Free Soilers Failed as a Third Party and Prospects for Successful New Ones now are Dim

 

An anti-Free Soil cartoon shows party leaders as warlocks brewing up a poison pot.

Note--You would think the political chaos of the second Trump residency would invite new third party challengers to the polarized warring establishments but once promising alternatives--Libertarians on the Right and Greens on the Left have faded as adherents of each answered the call not to divide forces in an Armageddon like final battle.  Anti-Trump Republicans have failed to rally an alternative to the MAGA cult.  Instead of taking the opportunity to launch a new Socialist party on the heels of recent election triumphs, the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) are locked in an increasingly bitter battle with establishment centrists for the future of the Democratic Party. 

The history of third party movements in this country is strewn with failure, futility, and frustration.  Yet often they set the stage for great change to come.  That was certainly true of the first important third party, the Free Soilers, born on August 9, 1848 at an outdoor convention in Buffalo, New York’s Court House Park.

The party arose from the bitter debate about the status of territories recently obtained by conquest in the Mexican War.  Southern zealots wanted the whole territory including parts of Texas, New Mexico (including the future Arizona), California, and parts of the future states of Colorado, Utah, and Nevada open to slavery without reservation.  Northern states had enough power in Congress to block that.

Northern Democrats, always seeking accommodation, officially advanced the doctrine of Popular Sovereignty—letting the citizens of the new territories decide their status by popular election.  

The areas shown in tan on this map of U.S. territorial growth include Texas and the lands acquired by conquest in the Mexican War.  The Wilmont Proviso would have banned slavery from all but Texas.  It was doomed to failure in Congress, but its ardent supporters would form the nucleus off the new Free Soil Party.

This outraged anti-slavery Northern Whigs and a minority of Democrats centered in Up State New York. These factions endorsed the Wilmot Proviso as an 1846 proposed rider to an appropriation bill for the costs of negotiating a peace with Mexico.  The Proviso would have banned slavery in any territory to be acquired from Mexico.  Although it was defeated, advocates hoped to resurrect it in some form.

In the run-up to the 1848 Presidential Race the Whigs, always an unstable coalition of former anti-Jacksonians, side-stepped the issue in their platform but nominated war hero Zachary Taylor, a Louisiana plantation and slave owner who was presumed to be sympathetic to the extension of slavery.  Although it later turned out that Taylor was not, outraged anti-slavery Whigs centered in Massachusetts and New England began to look for alternatives.

Up-state New York Democrats dubbed Barn Burners for threatening to split the party in support of the opposition to the extension of slavery into Western territories, a policy first advanced in Congress as the Wilmont Proviso.

Meanwhile the Democrats nominated Michigan Senator Lewis Cass, the leading proponent of Popular Sovereignty leading to a similar crisis among anti-slavery elements of that party.

Things came to a head earlier in 1847 at the New York State Democratic Convention where the majority refused to endorse the Wilmot Proviso.  Almost half of the members of the convention, the so-called Barn Burners, centered in heavily anti-slavery Up State, walked out.  But they did not entirely abandon the party until Cass’s nomination.

Opponents of the Free Soil Party--and they were legion--mocked its embrace of the tiny, largely symbolic abolitionist Liberty Party. A reluctant Martin Van Buren, third from left is shown being shoved into the arms of Negros by Democratic Barn burners and Boston Whig snobs.

A meeting was called in Utica at which it was decided to invite anti-slavery Whigs and members of the tiny abolitionist Liberty Party to join the Buffalo Convention and form a new party.

Although the meeting was engineered by the Barn Burners and supporters of the old Albany Regency, the nation’s first state-wide political machine, which had been put together by Martin Van Buren in the late 1820’s, the leading strategists at the convention became Ohio’s Salmon B. Chase, a Whig and erstwhile maverick Democratic Senator John P. Hale of New Hampshire.  Since his election to the Senate by a surprise coalition of minority Whigs and anti-slavery Democrats in the New Hampshire legislature in 1847, Hale had quickly established himself as the most voracious opponent of slavery in the Senate.  His experience led him to have faith in the possibilities of a fusion of the anti-slavery factions of the two established parties.

