USA > Virginia > Virginia and Virginians; eminent Virginians, executives of the colony of Virginia, Vol. II > Part 12
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December 4, 1839, General Harrison received the nomination from the Whig party, and the canvass which followed was the most remarkable one that had been witnessed in American politics to that date. It was the " log cabin and hard cider " campaign; the "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" campaign. The press and politicians who rallied about Van Buren brought forward as a slur against Harrison that he lived in a log cabin and drank nothing but hard cider. The friends of Harrison caught up the implied reproach and made it their rallying cry. Their political meet- ings were held in halls on whose walls were inscribed the words, "log cabin and hard cider," their processions were headed by banners bearing the inscription, and accompanied by miniature log cabins borne in teams or on the shoulders of Harrison supporters.
A wave of popular enthusiasm swept the country, landing William Henry Harrison in the White House, March 4, 1841, with 234 electoral votes, and stranding Martin Van Buren at Kinderhook, he having received only 60 electoral votes.
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The new president, a man of slender constitution and now almost three score and ten years of age, entered upon his presidential duties after this exciting campaign, only to fall a victim to an illness which in eight days from its first appearance culminated in his death just one month from the day on which he took the oath of office.
JOHN TYLER,
Tenth President of the United States, was born March 29, 1790, and died January 17, 1862, in his 72d year.
He was born in Charles City county, Virginia, the second son of John Tyler, a patriot of the Revolution, and governor of Virginia, 1808-11. John Tyler, sr., was also made a judge of admiralty for Virginia, and was holding that office at the time of his death, in 1813. His wife, the mother of the subject of this sketch, was Mary, only child of Robert Armstead, whose ancestors emigrated to Virginia from Hesse-Darmstadt, in early colonial days.
John Tyler received a collegiate and legal training, being graduated from William and Mary College in 1807, and admitted to the bar in 1809. He was never in active practice of his profession, entering public life in 1811, when he was elected to the State legislature.
He served five years in the legislature, or until his election, in 1816, to fill a vacancy in Congress. To this position he was twice re-elected. In the House he was a member of what was becoming known as the Southern party. He voted in favor of the resolutions of censure on Jackson's con. duct in the Seminole war ; and his negative vote is recorded against inter- nal improvements; against United States banks; against a protective policy; and he strongly opposed and voted against any restriction on the extension of slavery into the territories. In 1819 he resigned, on account of ill health.
1823-5, he was a leading member of the Virginia legislature, and in December, 1825, was chosen governor of that Commonwealth, serving two terms of one year each.
In March, 1831, Tyler was chosen to succeed John Randolph of Roan- oke, as United States Senator, and in 1833 he was re-appointed. During his term in the Senate he was one of the most active members of that body. His vote was almost invariably recorded against any act favored by Adams and his cabinet. As in the House, he now set himself against internal improvements, and a protective tariff. He voted against the tariff bill of 1828, and during the debate on Clay's tariff resolutions, session of 1831-32, Tyler spoke three days on the question. He opposed direct protection, and argued for a tariff for revenue, with incidental protection to home in. dustry.
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In 1832, he was in sympathy with the nullification movement of South Carolina, and spoke against the " force bill." The bill passed the Senate with only one negative vote recorded. Calhoun and others of its oppo- nents retired from the chamber when the motion was to be put, and only John Tyler voted against it. He also voted for Clay's "compromise bill," by which the trouble was adjusted.
Receiving from his constituents a request that a vote of his should be expunged from the records, Tyler resigned and returned to Virginia before the expiration of his second term of service in the Senate. He removed to Williamsburg, James City county, and became affiliated in politics with the Southern Whig movement. From this party he received the nomination for vice-president in 1836, and for that office the electoral vote was given him in the States of Maryland, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee.
In 1838, the James county Whigs elected him to the State legislature, where he served until he received the nomination for vice-president in 1839. The Whig delegates convened at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, December 4, 1839, and Tyler was present as a member of the convention from Virginia. They nominated Harrison and Tyler, and these candi- dates were elected in the following year, entering upon their respective offices March 4, 1841.
