UNITED STATES

General Zachary Taylor, the eleventh elected President of the United States, is dead. He was born, November 2, 1784, in Orange County, Virginia; and died July 9, 1850, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, at the White House in Washington City.

He was the second son of Richard Taylor, a Colonel in the Army of the Revolution. His youth was passed among the pioneers of Kentucky, whither his parents emigrated soon after his birth; and where his taste for military life, probably inherited, was greatly stimulated. Near the commencement of our last war with Great Britain, he was appointed, by President Jefferson, a Lieutenant in the Seventh Regiment of Infantry. During the war, he served under General Harrison in his North-Western campaign against the Indians; and, having been promoted to a Captaincy, was entrusted with the defense of Fort Harrison, with fifty men, half of them unfit for duty. A strong party of Indians, under the Prophet, brother of Tecumseh, made a midnight attack upon the Fort; but Taylor, though weak in his force, and without preparation, was resolute and on the alert; and after a battle, which lasted till after daylight, completely repulsed them. Soon after, he took a prominent part in the expedition under Major-General Hopkins against the Prophet's town; and on his return, found a letter from President Madison, who had succeeded Mr. Jefferson, conferring on him a Major's brevet for his gallant defense of Fort Harrison.

After the close of the British war, he remained in the frontier service of the West, till 1818. He was then transferred to the Southern frontier, where he remained, most of the time, in active service till 1826. In 1819, and during his service in the South, he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. In 1826 he was again sent to the North-West, where he continued until 1836. In 1832 he was promoted to the rank of Colonel. In 1836 he was ordered to the South to engage in what is well known as the Florida War. In the autumn of 1837 he fought and conquered in the memorable Battle of Okeechobee, one of the most desperate struggles known to the annals of Indian warfare. For this he was honored with the rank of Brigadier-General; and in 1838 was appointed to succeed General Jessup in command of the forces in Florida. In 1841 he was ordered to Fort Gibson to take command of the Second Military Department of the United States; and in September, 1844, was directed to hold the troops between the Red River and the Sabine in readiness to march as might be indicated by the charge of the United States, near Texas. In 1845 his forces were concentrated at Corpus Christi.

In obedience to orders, in March, 1846, he planted his troops on the Rio Grande opposite Matamoros. Soon after this, and near this place, a small detachment of General Taylor's forces, under Captain Thornton, was cut to pieces by a party of Mexicans. Open hostilities being thus commenced, and General Taylor being constantly menaced by Mexican forces vastly superior to his own in numbers, his position became exceedingly critical. Having erected a fort, he might defend himself against great odds while he could remain within it; but his provisions had failed, and there was no supply nearer than Point Isabel, between which and the new fort the country was open to, and full of, armed Mexicans. His resolution was at once taken. He garrisoned Fort Brown (the new fort) with a force of about four hundred; and, putting himself at the head of the main body of his troops, marched forthwith for Point Isabel. He met no resistance on his march. Having obtained his supplies, he began his return march, to the relief of Fort Brown, which he at first knew would be, and then knew had been, besieged by the enemy, immediately upon his leaving it. On the first or second day of his return march, the Mexican General, Arista, met General Taylor in front, and offered battle. The Mexicans numbered six or eight thousand, opposed to whom were about two thousand Americans. The moment was a trying one. Comparatively, Taylor's forces were but a handful; and few, of either officers or men, had ever been under fire. A brief council was held; and the result was the battle commenced. The issue of that contest all remember—remember with mingled sensations of pride and sorrow, that then American valor and powers triumphed, and then the gallant and accomplished and noble Ringgold fell.

The Americans passed the night on the field. The General knew the enemy was still in his front; and the question rose upon him, whether to advance or retreat. A council was again held; and it is said, the General overruled the majority, and resolved to advance. Accordingly, in the morning, he moved rapidly forward. At about four or five miles from Fort Brown he again met the enemy in force, who had selected his position, and made some hasty fortifications. Again the battle commenced, and raged till nightfall, when the Mexicans were entirely routed, and the General, with his fatigued and bleeding and reduced battalions, marched into Fort Brown. There was a joyous meeting. A brief hour before, whether all within had perished, all without feared, but none could tell—while the incessant roar of artillery wrought those within to the highest pitch of apprehension, that their brethren without were being massacred to the last man. And now the din of battle nears the fort, and sweeps obliquely by: a gleam of hope flies through the half-imprisoned few; they fly to the wall; every eye is strained; it is—it is—the Stars and Stripes are still aloft! Anon the anxious brethren meet; and while hand strikes hand, the heavens are rent with a loud, long, glorious, gushing cry of Victory! Victory!! Victory!!!

Soon after these battles, General Taylor was brevetted a Major-General in the United States Army.

In the meantime, war having been declared to exist between the United States and Mexico, provision was made to reinforce General Taylor; and he was ordered to march into the interior of Mexico. He next marched upon Monterey, arriving there on the nineteenth of September. He commenced an assault upon the city, on the twenty-first; and on the twenty-third, was about carrying it at the point of the bayonet, when General Ampudia capitulated. Taylor's forces consisted of four hundred and twenty-five officers, and nine thousand two hundred and twenty men. His artillery consisted of one ten-inch mortar, two twenty-four-pound howitzers, and eight field batteries of four guns, the mortar being the only piece serviceable for the siege. The Mexican works were armed with forty-two pieces of cannon, and manned with a force of at least seven thousand troops of the line, and from two to three thousand irregulars.

Next we find him advancing farther into the interior of Mexico, at the head of five thousand four hundred men, not more than six hundred being regular troops.

At Agua Nueva, he received intelligence that Santa Anna, the greatest military chieftain of Mexico, was advancing after him; and he fell back to Buena Vista, a strong position a few miles in advance of Saltillo. On the twenty-second of February, 1847, the battle, now called the Battle of Buena Vista, was commenced by Santa Anna at the head of twenty thousand well-appointed soldiers. This was General Taylor's great battle. The particulars of it are familiar to all. It continued through the twenty-third; and although General Taylor's defeat seemed inevitable, yet he succeeded by