John S. D. Eisenhower, son of another soldier-president, profiles Zachary Taylor’s rise from a Kentucky-raised army officer to the nation’s 12th president. Taylor’s Mexican War victories at Palo Alto, Monterrey, and Buena Vista made him a national hero and, in 1848, the first man elected president without ever holding lower office.
As California’s 1849 statehood bid ignited the era’s fiercest fight over slavery, Taylor, a slaveholder himself, backed its admission as a free state. He died suddenly in July 1850, just sixteen months into his term, leaving unresolved a rift that would soon split the country apart.
Published 2008
192 pages
$17.28