march almost unmolested on Mexico City, which fell on
14 September 1847. At the same time, Generals Stephen
Kearney and John Fremont took control of New Mexico
and California respectively, all under Scott’s direction.
When Scott returned to the United States, he received
the official thanks of the U.S. Congress. At this point, he
was the most popular military officer in America since
George Washington.
When the Whigs met in convention in Baltimore
in June 1852, their party, although in control of the
White House, was deeply divided over several issues,
mostly dealing with slavery—so divided that the party’s
two wings could not agree on a presidential candidate.
The southerns, proslavery wing agreed to support the
incumbent president, Millard Fillmore, who had suc-
ceeded to the office in 1850 upon the death of President
Zachary Taylor. The antislavery northerners, however,
were angry with Fillmore, a New Yorker, for his sup-
port of the Compromise of 1850, and they turned to
Scott—ironically, a southerner from Virginia—because
he did not support the controversial compromise. After
a prolonged process in which Fillmore and Scott became
deadlocked and Senator Daniel Webster was brought
in as a compromise candidate, a group of delegates
committed to Fillmore broke to Scott, giving him the
nomination. Secretary of the Navy William Alexander
Graham was selected as his running mate.
Slavery was the dominant election issue: The Dem-
ocrats, who nominated Senator Franklin Pierce of New
Hampshire, supported the rights of slave owners and the
Compromise of 1850, while Scott and the Whigs were
against the compromise but did not advocate an end to
slavery. Scott might have won had not the abolitionist
Free Soil Party entered the race with its candidate, New
Hampshire senator John P. Hale. In numerous northern
states crucial to Scott’s election chances, Hale’s ticket
took away vital votes, giving those states to Pierce, who
defeated Scott, 254 electoral votes to 42. Scott won only
the four states of Kentucky, Massachusetts, Tennes-
see, and Vermont; Hale won no electoral votes, but his
155,210 votes caused the balance of power to tip to the
Democrats.
Three years later, Pierce nominated Scott to the
brevet rank of lieutenant general, making Scott the first
man to hold that post since George Washington. On
28 February 1855, the president sent a message to the
U.S. Senate: “For eminent services in the late war with
Mexico, I nominate Major General Winfield Scott, of
the army of the United States, to be Lieutenant General
by brevet in the same, to take rank, as such, from March
29, 1847, the day on which the United States forces,
under his command, captured Veracruz and the castle of
San Juan de Ulua. Franklin Pierce.”
Six years after attaining this high rank, Scott was
once again called on to serve his country when, follow-
ing the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln to the
presidency, a number of southern slave states seceded
from the Union, a step that led to civil war. Unlike his
fellow Virginian, General Robert E. lee, who resigned
his commission to serve the new Confederate States
Army, Scott—then 74 years old and still commander
in chief—chose to support the Union cause. Weighing
nearly 300 pounds, suffering from severe bouts of gout,
and unable to mount his horse, he was known as “Old
Fuss and Feathers.” Scott knew his limitations and asked
President Lincoln to name a field commander under
him. Lincoln turned to George B. mcclellan, who
resented having Scott as his superior and disparaged the
military hero whenever he could. Through no fault of
his, Scott became more unpopular as the Union army
lost several early battles, most notably at the Bull Run
(21 July 1861). He believed the war would not be won
quickly, a view most Union commanders found ridicu-
lous, and recommended that the Confederate States be
blockaded from the sea, to cut off the southern states’
supplies of matériel.
The end for Scott came after the Union defeat at
Ball’s Bluff (21 October 1861). On 1 November 1861,
he offered President Lincoln his resignation, which was
accepted; that same day, Lincoln gave his command
to McClellan. Scott retired, writing his memoirs and
spending a year in Europe. Meanwhile, as he had pre-
dicted, the war dragged on for four long years. It ended
only when Ulysses S. grant and William Tecum-
seh sherman followed Scott’s plan of blockading the
South, slowly tightening the Union grip on its borders
and leading to the inevitable Confederacy defeat.
Scott lived to see the end of the war, dying at West
Point, New York, on 29 May 1866, two week before his
80th birthday. Although he had not attended the United
States Military Academy at West Point, he was buried
there. Having served his country in three important con-
flicts, Scott is probably best remembered for his brilliant
Mexican campaign. A skilled diplomat in peacetime and
a farsighted strategist and tactician in war, he lived to see
his foresighted strategic advice justified in the war thatScott, winFielD