Birth of Zachary Taylor

Zachary Taylor was born on 24 November 1784 in Barboursville. The 12th President of the United States, Taylor was a career army officer who became a national hero in the Mexican-American War through victories at Monterrey and Buena Vista. Nicknamed Old Rough and Ready, he had never voted or held political office when the Whig Party nominated him in 1848. Though a Louisiana slaveholder, he opposed the extension of slavery into the new western territories and wanted California admitted as a free state, which angered Southern leaders. As disputes over slavery threatened the Union, he died in July 1850 after about sixteen months in office, and his successor, Millard Fillmore, signed the Compromise of 1850.

Open on the timeline