Major General Winfield Scott

captured by the British at Queenston Heights and detained a year before being released in a prisoner exchange. Scott resumed his duties, was promoted to brigadier general in March 1814, and played a major role at Lundy’s Lane where he was seriously wounded. Following the war, Scott traveled in Europe and and studied military tactics.
In 1832, Scott saw service in the Black Hawk War and later was sent by Andrew Jackson to Charleston to calm the South Carolinians during the nullification crisis. In 1838, Scott was responsible for overseeing the removal of the Cherokees from Georgia across the Trail of Tears to reservations in the West. Later that same year he played a role in quieting tensions during the Caroline affair and in 1839 helped to negotiate a truce in the Aroostook War. Scott was appointed general-in-chief of the U.S. army in 1841 and occupied that position for 20 years.
Scott was commander of American forces in the Mexican War, taking personal command of forces in the southern campaign, while Zachary Taylor headed the northern campaign. Naval forces supplemented Scott’s forces in the capture of Vera Cruz in early 1847. He then began a long march westward toward Mexico City, which included major actions at Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Churubusco and Chapultepec. Scott occupied the Mexican national palace in September 1847.
As a national war hero and a Whig, Scott drew the attention of Democratic rivals in Washington. He was recalled by President James K. Polk in 1848 to face a court of inquiry, but all charges were promptly dismissed.
In the Election of 1852 Scott gained the Whig nomination, but proved to be a poor candidate and lost handily to Franklin Pierce.
Scott continued his military command and was dispatched to the Washington Territory to resolve a dispute with Britain in the San Juan Islands in 1859.
Despite his Southern origins, Scott opposed secession. By the time the first fighting began, Scott was in very poor health. He was 75 years old, had ballooned to more than 300 pounds and had to be carried about on a door. Scott had recommended to Abraham Lincoln that the leading field command be offered to Robert E. Lee. Lincoln made the offer, but Lee declined.
Scott proposed the “Anaconda Plan” as the means to slowly crush the South from a variety of directions. His recommendations for blockades, soldiers and time were ridiculed by many; the prevailing attitude in both the North and South was that the conflict would be short. The Union disaster at the First Battle of Bull Run began the vindication of Scott’s foresight.
Lincoln accepted Scott’s resignation in November 1861. He lived on until 1866, enjoying the opportunity to write his memoirs, travel in Europe and see his views on the conduct of the war largely justified.
Winfield Scott was widely known as “Old Fuss and Feathers” because of his penchant for military procedures and finery. Nevertheless, he was generally respected by his officers and men despite his frequent lapses of diplomacy. Scott is often cited as the most able American military commander between the careers of Washington and Lee.
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Winfield Scott (June 13, 1786 – May 29, 1866) was a United States lieutenant general, diplomat, and presidential candidate. 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 of 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, and later became known as the Grand Old Man of the Army. 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.
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.
During the War of 1812, Colonel 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 prisioners 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 American defeat at the 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. Gen. Scott was later known as the Grand Old Man of the Army.
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. He also disobeyed the "order" by colorful San Francisco eccentric Emperor Norton to disband the U.S. Congress by force during this time.
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.
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.
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.
As 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 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 had served as general-in-chief of the U.S. Army for twenty years, but resigned on November 1, 1861, under political pressure from Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan after the Union defeat at Ball's Bluff. McClellan succeeded him as general-in-chief.
Scott died at West Point just before his eightieth birthday and is buried there in the National Cemetery. 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.
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No one person would have more influence on the United States Army during its first 100 years of existence than General Winfield Scott. Known as Old Fuss and Feathers because of his attention to detail and a penchant for gaudy uniforms, Winfield Scott fought in the War of 1812, the Blackhawk War, the Seminole Wars, the Mexican-American War, and the War for Southern Independence (American Civil War). A Civilian Conservation Corps park and lake bear the name of the man who oversaw the removal of the Cherokee from the state of Georgia.