Although the Free Soilers were a party devoted to stemming the expansion of slavery, they were not the single-issue party often portrayed in history.  Their platform adopted planks shrewdly designed to appeal to former partisans of the older parties.  On the one hand they endorsed Federal spending on internal improvements, a cause dear to Henry Clay Whigs and Westerners and on the other opposed protective tariffs, long a cornerstone of Democratic platforms.  They also advanced a proposal for disposing of government land in the West by homesteading.

Still, their party platform proclaimed, “...we inscribe on our banner, ‘Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor and Free Men,’ and under it we will fight on and fight ever, until a triumphant victory shall reward our exertions.”

The convention turned for the head of its national ticket to former President Van Buren, who had been ousted after one term by the Whigs who smeared him, unfairly, as an elitist fop and William Henry Harrison who aped the populism of Andrew Jackson.  The aging former Red Fox of the Kinderhook was a shrewd politician and saw a possibility of a comeback, or at least a vindication of his tarnished reputation.  But Van Buren had been strangely mum about slavery in national office, understandable as Andrew Jackson’s Secretary of State, second Vice President, and protégée.  As President he maneuvered for the annexation of Texas, which was bitterly opposed by anti-slavery factions.

But Van Buren announced he had always been an opponent of slavery’s expansion in his heart.  And hoping that a ticket led by a former President would give them instant respectability, the convention went along.

Opponents of the Free Soil Party--and they were legion--mocked its embrace of the tiny, largely symbolic abolitionist Liberty Party. A reluctant Martin Van Buren, third from left is seen as being shoved into the arms of Negros by Democratic Barn burners and Boston Whig snobs.

For Vice President the convention turned to a familiar family name—Adams.  Charles Francis Adams was the son and grandson of Presidents.  His father, John Quincy Adams was lionized by Massachusetts Whigs as Old Man Eloquent for his long post-presidential service in the House of Representatives as an outspoken anti-slavery man.  The studious young Adams was supposed to garner support among the Boston elite.

The new party gained some important support, notably from intellectuals like educator Horace Mann, who had filled John Quincy Adams’s House seat after his death; journalist and editor Richard Henry Dana, Jr.; Charles Sumner leader of Boston’s Conscience Whigs and future Senator; poet/editor William Cullen Bryant of New York City; the Quaker Hoosier John Greenleaf Whittier; and Walt Whitman who became a Brooklyn party leader and editor of the Brooklyn Freeman, a party newspaper.

The Free Soilers also ran candidates for Congress and for several state legislature seats.

This Massachusetts Free Soil rally featured former anti-slavery Whig, rising Party star, and future U.S., Senator Charles Sumner.

The party was careful to pitch itself as moderate.  It did not attack slavery as a fundamental evil or advocate for its abolition where it was in force.  Instead, it argued that the extension of slavery was a threat to Free Labor and that blocking expansion would eventually cause it to “wither away” even in the Deep South.  That drew the scorn of Abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison who charged that it was “White manism.”  Still, a lot of moderate slavery opponents were drawn to the party.

During the campaign it became apparent that things were not working out as hoped and planned. Of course, the party had no hope in the South.  That region was split between Democrats supporting Cass, and Whigs in the corner of slave holding Taylor.  But Van Buren could not shake the elitist reputation so successfully hung on him damaging his appeal to Northern voters, particularly in the big cities.  Worse, New England Whigs deeply distrusted him as Jackson’s former crony.  Many held their noses and voted for Taylor or sat on their hands in the election.

When the votes were counted, the ticket of Van Buren and Adams got a respectable 291,501 votes and 10.1% of popular votes cast for a distant third place.  They failed to get a single Electoral College vote and were probably the margin of difference that gave the close race between Taylor and Cass to the old general.

On the bright side, the party won seats in Congress and enough state legislative seats so that in combination with liberal Democrats and anti-slavery Whigs they were able to elect candidates like Sumner to the Senate.  Although a small minority in both houses, the Free Soilers in Congress became an important voice in the national debate.

After the Compromise of 1850 most Democrats drifted back to their old party.  But a stalwart few remained steadfast with the Free Soilers.

