The war with Mexico found two able generals ready to hand, and laid the
foundations of the reputations of many more. "Old Rough and Ready"
Zachary Taylor, who commanded during the campaign which ended with the
brilliant victory at Buena Vista, had been tested in the fire of
frontier warfare, and won the presidency in 1848; and Franklin Pierce,
who commanded one of the divisions which captured the City of Mexico,
won the same prize four years later. It was in this war that Grant, Lee,
Johnston, Davis, Meade, Hooker, Thomas, Sherman, and a score of others
who were to win fame fifteen years later, got their baptism of fire.
Their history belongs to the period of the Civil War and will be told
there; but the chief military glory of the war with Mexico centres about
a man who divided the honors of the War of 1812 with Andrew Jackson but
who failed to achieve the presidency, and whose usefulness had ended
before the Civil War began--Winfield Scott.
A Virginian, born in 1786, Scott entered the army at an early age, and
had reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel at the opening of the second
war with England. Two years later, he was made a brigadier-general, and
commanded at the fierce and successful battles of Chippewa and Lundy's
Lane. At the close of the war, he was made a major-general, and received
the thanks of Congress for his services.
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