Born of parents who were both wealthy and famous (his father was a hero in the American Revolution), Winfield Scott attended The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. The evolving upheaval in relations between the United States and Britain at the start of the 19^th century ended an uninspired legal career for the six foot, five inch Scott.
During the War of 1812 Lt. Colonel Scott led a series of attacks against combined British and Canadian forces between Fort George and Fort Erie, on the Canadian side of the border west of Buffalo, New York. He was captured on October 11, 1812, in the rout of American forces during the Battle of Queenston Heights (near Niagra-on-the-Lake) and served time as a prisoner-of-war on the Canadian frontier. Scott and his longtime friend Captain John Wool fought in this battle. After his release the young officer returned to duty and fought throughout the region.
At the Battle of Lundy's Lane, Scott was ambushed by a force of British regulars. Rather than retreat, Scott ordered an advance, which convinced the British commander that Scott's detachment was part of a larger army. The arrival of additional British troops halted their orderly retreat and the engagement continued. For more than two hours the 1300 men in Scott's command were under withering fire from the British. Less than 400 men were still fighting when American re-enforcement's arrived. Scott withdrew and reorganized his men, but while looking for a place to attack was hit with a bullet, shattering a bone. On July 25, 1814 the war ended for Winfield Scott. The Battle of Lundy's Lane ended a draw.
After the War he married, worked on military books and hobnobbed with New York society. Over the next 15 years the flamboyant Scott angered many of his peers, including future president Andrew Jackson.
Scott returned to active military duty in 1832 to fight in various "Indian Wars" and was called upon to replace John Wool as commander of Federal troops in the Cherokee Nation just prior to the Trail of Tears. Spreading from the Blue Ridge Mountains west to the Cumberland Plateau, the Cherokee had sworn in 1819 to give no more land to encroaching settlers. The United States Supreme Court agreed with the Cherokee's right to self-rule, but Andrew Jackson did not and in 1835 he convinced a small group of these American Indians to sign the Treaty of New Echota. General Wool had become disenchanted with the idea of forcing the Cherokee from their "Enchanted Land."
Receiving orders on April 6, 1838, Scott arrived at New Echota, Cherokee Nation that May and immediately began with his plans for removal. He divided the Nation into three military districts and The Cherokee were rounded up and herded into unsanitary "forts," one of which was named for the general. Nearly one-third of all the Cherokee deaths attributed to the Trail of Tears would come as a result of this confinement.
The first parties to leave Georgia suffered huge losses in both people and livestock, attempting to travel west in the scorching heat of summer. The Cherokee clearly viewed Scott as their "warden" when they appealed directly to him to postpone the removal until cooler months. "We, your prisoners, wish to speak to you...We have been made prisoners by your men but do not fight you..."
The appeal worked. Scott not only agreed to postpone the removal, he backed a proposal for the departing parties to be led by Cherokee chiefs rather than the U. S. Army. For this Winfield Scott expected, and got, an incredible backlash from the pro-removal forces. Even former President Andrew Jackson wrote to protest Scott's decision.
The general, in spite of serious personal problems, was determined to accompany a group of Cherokee west. He left Athens, Tennessee, on October 1, 1838, and continued with the Cherokee to Nashville, where he received orders to return to Washington.
During the Mexican War (1846-48) General Scott led a brilliant five month campaign which ended in his replacement because of problems with subordinate officers. Winfield Scott would be nominated for President by the Whigs in 1852 and lose in the general election to Franklin Pierce.
Even though the Civil War broke out after his 75^th birthday the corpulent commander continue to lead his men. Too large to mount a horse, Scott formulated a detailed plan for the defeat of the Confederacy that included a blockade of southern ports. Some thought he was senile because the common belief on both sides was it would be a quick war. He was removed as commander by President Lincoln before the end of 1861, however, almost all of the elements of his "Anaconda Plan" would later be used by a desperate Lincoln in an attempt to win the war.
When the original Medal of Honor was proposed in 1862 Scott came close to killing the idea. He was strongly against the European custom of awarding medals for heroism.