In the election of 1852, the Party offered little known John P. Hale for President and Representative George Julian of Indiana for Vice President.  The ticket garnered half of the popular votes won by Van Buren and just over 5% of the total.

Salmon P. Chase of Ohio led the remnants of the Free Soil Party into the new Republican Party and in 1860 was a major contender against Abraham Lincoln and others for the Presidential nomination.  Lincoln held his nose and appointed Chase as his Secretary of the Treasury. 

After Northern outrage against the Kansas Nebraska Act, most remaining Free Soilers followed leaders like Salmon P. Chase into becoming an important part, even the backbone, of the new Republican Party, which in the four short years between its nominations of John C. Frémont in 1856 and Abraham Lincoln in 1860 became the first and only third party ever to achieve major party status.

After Conquering California The Victors Turned on Each Other

 

U.S. Marines from the Navy's Pacific Squadron under Commodore John Drake Sloat conduct a bloodless amphibious operation to seize the Alta California provincial capital, Monterrey. 

Other men get most of the credit for the annexation of Alta California during the Mexican War of 1846-’48.  But Commodore John Drake Sloat, commander of the U.S. Navy Pacific Squadron, sailed into the harbor at Monterrey, the provincial capital, and after a bloodless skirmish with a small force of Mexican Coast Guard and silencing shore batteries with a few well-placed salvos, landed with a complement of sailors and Marines. Sloat raised the flag over the Customs House on July 7, 1846 and issued an edict annexing Alta California to the United States. 

Two days later he sailed up the coast and took Yerba Buena—today’s San Francisco.  He acted as self-proclaimed Military Governor of California until relieved by Commodore Robert F. Stockton, who reprimanded him for exceeding his orders.  That reprimand was later echoed by President James Knox Polk. 

Exceed orders of not, with a state of war between the counties, Stockton was not about to hand California back to Mexican authorities.  

                       

                                Commodore John Drake Sloat.

Sloat was a veteran Naval officer.  An orphan from New York he entered the Navy as a midshipman in 1800.  He left the service but re-enlisted for the War of 1812.  He was serving as Sailing Master under Captain Stephen Decatur on the frigate USS United States when it captured the British frigate HMS Macadonian and was promoted to Lieutenant for conspicuous gallantry under fire in the battle.  In his long naval service, he battled Caribbean pirates and commanded several ships before accepting command of the Pacific Squadron in 1844. 

As tensions with Mexico grew, Sloat was ordered to take Alta California in event of the outbreak of war.  He was sailing off of Mazatlán on the Mexican Pacific coast when he got fragmentary reports from shore that fighting had broken out along the Texas border.  Without waiting for official confirmation, he raced north to prevent a possible occupation of California by the British from Oregon.  Sloat eventually learned that fighting had already broken out in Northern California and that a Republic had been declared by a handful of settlers from the US. 

Famed explorer Captain John C. Frémont entered the rich agricultural Sacramento Valley at the head of a large 55 man “exploration” party early in 1846.  His appearance there was something of a mystery, as his official orders were to explore the source of the Arkansas River on the east side of the Rocky Mountains.  Many historians believe he was acting under secret orders from President Polk, although no evidence of such orders has been found.  Others think that the ambitious Frémont acted on his own accord.

At any rate, Frémont agitated among the U.S. settlers in the valley promising that if war broke out with Mexico that he and his men would, “be there to protect them.”  

A heavily romanticized view of Capt. John C. Fremont who mysteriously appeared in northern California at a critical moment and after the senseless slaughter of an innocent Klamath fishing village, rousted local Californio forces, claimed the brief Bear Flag Republic for the United States and anointed himself military governor.

Needless to say, Mexican authorities were unamused.  Commandante General José Antonio Castro, a native Californian who was himself often at odds with the distant Mexican government but who was a fierce opponent of foreign immigration, rallied his small force and forced Frémont to north into Oregon.  After a battle with Modoc warriors Frémont let a retaliatory attack on a wholly innocent Klamath fishing village massacring the residents.  He encountered Marine Corps Lieutenant Archibald H. Gillespie who was carrying secret oral orders for him from the President. 