On the death of President Harrison, one month later, John Tyler became his constitutional successor. He was called to Washington from his home in Williamsburg, by Harrison's cabinet, on the 4th of April (the day on which the president died), and he reached the national capital at four o'clock on the morning of the 6th. At noon the ministers called upon him in a body, and Judge Cranch administered to him the oath of office. To the supporters of the administration gathered about him, Tyler said : "You have only exchanged one Whig for another."
His course as chief executive of the nation was not in consonance with this assurance. Before a year had elapsed he had lost the confidence of the Whig party, principally by his veto of the bank bill, which was strictly a Whig measure. When the bill had been amended so as, it was thought, to meet his approval, and had been again vetoed, his entire cabinet (the one chosen by Harrison) resigned, with the exception of Daniel Webster, Secretary of State, who was then engaged in important negotiations with England, and who resigned as soon as those negotiations were completed. During the three remaining years of his administration, Tyler was three times compelled to form a new cabinet.
In May, 1844, a Whig convention assembled at Baltimore, Maryland, nominated Tyler for the presidency, and the nomination was accepted. But the convention was not a voice of the people, being composed princi- pally of office holders under Tyler, and the president, finding that his defeat at the polls was certain, withdrew his acceptance of the nomination, and at the end of his four years retired to private life.
Wine
John Tyler.
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Mr. Tyler's administration had been a stormy one, as the many cabinet changes sufficiently indicate. Sincere in his attachment to the Whig party, he was no sooner surrounded by its-leaders, than he saw that the policy they would have dictated was one not for the country's interests. However painful his position was made by that knowledge, however much his consequent actions, necessarily antag- onistic to party ends, were condemned, he was faithful to his own more statesmanlike views. In less than twenty years his course was justified. In less than twenty years the party he had endeavored to hold in check had become, under another name, a party bent upon plunging the country into civil war.
In February, 1861, he presided over the Peace Congress which was convened in Washington, pursuant to a call from the Legislature of Virginia, but he had no hope of good results from its deliberations. In a public speech in Richmond, Virginia, the day following that on which the Congress closed its session, he stated that the South had nothing to hope, but in separation. Acting upon his convictions, Mr. Tyler renounced his allegiance to the government, and entered upon active labors in behalf of the Southern Confederacy. He was one of the committee who, in April, 1861, transferred to the service of the Confederate government, the military forces of Virginia, and when the seat of that government was established at Richmond, Virginia, he was a member of its Congress. In that capacity he was serving when his death occurred.
ZACHARY TAYLOR,
Twelfth President of the United States, was born November 24, 1784, and died July 9, 1850, aged 66 years.
His birth was in Orange county, Virginia, and he was a son of Col- . onel Richard and Sarah (Strothers) Taylor, both parents of eminent Virginia families. The Virginian Taylors were allied to the oldest and most distinguished families in that State-the Madisons, the Lees, the Pendletons, the Barbours, the Conways, the Gaineses, the Hunts, the Taliaferros.
But the character of our twelfth President seems to have been largely determined by the rude border life in which his childhood and youth were passed. Battling with the hardships and dangers of frontier life, rather than Virginia cultivation, stamped the charac- ter of him who was to be known as " Old Rough and Ready."
In 1785, Colonel Taylor settled with his little family in Kentucky, in what is now Jefferson county, two miles from the Ohio river, and tive miles from the present site of Louisville. Here young Zachary grew to
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manhood, his earlier years spent in the acquisition of such book knowledge as could be obtained ; and his time, when he had grown old enough and strong enough, given to the actual labors of the farm, where he worked with his father until he was nearly twenty-four years old.
His book learning was confined to a knowledge of reading, writing, spelling, and plain arithmetic, but during his boyhood's days he also acquired a love for military life from the many border skirmishes with the Indians of which he was a spectator, or in which he participated. His instructor in the arts of warfare was one Whetsel, a noted border charac- ter, who taught young Taylor how to load and "fire running." The lat- ter accomplishment Taylor never availed himself of.
May 3, 1808, Zachary Taylor received a commission as first lieutenant in the 7th United States Infantry, and his regiment marched under Har- rison in his expedition against the Indians of the Northwest. Taylor was now in active service until the close of the second war with England. In the beginning of the year 1812, President Madison commissioned him cap- tain, and he was placed in command of Fort Harrison, on the Wabash.
