and said, "me whip!" I beat him!
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