Zachary Taylor

Zachary Taylor was the 12th President of the United States, serving from March 1849 until his death in July 1850 — making his tenure the third-shortest in US presidential history. He was born Zachary Taylor on November 24, 1784, in Orange County, Virginia, and raised on a Kentucky frontier farm. He had little formal schooling but joined the US Army in 1808 and served continuously for forty years before his unexpected emergence as a presidential candidate.

Taylor became a national hero through his service in the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). His 1846 victories at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma — the first major American battles fought against the Mexican army — and his February 1847 victory at the Battle of Buena Vista (where his outnumbered force defeated General Antonio López de Santa Anna's army) made him one of the most-popular American military figures of the late 1840s. The nickname "Old Rough and Ready" — earned for his battlefield indifference to comfort and to military formality — stuck for the rest of his life.

The Whig Party nominated him for President in 1848 despite his having no political experience, no clear party allegiance, and no expressed views on most policy issues. He won the November 1848 election against Democratic nominee Lewis Cass. His brief 16-month presidency was dominated by the slavery-extension question following the Mexican-American War's territorial acquisitions — California, New Mexico, and what is now Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. Taylor — who was himself a slaveholder owning over a hundred slaves on his Louisiana sugar plantation — surprised both Northern and Southern observers by opposing the extension of slavery into the new territories.

On July 4, 1850, Taylor attended Independence Day celebrations at the Washington Monument construction site in unusually hot weather and consumed large quantities of iced milk and cherries. He developed acute gastroenteritis that night and died five days later, on July 9, 1850, at age 65. His sudden death has been the subject of long-running historical speculation — including a 1991 exhumation of his remains to test for arsenic poisoning, which was inconclusive. He was succeeded by Vice President Millard Fillmore.

His name Zachary is from the Hebrew Zekharyah meaning "Yahweh has remembered" — referring to the Old Testament minor prophet. Zachary has been continuously among the most-popular American boys' names for decades.