Zachary Taylor

Zachary Taylor was a United States Army officer whose victories during the Mexican-American War made him a national political figure. He had previously served in the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War and the Second Seminole War. Elected as the twelfth president of the United States in 1848, he served only sixteen months before dying in office in 1850.

In Lucia St. Clair Robson’s Fearless, Taylor’s army provides the military setting through which Sarah A. Bowman moves during the Mexican-American War. Historical fiction often presents him as the plain-spoken soldier known as Old Rough and Ready, but his career also raises questions about territorial conquest, slavery and the conversion of battlefield celebrity into presidential authority.