Here he achieved the first of those brilliant victories which in after years formulated the axiom, " Taylor never surrenders," on which his sol- diers enthusiastically relied. On the night of September 4, 1812, a band of 400 Indians fell upon the fort, expecting to surprise it and massacre its garrison. They succeeded, in the first onslaught, in firing the block-house, in which the garrison's stock of whisky was stored, and it burned with un- controllable fury. Captain Taylor, then only twenty-eight years of age, found himself shut up in a burning fort, with 400 savages outside its walls, and only fifty men at his command, twenty-six of them sick with malarial fever, and unfitted for duty. He calmed the women and child- ren, encouraged the men, directed the control of the flames, held the fort and defeated the enemy. For this victory he was brevetted major by President Madison.
In 1816, Major Taylor was ordered to Green Bay, and remained in com- mand of that post for two years. Then returning to Kentucky he passed one year with his family, and was then ordered to New Orleans. In 1822 he superintended the erection of Fort Jesup; in 1824 was in the re- cruiting service, then ordered to Washington, and thence to the South again. He had been made lieutenant-colonel in 1819, and in 1832 was promoted to the rank of colonel. The contest known as the "Black Hawk War" opened in 1832, and Colonel Taylor commanded the expedi- tion which resulted in the defeat and capture of Black Hawk. His mili- tary decision was shown in this campaign by his control of his own troops, as much as by his action against the enemy. The pursuit of Black Hawk's band had brought the troops to Rock River, the northwestern boundary of Illinois. Here the militia, called out (as they claimed) to defend their State, considered their services ended. The orders of Taylor were to continue the pursuit with his " full army."
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The militia held a sort of town meeting, at which Taylor was present. Deceived by his quiet manner, the leaders of the movement for disbanding grew insolent, and the spirit of mutiny was augmented by their inflam- matory speeches. When Taylor had listened to several of these gentle- men, his own speech was ready : " Gentlemen, the word has been passed on to me from Washington to follow Black Hawk, and to take you with me as soldiers. I mean to do both. There are the flat boats drawn up on the shore, and here are Uncle Sam's men drawn up behind you on the prairie." The militia did not disband that day.
After the Black Hawk war, Colonel Taylor was in command at Fort Craw- ford, Prairie du Chien, where he remained until, in 1836, his services were required in Florida in the Seminole war. In Florida he won the battle of Okee-chobee, January, 1838, and was promoted to brigadier-general. In April, 1838, he was appointed to the command of the Florida troops, and continued in that responsible position until he was relieved in April, 1840, at his own request.
He was at once appointed to the command of the army of the south- west, which comprehended the States of Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana, with headquarters at Fort Jesup, in the latter State.
The annexation of Texas, in 1845, and the consequent war with Mexico, next called General Taylor into active service. He was ordered to the frontier of Texas, and made his headquarters on the Rio Grande del Norte.
The war which followed terminated in success to the American arms and independence for Texas, and recorded the name of General Taylor as vic- tor at Palo Alto, Reseca de la Palma, Monterey and Beuna Vista.
The battle of Beuna Vista was the last in which General Taylor en- gaged. He returned to his home, now in his 63d year, to find that a por- tion of the people desired to reward his services by making him the chief magistrate of the nation. His own views upon accepting the honor ten- dered him were expressed in a letter written before he left the seat of war. He desired to be "elected by the general voice of the people, without regard to their political differences." His want of knowledge cf party politics is explained, however, in the same letter. He says: "I have never yet exercised the privilege of voting." The soldier had been too busy all his life fighting for all America, to interest himself in any sec- tional or party question.
He was nominated by the Whig convention at Baltimore, June 7, 1848, and elected in the November following. His opponent was Lewis Cass, of Michigan, and the electoral vote stood : Taylor, 163; Cass, 127.
The inaugural ceremonies were observed March 5, 1849,. the 4th of March that year falling upon Sunday. His administration of affairs ex- tended over very little more than a year, and was principally occupied in long debates over the adjustment of the questions connected with the new territory of the United States.
