The Life and Public Service of General Zachary Taylor: An Address | Page 6

in
search of his bread, Have faded away like the grass that we tread.
The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven; The sinner who
dared to remain unforgiven; The wise and the foolish, the guilty and
just, Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.
So the multitude goes, like the flower or the weed, That withers away
to let others succeed; So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.
For we are the same our fathers have been; We see the same sights our
fathers have seen,-- We drink the same stream and view the same sun,
And run the same course our fathers have run.
The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think; From the death
we are shrinking our fathers would shrink; To the life we are clinging
our fathers would cling; But it speeds for us all, like a bird on the wing.
They loved, but the story we cannot unfold; They scorned, but the heart
of the haughty is cold; They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers
will come; They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.
They died, ay! they died: and we things that are now, Who walk on the
turf that lies over their brow, Who make in their dwelling a transient
abode, Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.
Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, We mingle together in
sunshine and rain; And the smiles and the tears, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.
'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath, From the blossom
of health to the paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier
and the shroud,-- Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICE OF GENERAL ZACHARY

TAYLOR

EULOGY
PRONOUNCED BY HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN ON THE LIFE
AND SERVICES OF THE LATE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES
General Zachary Taylor, the eleventh elected President of the United
States, is dead. He was born, November 2, 1784, in Orange County,
Virginia; and died July 9, 1850, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, at the
White House in Washington City.
He was the second son of Richard Taylor, a Colonel in the Army of the
Revolution. His youth was passed among the pioneers of Kentucky,
whither his parents emigrated soon after his birth; and where his taste
for military life, probably inherited, was greatly stimulated. Near the
commencement of our last war with Great Britain, he was appointed,
by President Jefferson, a Lieutenant in the Seventh Regiment of
Infantry. During the war, he served under General Harrison in his
North-Western campaign against the Indians; and, having been
promoted to a Captaincy, was entrusted with the defense of Fort
Harrison, with fifty men, half of them unfit for duty. A strong party of
Indians, under the Prophet, brother of Tecumseh, made a midnight
attack upon the Fort; but Taylor, though weak in his force, and without
preparation, was resolute and on the alert; and after a battle, which
lasted till after daylight, completely repulsed them. Soon after, he took
a prominent part in the expedition under Major-General Hopkins
against the Prophet's town; and on his return, found a letter from
President Madison, who had succeeded Mr. Jefferson, conferring on
him a Major's brevet for his gallant defense of Fort Harrison.
After the close of the British war, he remained in the frontier service of
the West, till 1818. He was then transferred to the Southern frontier,
where he remained, most of the time, in active service till 1826. In
1819, and during his service in the South, he was promoted to the rank

of Lieutenant-Colonel. In 1826 he was again sent to the North-West,
where he continued until 1836. In 1832 he was promoted to the rank of
Colonel. In 1836 he was ordered to the South to engage in what is well
known as the Florida War. In the autumn of 1837 he fought and
conquered in the memorable Battle of Okeechobee, one of the most
desperate struggles known to the annals of Indian warfare. For this he
was honored with the rank of Brigadier-General; and in 1838 was
appointed to succeed General Jessup in command of the forces in
Florida. In 1841 he was ordered to Fort Gibson to take command of the
Second Military Department of the United States; and in September,
1844, was directed to hold the troops between the Red River and the
Sabine in readiness to march as might be indicated by the charge of the
United States, near Texas. In 1845 his forces were concentrated at
Corpus Christi.
In obedience to orders, in March, 1846,