Zachary Taylor

During his forty-year military career, Zachary Taylor fought in several armed conflicts against Native Americans, including the Black Hawk War (1832) and the Second Seminole War (1835–42). Following his successful command of U.S. troops during the Mexican-American War (1846–48), popular prints and songs bolstered Taylor’s renown as the “hero of Buena Vista.” This painting shows him astride his trusty warhorse, “Old Whitey,” before a backdrop of Mexican mountains and palm trees.

The U.S. victory against Mexico helped sweep Taylor into the presidency, but controversies arising from the war monopolized his brief term in office (1849–50). Disagreement over expanding slavery into the new western lands acquired from Mexico bitterly divided Congress and intensified the threat of Southern secession. Although Taylor held hun-dreds of enslaved laborers on his plantations in Mississippi and Louisiana, he prioritized preserving the Union over protecting slavery and promoted legislative compromises to avert a sectional crisis.