Wisconsin herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1846-1849, 1848-07-29
From The Philadelphia North .fmerican.
The Life and Character of Gen. Zach
sgt lauelnE airy Taylor. s8 sal
GEN. TAYLOR AT oKEECHoBEE,

1SO.
GEN. TAYLOR AT. oKEECHOBEE.
For twenty years succeeding the victory
Of Fort Harrison, that Is, from, 1912 to
1892, Zachary Taylor, though still serving
in the army, may be said to have returned
10 the life, and resumed the habits, of a
simple citizen. Fortune offered him no
further opportunities of victory, because
none of battle, during the remaining term Of
the British War; and, after that came a long
and happy period of profound peace, in
which the republic waxed in prosperity,
and the duties of the soldier We're to garri-
son posts, TO watch the frontier, to open
roads OF communication in the newer States
and ories,-employments presenting
none of the aspects of war, and not alto
gether incompatible with the enjoyments of
civil society and domestic happiness I'm
der such circumstances, aud amid such avo-
cations, General Taylor was always able TO
preserve unchanged the manly habits and
natural traits of his early life: and the events
Of the Mexican war have made all aware
that, even in the camp, the character OF the
citizen, in him, has never been lost IN that
of the military man.
The year 1882 was the period OF the
Black Hawk war, in which Taylor led
regiment, in the battle of the Bad Axe-the
only battle he has ever fought in which he
did not command. From 1886 to 1910, he
was in Florida, engaged in the Seminole
contest, in which the decisive victory OF
Okeechobee, on the Goth of December, 1887,
obtained for him his brevet of Brigadler
General, and the conduct Of the war, as
commander of the Florida troops, during
the two last years that he renamed in the
territory. We do not know that the battle
of Okeechobee, though interesting enough
from its fierce and sanguinary character,
and the brilliant success that crowned IT,
ought to, detain us from the review of the
far more important conflicts of the Mexi-
can war, in which the great qualities OF
TAYLOR were so suddenly and so signally
made manifest to the Union. In the deter
mined spirit, however, with which he set
out upon a march of one hundred and fifty
miles, disregarding all the impadiments of a
country impossible to artillery, and, in ac-
ton, to cavalry, resolved to storm the saw
ages out of their swanps and hamnlocks, he
exhibited the same energetic will, after
wards so strikingly Illustrated at Palb Alto
and LaPalma, as we'll as system Of tactics,
perhaps caught, in his boyish days, IN Ken
lucky, from some of those rugged hunter
heroes of the Indian wars, from whom, Us
tradition has it, he acquired his first lessons
IN the military art. There is, or used to be,
a story told in the West of certain charac-
ter, famous Indian fighter and a scout,
long remembered under the nickname of
Captain Dudley Bulger, derived from a
circumstance which we are going to men
ton, who used to belong TO the country a.
bout Salt River, the very region in which
the elder Taylor had established his family.
This worthy, inihis capacity of scout, ac-
coinpanied General Wayne in the expedi-
ton against the Northwestern Indians in
1894; and, on the eve of the battle of the
Fallen Timber, coming in with the latest re-
port of the position of the Indian army,
(strongly posted among thckets and fallen
trees) was admitted into the Generals tent,
at the moment of Il council of war; when
Wayne, who had, doubtless, formed his
own resolution, was about to demand the
opinion of his officers. Some advised one,
and some another method of attack, until
all had spoken; when Wayne, perhaps tor
the humor and joke of the thing, turned
suddenly, and demanded the opinion of the
scout, s.Why, Gcneral," replied the infre-
pid scout, slf you axes me what 10 do,
should say, just move ahead and b0otge
right over themi' sentiment highly APP
proved by Mad Anthony; who, accordingly,
charged the Indians out of their lair with
l,ayonets, and so, to the great delight and
immortal honor of his adviser, 'booIged right
over them.' f ne,
II was the s'boolging" system of tactics
which Colonel Taylor chose to employ a.
gainst the Seminole Indians at Okeechobee;
and this, too, in the face of obstacles greater
and far more Formidable than those encoun-
tered by Wayne at the Fallen Timber
The long forced march brought his conn
mand, of about eight hundred men, in view
of the Seminoles, posted in great force in
one of those swamps, with which Florida
abounds--those Serbonian bogs amid which,
three hundred years before, the chivalry- of
De Sote melted away. horse and man, IN
the vain effort to reduce the fierce ancestors
of the Seminoles TO the Spanish yoke The
swamp surrounding the hammock of Olsee-
chobee was three-quartes Of mile wide,
socially impassible." as Taylor himself
says, 'sfor horses, and nearly so for foot, p
a wilderness of mud and water and thick
saw-g ass, FIVE feet high, and deep creeks
and quagmires, extending "as far as the eve
could reach;'' and behind this desperate APP
proach, lay the sayages in the gloom of the
hammock, covering and commanding every
step with their rifles. Nevertheless, Colo
mel Taylor had made up his mind--he does
not seem to have thought il necessary 70
call council of war: he had marched one
hundred and fifty miles to find the Indians,
and he had them before him. He made bis
dispositions, therefore, without delay, aud
proceeded to execute his plan of battle,
which was ITO boolge right over ihem.v Into
the swamp-march-cha first line, sec
ond line--frm and steady fright through
the torment Of the tangled ssw-gras; right
through bayou and quagsnire; right through
the sudden hurricane of. Indian bullets and
the storm Of triumphant war-wlloop=, ar
swered by the splash of The deaih-faIl snd