Buried: Zachary Taylor National Cemetery, Louisville, Kentucky
Twelfth President - 1849-1850
Born: November 24, 1784, in Orange County, Virginia
Died: 10:35 p.m. on July 9, 1850, in Washington, D.C.
Age at death: 65
Cause of death: Cholera
Final words: “I am sorry that I am about to leave my
friends.”
Admission to Zachary Taylor National
Cemetery: Free
The hero of the Mexican War known as “Old Rough and Ready,” Zachary Taylor was the first president to die in office while Congress was in session. He had served a little over a year, much of it consumed by sectional issues. Though a slaveholder himself, Taylor opposed secession and the extension of slavery into new territories. He did not live to see the conflict resolved. On the Fourth of July, 1850, Taylor attended groundbreaking ceremonies for the Washington Monument in sweltering heat. Upon returning to the White House, he devoured a large bowl of fruit and some cold milk. He became severely ill later that day. A doctor diagnosed cholera, an inflammation of the stomach and intestines, the result of having eaten food that had not been properly refrigerated. The president was given drugs and improved slightly. By July 8, however, his condition worsened. Doctors blistered his skin and bled his veins in the hope of freeing his body from infection. Taylor himself sensed their efforts were futile. That evening he reportedly said, “I am about to die. I expect the summons very soon. I have tried to discharge my duties faithfully. I regret nothing, but I am sorry that I am about to leave my friends.” He died at 10:35 p.m. in his bed at the White House. His wife Peggy became hysterical and forbid the embalming of his body. She also prevented the molding of a death mask, but finally permitted an artist to draw the president in death.
Gary Peak, former director of the Zachary Taylor National Cemetery, points to list of Mexican War battles in which “Old Rough and Ready” fought. This final granite marker to Taylor has a misspelling. The last entry should read Buena Vista.
The ceremonies honoring the president were extensive. Taylor’s body lay in state for public viewing in the East Room of the White House until funeral services were held there on July 13. More than one hundred carriages joined the funeral procession as his body was taken to Congressional Cemetery in Washington. His favorite horse, “Old Whitey,” accompanied the cortege. Henry Clay and Daniel Webster were among the pallbearers. In October of that year, his remains were moved to a family cemetery, now the Zachary Taylor National Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.
Touring the Tomb at Zachary Taylor National Cemetery
Zachary Taylor National Cemetery is located in Louisville, Kentucky. The cemetery office is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., but the gates to the cemetery are open sunrise to sunset. Admission is free.
To reach the cemetery: Take U.S. Route 64 to Route 264 East. From Route 264, take the Route 42/Brownsboro Road exit. At the exit, take a left onto U.S. Route 42 West/Brownsboro Road and follow the signs to Zachary Taylor National Cemetery.
The cemetery contains only one main road which leads directly from the cemetery entrance to Taylor’s gravesite.
For additional information
Zachary Taylor National Cemetery
4701 Brownsboro Road
Louisville, KY 40207
Phone: (502) 893-3852
www.cem.va.gov/cems/nchp/ZacharyTaylor.asp
“For a few days the country’s twelfth president was back in the headlines…”
—Richard Norton Smith
For Zachary Taylor, eternal rest was anything but. It was bad enough that “Old Rough and Ready” suffered an agonizing death from cholera in July 1850. Margaret Taylor had her husband’s casket opened three times before interment in order that she might gaze upon his lifeless features. The pattern repeated itself 141 years later, when a prospective academic biographer, persuaded that Taylor may have been poisoned by his political enemies, obtained permission to remove the general’s mortal remains from the mausoleum in which they had rested just outside Louisville, Kentucky since early in this century. Oliver Stone, it appeared, had no monopoly on conspiracy theories. For a few days the country’s twelfth president was back in the headlines, a perfect USA Today story, lacking only a front page poll and graphic of Taylor astride “Old Whitey,” his Mexican War mount. All glory is fleeting, however: when tests for arsenic proved negative, Taylor returned to Louisville and the obscurity that has enshrouded him since death.
—RNS
Zachary Taylor National Cemetery is the final resting place for hundreds of military veterans