Lot 1011: TAYLOR, ZACHARY

TAYLOR, ZACHARY Autograph letter signed ("Z. Taylor"), 5 pages (10 x 8 in.; 254 x 204 mm), Fort Crawford, Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, 15 August 1832, to General Thomas Sidney Jesup, Quartermaster General, Washington, D.C.; formerly folded, a few ink smudges, seal tear mended. Two-tone green half-morocco clamshell box.

General Taylor's reflections on the Black Hawk War, conditions in camp.

A fine, long wartime letter written two weeks after the Battle of Bad Axe (2 August 1832), the final lopsided victory in the brief conflict which ended the threat of Native American attacks in northwest Illinois and allowed the regions of Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin to be further settled. Taylor, commander of the troops under General Atkinson, was one of three future presidents who served in this conflict (the others being Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis).

Taylor begins by summarizing the campaign: "After a campaign of three months during which we sufered[sic] every privation, & hardship common to our profession, owing to the impossibility of procuring transportation even for a full supply of provisions, in wading swamps, & marshes & passing over hills which in Europe would be termed mountains, which before had never been passed by white men, we succeeded on the morning of the 2nd. inst. in overtaking the hostile Indians ... and completely defeated them, killing I presume about one hundred, & making fifty or sixty prisoners ..."

He is of the opinion that the conflict could have been avoided: "As to the causes of the war ... I have but little to say, further than to remark, had four of the six companies stationed at Jefferson Barracks ... been sent to Rock Island, or its vicinity early in the spring, Black Hawk, & his associates in my opinion would never have attempted to cross to the east side of the Mississippi; which measure I presume would have been adopted, had not the hands of commanding officers ... particularly in the western dept. been so completely tied in relation to the movement & change of station of the troops under their command ... I am at present of opinion that the war may be considered at an end, or nearly so, for I do not believe the hostile Indians will be again able to collect together any number of warriors at any points; but it will be some time before the inhabitants on the frontiers of Illinois ... will consider themselves perfectly safe."

He goes on to remark upon the movements of troops under General Winfield Scott, and then upon the poor conditions at Fort Crawford where the quarters were still under construction when he arrived. He recommends two men to be assigned him as assistant Quartermasters, rather than "a young 2nd Lt. of this Regt." who he believes was appointed for "some political purpose." He details some of the supplies he is using for the construction, and others to be consumed by the horses and mules, closing with news of his and Jesup's families. He then follows with a long postscript decrying the practice among officers of using soldiers as laborers for their own convenience "further than was connected with their military duties ... That house & boats built, carriages, slays, & furniture of every description made by the soldiers, grain raised, hay & wood cut by them, should be the property of the governt. & not to be bartered, or sold unless for the benefit of the Qr.Masters dept."