Z.Taylor-
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July 4, 1850, President Taylor attended some national demonstra- tions in honor of the day, in his usual health and spirits. In the even- ing, while overheated, he partook freely of fruits and iced water and milk. Within an hour he was seized with cramps which took the form of violent cholera morbus, and after lingering in terrible pain until the end, death supervened at 1 p. m., July 9th.
Taylor married in 1810, and the wife of forty years knelt at his death-bed with their weeping children about her, and his last unintel- ligible word was an effort to speak to her once more. Of the four chil- dren born of their union, three survived him and were present at his death-bed, his only son, Colonel Taylor, and two daughters. One of his sons-in-law was Jefferson Davis, who had served under him in Mexico, and later became the president of the Confederate States. The death of President Taylor was widely mourned; the people, who hold him second only to Washington, mourned a popular hero; the army mourned "Old Rough and Ready." The loss to the Nation was the loss of a sincere patriot and an honest man. A man of application as well as of military genius, he has left an enduring record.
GOVERNOR FITZHUGH LEE.
If there be aught of assurance of, and incitation to, worthy exemplifi- cation in a heritage of lineal record of honor and dutiful action, then might confidence have been held in the career of Fitzhugh Lee, in whom is united the blood of patriots, whose names and deeds are indis- solubly and imperishably connected with the history of our Union and of Virginia.
Fitzhugh Lee (or Fitz Lee, as he was familiarly styled in the army, and is still popularly known, and as he subscribed himself until ro- cently), son of Commodore Sydney Smith Lee (a brother of General Robert E. Lee), late of the Confederate States navy, and formerly of the United States navy, was born at " Clermont," the seat of his grand- father, General John Mason, in Fairfax County, Va., November 19, 1835. His mother, Anne Mason, was the granddaughter of George Mason, of "Gunston Hall," the author of the Virginia Bill of Rights. She was the sister of Hon. James Murray Mason, of Mason and Slidell fame. The family name of Fitzhugh has been held in cherished recogni- tion in Virginia for two centuries.
Fitzhugh Lee was appointed a cadet at large to West Point Military Academy, July 1, 1852, and was graduated July 1, 1856, and appoint- ed brevet second lieutenant of United States cavalry. Among his class graduates were Generals Samuel S. Carroll, W. P. Sanders, J. W.
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Forsyth, George D. Bayard, Herman Biggs, Francis M. Vinton, Or- lando M. Poc, Miles D. McAllister and John K. Mozart, of the Federal Army, and Generals Wm. H. ("Mudwall") Jackson and L. L. Lomax, of the Confederate army. His first service was in the cavalry school at Carlisle, Pa., where he remained until January 1, 1858, when, at his own request, he was assigned to duty with his regiment, the Second Cavalry, on frontier service; was at Forts Inge and Mason, and Camp Radmin- ezbec, Texas, scouting against the Indians; on May 13, 1859, in a comt- bat in Nescatunga Valley, Texas, with the Comanches, was shot through the lungs with an arrow and his life despaired of; later, at Camps Cooper and Colorado, Texas, near the last of which was engaged in a hand to hand combat with the Comanche Indians; in November, 1860, was detached from his regiment and ordered to report to West Point as instructor of cavalry, a complimentary detail. Under his tuition there were several who were subsequently famous as cavalry officers-Generals Kilpatrick and Custer being among them; promoted first lieutenant, of cavalry March 31, 1861; resigned his commission May 31, 1861, and offered his services to his native state.
His first service in the Confederate States army was in the Adjutant- General's department, under General Beauregard at Manassas, and in the battle of July 21, 1861, he served on the staff of General Ewell. In Sep- tember following he was, upon the recommendation of General Joseph E. Johnston (then in command of the army) and General J. E. B. Stuart, commanding its cavalry, made lieutenant-colonel of the First Virginia Cavalry (Stuart's old regiment), and at the reorganization of that command in April, 1862, near Yorktown, he was elected colonel. On the retreat from Yorktown, Lee's regiment was given the duty of watching York river, and it was he who first gave information of the flanking movement of Franklin, and of his locating at Barhamsville. Lee personally reconnoitered so close to the enemy that he was en- abled to give not ouly the number but the names of their gunboats and transports. In the succeeding operations around Richmond, Lee was with the command of General Stuart, and participated in all of the enterprises of that officer.
