Winfield Scott
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Winfield Scott (June 13 1786 – May 29 1866) was a United States Army general, diplomat, and presidential candidate. Known as "Old Fuss and Feathers" and the "Grand Old Man of the Army", he served on active duty as a general longer than any other man in American history and most historians rate him the ablest American commander of his time. Over the course of his fifty-year career, he commanded forces in the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Black Hawk War, the Second Seminole War, and, briefly, the American Civil War, conceiving the Union strategy known as the Anaconda Plan that would be used to defeat the Confederacy.
A national hero after the Mexican War, he served as military governor of Mexico City. Such was his stature that, in 1852, the United States Whig Party passed over its own incumbent President of the United States, Millard Fillmore, to nominate Scott in the U.S. presidential election. Scott lost to Democrat Franklin Pierce in the general election, but remained a popular national figure, receiving a brevet promotion in 1856 to the rank of lieutenant general, becoming the first American since George Washington to hold that rank.
Early life
Scott was born on his family's farm near Petersburg, Virginia. He was educated at the College of William & Mary and was a lawyer and a Virginia militia cavalry corporal before being directly commissioned as captain in the artillery in 1808. Scott's early years in the U.S. Army were tumultuous. His commission as a colonel was suspended for one year following a court-martial for insubordination in criticizing his commanding general.
War of 1812
During the War of 1812 Scott was captured during the Battle of Queenston Heights in 1813, but was released in a prisoner exchange. Upon release, he returned to Washington to pressure the Senate to take punitive action against British prisoners of war in retaliation for the British executing thirteen American POWs of Irish extraction captured at Queenston Heights (the British considered them British subjects and traitors). The Senate wrote the bill after Scott's urging but President James Madison refused to enforce it, believing that the summary execution of prisoners of war to be unworthy of civilized nations. In March 1814, Scott was brevetted brigadier general. In July 1814, Scott commanded the First Brigade of the American army in the Niagara campaign, winning the battle of Chippewa decisively. He was wounded during the bloody but indecisive Battle of Lundy's Lane, along with the American commander, Major General Jacob Brown, and the British/Canadian commander, Lieutenant General Gordon Drummond. As the American army retreated across the Niagara, Scott commanded the American forces at Fort Erie, another American victory. Scott's success on the Niagara, combined with American naval victories at Lake Champlain and Lake Erie, guaranteed a stalemate on the northern frontier. Scott's wounds from Lundy's Lane were so severe that he did not serve on active duty for the remainder of the war.
Scott earned the nickname of "Old Fuss and Feathers" for his insistence of military appearance and discipline in the U.S. Army, which consisted mostly of volunteers. In his own campaigns, General Scott preferred to use a core of U.S. Army Regulars whenever possible.
Nullification and the Trail of Tears
In the administration of President Andrew Jackson, Scott marshaled United States forces for use against the state of South Carolina in the Nullification Crisis. In 1838, following the orders of President Martin Van Buren, Scott carried out the initial removal of Cherokee Indians from Georgia—what later became known as the Trail of Tears. He also helped defuse tensions between officials of the state of Maine and the British Canada province of New Brunswick in the undeclared and bloodless Aroostook War in March 1839.
As a result of his success, Scott was appointed major general (then the highest rank in the United States Army) and general-in-chief in 1841, serving until 1861.
During his time in the military, Scott also fought in the Black Hawk War, the Second Seminole War, and, briefly, the American Civil War.
Scott as tactician
After the War of 1812, Scott translated several Napoleonic manuals into English. Upon direction of the War Department, Scott published Abstract of Infantry Tactics, Including Exercises and Manueuvres of Light-Infantry and Riflemen, for the Use of the Militia of the United States in 1830 for the use of the American militia.
In 1840, Scott wrote Infantry Tactics, Or, Rules for the Exercise and Maneuvre of the United States Infantry. This three-volume work was the standard drill manual for the U.S. Army until William J. Hardee's Tactics were published in 1855.
General Scott was very interested in the professional development of the cadets of the U.S. Military Academy.[1]
Mexican War
During the Mexican-American War, Scott commanded the southern of the two United States armies (Zachary Taylor commanded the northern army). Landing at Veracruz, Scott, assisted by his colonel of engineers, Robert E. Lee, and perhaps inspired by William H. Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico, followed the approximate route taken by Hernán Cortés in 1519 and assaulted Mexico City. Scott's opponent in this campaign was Mexican president and general Antonio López de Santa Anna. Despite high heat, rains, and difficult terrain, Scott won the battles of Cerro Gordo, Contreras/Padierna, Churubusco, and Molino del Rey, then assaulted the fort of Chapultepec on September 13, 1847, after which the city surrendered. When a large number of men from the controversial Saint Patrick's Battalion were captured during Churubusco, Scott gave orders for them to be hanged en masse during the battle of Chapultepec, specifying that the moment of execution should occur just after the U.S. flag was raised atop the Mexican citadel. In this campaign, Scott displayed a U.S. military doctrine that would be used in every subsequent war: to get on the enemy's flanks by using seapower.
