CHAPTER VII.

TAYLOR.

Early life of Taylor—Defence of Fort Harrison—Expedition against the Winnebagoes—Black Hawk war—Florida — Battle of Okee-Chobee—Taylor stationed in the west.

Previous to the war with Mexico there was but one major-general in the army; but as by the act of congress of 1845-46 it was increased, and a number of generals of both grades to command volunteers appointed, it became necessary to commission other generals of the army proper, among whom was a major-general. This commission was conferred on General Zachary Taylor, at that time a brevet brigadier-general and colonel of the 1st infantry.

Zachary Taylor was born in the county of Orange, in Virginia, in the year 1790, on an estate which had been almost from the days of colonization in possession of his family. His ancestors had emigrated in the days of the early settlement from England, and at once occupied a high social and political rank in their new home. In the list of the adherents of Bacon, the rebel, as Sir William Berkeley styled him, is found the name of B. Taylor, of Caroline. It subsequently appears in the annals of the colony and state, connected with the most distinguished men of the country.

In the year 1790, when Kentucky was a district of Virginia, Colonel Dick Taylor, as he was ever called, emigrated thither with his whole family, in company with the elder Croghan, Colonel Bullett, and others of scarcely less note. The country was then a wilderness, the cattle-field of the Indians north of the Ohio, and of the great tribes established south and east of the Alleghany. These various nations were attracted to it by the chase, and collisions ensued whenever two parties chanced to meet. Subsequently, when the population from Virginia and Carolina began to tend thither, frequent incursions were made against the settlements or stations of the whites. During the revolution, Colonel Taylor commanded one of the Virginia regiments, and served repeatedly under the eye of the Father of his country, in the respect of whom he occupied a high position. In the Indian wars of Kentucky, he was distinguished by his daring and cool skill, and when peace was restored held many civil stations of trust and importance. He was one of the framers of the constitution of the state, and subsequently represented both the city of Louisville and the county of Jefferson in the senate and house of representatives of the state. He died not long since on his plantation near Louisville, leaving six children, Hancock, Zachary, and Joseph, Elizabeth, Sarah, and Emily. Of these Zachary, Joseph, and Sarah, alone are living.

General Taylor grew up amid a border war, which left its impresssion permanently on his mind. It prepared him for his subsequent career, and fully developed the daring disposition which has ever characterized him. A hundred anecdotes of his boyhood are told, illustrative of his life, curious, but necessarily excluded from such a sketch as this is. After enjoying as many advantages as at that time could be obtained in Kentucky, and profiting by the instructions of his father, an alumnus of William and Mary College, Taylor found him