About the middle of June, 1862, Stuart executed his famous raid around the army of Mcclellan as it lay in front of Richmond, and Lee, with his regiment, was selected to accompany him, sharing with one other regiment and a battalion the hazards of that feat, which - blazed the way for Jackson's subsequent flank movement." After the battles around Richmond more cavalry was brought from southern states and formed into a second brigade under General Wade Hampton, and Stuart was promoted to the rank of major-general and assigned to the command of the division, Lee being promoted to brigadier-general and
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to the command of Stuart's old brigade, composed of the 1st, 3d, 4th, 5th and 9th regiments of Virginia cavalry, with a battery of horse ar- tillery under Captain James Bunthed. In thelatter part of 1863 the cav- alry of the Army of Northern Virginia was divided into two divisions of three brigades each, and Hampton and Lee promoted to command them, the two being under Stuart as senior major-general. Theskill and cour- age evinced by Fitz Lee occasioned the repeated mention of his name in theexact reports of the commander-in-chief of the Army of Northern Vir- ginia, made it familiar to the publie, and the latter, in May, 1863, soon after the battle of Chancellorsville, in a letter, thus warmly commended him: " Your admirable conduct, devotion to the cause of your country, and devotion to duty, fill me with pleasure. I hope you will soon see her efforts for independence crowned with success, and long live to enjoy the affection and gratitude of your country." Again, he wrote: "Your division has always had a high reputation. It must not lose it."
In the disastrous battle of Winchester Fitz Lee was conspicuous in his gallantry, exposing himself in every part of the field. Three horses were shot under him, one his beautiful mare, Nelly Gray, a favorite of the command, and at last he was brought to ground by a minie-ball which pierced his thigh. He was kept from duty by this wound for several months. In the spring of 1865 he was summoned to Richmond, and, by order of the commanding general, placed in command of the cavalry corps of the Army of Northern Virginia. He was one of the three corps commanders (the others being Gordon and Longstreet) who, with General Robert E. Lee, composed the council of war just before the surrender at Appomatox C. H., April 9, 1865. The cavalry, having cut their way through the enemy's lines, to save their horses, before the surrender, General Fitz Lee, thus without a command, remained to share with his loved commander and relative the cares and trials of the bitter closing act of a resplendent drama.
The war over, he turned his attention as earnestly to a peaceful vocation as he had been devoted in arms, and is said to have literally put "his hands to the plough." He first farmed at "Richland," in Stafford county, and later near Alexandria, Va. Accepting the result of the war, General Lee endeavored by genial influence to aid as far as in him lay the fraternization of the late contending sections, and in his utterances and engaging presence, it is claimed, has accomplished much in the cause of conciliation. His address at the Bunker Hill Centennial was widely conunnended. At the Yorktown Centennial in 1881 he was a conspicuous figure. At the inauguration of President Cleveland he commanded the Virginia Brigade, and received a continu- ous and enthusiastic recognition. In several visits north and the west
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since, he has been welcomed with the utmost cordiality. On November 3, 1885, he was elected Governor of Virginia over the republican nominec, John Sargeant Wise, by a majority of about sixteen thousand, and took his seat January 1, 1886. The administration of Governor Lee, which has comprehended a serious wrangle by the English bond- holders over the state debt, has been conservative and generally judicious. Governor Lee was urged as an available candidate for the nomination of Vice-President by the late National Democratic Conven- tion. Governor Lee has a bright blue eye, and is of genial presence. Rather below medium stature, and originally of slight physique, he has developed into a figure, Napoleonic in bulk. Heishappily married, and has an engaging household. He married Miss Ellen Bernard, daughter of George Fowle, Esq., of Alexandria, Va., and has five chil- dren: Ellen Fowle, Fitzhugh, George Dashiell, Nannie Fitzhugh and Virginia, the last named after the state, having been born in the gubernatorial mansion.
R. A. BROCK.
Robert Alonzo Brock, eldest son and child of Robert King and Eliza- beth Mildred (Ragland) Brock, was born in Richmond, Va., March 9, 1839.
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