Zachary Taylor : soldier, planter, statesman of the old Southwest Cover Image

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Zachary Taylor : soldier, planter, statesman of the old Southwest / K. Jack Bauer.

Bauer, K. Jack (Karl Jack), 1926- (author).

Summary:

Considering the course his life took, one might wonder how Zachary Taylor ever came to be elected the twelfth president of the United States. According to K. Jack Bauer, Taylor "was and remains an enigma." He was a southerner who espoused many antisouthern causes, an aristocrat with a strong feeling for the common man, an energetic yet cautious and conservative soldier. Not an intellectual, Taylor showed little curiosity about the world around him. In this bigraphy - the most comprehensive since Holman Hamilton's two-volume work published forty years ago - Bauer offers a fresh appraisal of Taylor's life and suggests that Taylor may have been neither so simple nor so nonpolitical as many historians have believed. Taylor's sixteen months as president were marked by disputes over California statehood and the Texas-New Mexico boundary. Taylor vehemently opposed slavery extension and threatened to hang those southern hotheads who favored violence and secession as a means to protect their interests. He died just as he had begun a reorganization of his administration and a recasting of the Whig party. --Back cover.

Record details

ISBN: 9780807118511
ISBN: 0807118516
ISBN: 9780807112373
ISBN: 0807112372
Physical Description: xxiv, 348 pages, 15 pages of plates : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 23 cm.
Edition: Louisana pbk. ed.
Publisher: Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, 2013.

Content descriptions

General Note:	Reprint, ninth printing. Originally published: ©1985.
Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 329-338) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	Young Zachary -- Taste of battle -- Career resumed -- Years on the Northern Mississippi -- Florida -- Return to the Southwest -- Texas -- Fighting starts -- On to Monterrey -- Buena Vista -- Soldier becomes a politician -- General becomes president -- Domestic affairs -- Foreign relations -- President faces disunion --President is dead.