As military commander of Mexico City, he was held in high esteem by Mexican civil and American authorities alike. However, Scott's vanity, as well as his corpulence, led to a catch phrase that was to haunt him for the remainder of his political life. Complaining about the division of command between himself and General Taylor, in a letter written to Secretary of War William Marcy, Scott stated he had just risen from "at about 6 PM as I sat down to take a hasty plate of soup". The Polk administration, wishing to sabotage Scott's reputation, promptly published the letter, and the phrase appeared in political cartoons and folk songs for the rest of his life.
Another example of Scott's vanity was his reaction to losing at chess to a young New Orleans lad named Paul Morphy in 1846. Scott did not take his defeat by the nine-year-old chess prodigy gracefully.
Politics
In the 1852 presidential election, the Whig Party declined to nominate its incumbent president, Millard Fillmore, who had succeeded to the presidency on the death of Mexican War hero General Zachary Taylor. Seeking to repeat their electoral success, the Whigs pushed Fillmore aside and nominated Scott, who faced Democrat Franklin Pierce. Scott's anti-slavery reputation undermined his support in the South, while the Party's pro-slavery platform depressed turnout in the North, and Scott's opponent was a Mexican War veteran as well. Pierce was elected in an overwhelming win, leaving Scott with the electoral votes of only four states.
Despite his faltering in the election, Scott was still a wildly popular national hero. In 1855, by a special act of Congress, Scott was given a brevet promotion to the rank of lieutenant general, making him only the second person in American history, after George Washington, ever to hold that rank.
In 1859, Scott travelled to the Pacific Northwest to settle a dispute with the British over San Juan Island, which had escalated to the so-called Pig War. The old general established a good rapport with the British, and was able to bring about a peaceful resolution.
Civil War
As Union general-in-chief at the beginning of the American Civil War, the elderly Scott knew he was unable to go into battle himself. He offered the command of the Federal army to Colonel Robert E. Lee. However, when Virginia left the Union in April 1861, Lee resigned and command of the Federal field forces defending Washington, D.C., passed to Major General Irvin McDowell.
Scott did not believe that a quick victory was possible for Federal forces. He devised a long-term plan to defeat the Confederacy by occupying key terrain, such as the Mississippi River and key ports on the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf of Mexico, and then moving on Atlanta. This Anaconda Plan was derided in the press; however, in its broad outlines, it was the strategy the Union actually used, particularly in the Western Theater and in the successful naval blockade of Confederate ports. In 1864, it was continued by General Ulysses S. Grant and executed by General William Tecumseh Sherman in his Atlanta Campaign and March to the Sea.
Scott was unable to implement his war plan because he was physically incapable of travel to the front lines. As a result he felt unable to reprimand his new commander in the field, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan for his increasingly insubordinate behavior. This, combined with political pressure from McClellan's supporters in the House and Senate, resulted in Scott's resignation on November 1 1861. McClellan then succeeded him as general-in-chief.
Final days
Scott died at West Point, New York, just before his eightieth birthday and is buried there in West Point Cemetery.
Scott served every president from Jefferson to Lincoln, a total of fourteen administrations, and was an active-duty general for thirteen of them (47 years).
Papers belonging to Scott can be found at the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan.
Scott County in the state of Iowa is named in Winfield Scott's honor, as he was the presiding officer at the signing of the peace treaty ending the Black Hawk War. Scott County, Minnesota, and Scott County, Tennessee, were also named for him. The town of Fort Scott, Kansas, a former Army outpost, was named for Winfield Scott, as was the city of Scottsdale, Arizona. In addition, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa and Buena Vista County, Iowa were named for battles where he led troops to victory. There was also a paddle steamer named the Winfield Scott, which launched in 1850.
Winfield Scott Hancock, a Union general wounded at Gettysburg and Democratic presidential candidate in 1880, was named after Winfield Scott.
References
- Eicher, John H., & Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
Notes
- ^ Waugh, John, The Class of 1846: From West Point to Appomattox: Stonewall Jackson, George McClellan, and Their Brothers, Ballantine Books, 1999, ISBN 034543403X.
Further reading
- Eisenhower, John S.D., Agent of Destiny: The Life and Times of General Winfield Scott, University of Oklahoma Press, 1999, ISBN 0806131284.
- Johnson, Timothy D., "Winfield Scott: The Quest for Military Glory, University Press of Kansas, 1998, ISBN 0700609148.
External links
- Origin of the phrase Great Scott!.
- Biography of General Winfield Scott
- Winfield Scott riverboat
- Wright, Marcus J., General Scott, a biography at Project Gutenberg