He turned his force back south to California with his trusted scout Kit Carson and Lt.  Gillespie at his side.  When he arrived at Sutter’s Fort on June 25, Frémont found the settlers at Sonoma had declared the Bear Flag Republic on June 14.  He took command in the name of the United States and ended the nine-day existence of the Republic. 

Frémont went to work consolidating his force of men from the Army’s Topographical Engineers and experienced mountain men led by Carson with local volunteers, including some Mission Indians.  After defeating a small force under Castro at the Battle of Olompali, it seemed that Frémont was in control of California, a situation that did not thrill either Sloat or his successor Stockton. 

But Stockton had to use his force of sailors and Marines to garrison key points on the coast and to be kept in reserve as “shock” troops should serious fighting break out.  He needed to bring Frémont’s California Battalion under his orders and into U.S. service.  Frémont was brevetted Lt. Colonel in command of the unit dubbed the U.S. Mounted Rifles with Gillespie as Major and second in command.  Carson was appointed a Lieutenant. 

Former mountain man and guide, Kit Carson, left, seemed to be everywhere during the California campaigns of the Mexican Wars.  One of the few legendary figures of the old West whose real life lived up to the hype, Carson is pictured here with John C. Fremont, the Pathfinder, after their famous and epic exploration of the Mountain west.  Carson would rise in the Army to the rank of Brigadier General and command forces in New Mexico during the Civil War.  He was the only Army general officer known to be illiterate.

The volunteers supported a landing by Marines and Bluejackets at San Diego on July 28 followed by taking Los Angeles on August 13.  The conquest of California seemed complete.  But Major Gillespie, left in command at Los Angeles with 60 men, infuriated the local ranchers with a harsh order of martial law and general contemptuous treatment of local citizens.  Previously many were sympathetic to the possibility of American rule, having become fed up with inept and corrupt government from Mexico City. 

On September 23 about 200-300 Californios under Gen. José María Flores staged a revolt besieging Gillespie and his garrison without water on Ft. Hill. American volunteer John Brown broke through the Californio lines and made a 400-mile ride to contact Stockton in San Francisco Bay.  Before Stockton could act to relieve the siege, Gillespie was forced to surrender and was allowed to retreat from Los Angeles to the near-by port of San Pedro.  

Brigadier General Stephen Kearny arrived in California at the head of a few hundred Dragoons after a punishing march from Santa Fe.  He eventually clashed with both Commodore Stockton and Fremont for leadership.

Meanwhile, an entirely separate American Force was heading to California overland from Santa Fe.  On September 25 about 300 Dragoons under the command of Brigadier General Stephen Kearny began an epic march across deserts and mountains to California.  On October 6 he encountered a small party led by Kit Carson which was sent from Los Angeles in early September with dispatches for President Polk proclaiming victory in California.  On the strength of this now outdated news, Kearny sent more than half of his troops back to Santa Fe along with Carson’s dispatches.  Carson agreed to turn around and guide Kearny the rest of the way to California by the best possible route.

By December 5 Carson brought Kearny’s exhausted men to within 25 miles of their destination in San Diego.  An intercepted Mexican courier alerted Kearny that Stockton and his forces were under siege in the city.  With his men mounted mostly on broken mules, Kearny decided to raid a camp of Californios under Andrés Pico at San Pasqual for much needed spare horses.  The camp was alerted that Kearny decided to attack.  But his 60 remaining exhausted men and their mules were no match for Pico’s skilled lancers who rode rings around the Americans and killed at least 22 of them.  Kearny was among the wounded.  

Lancers of the Californio Militia badly mauled Kearny's exhausted forces in a bloody battle but had to retreat as reinforcements from Stockton's sailors and Marines neared. It was the final major military action of the campaign and left Alta California securely in American hands.

The Dragoons set up a defensive perimeter and were besieged by Pico.  Carson and another man were dispatched to sneak through the lines into San Diego for help.  Miraculously, they arrived in the city with bloody bare feet.  Stockton dispatched 200 sailors and Marines with fresh horses for Kearny.  The arrival of reinforcements caused Pico’s men to scatter. 

The combined forces entered San Diego on December 12.  Kearny’s dispatches reported the Battle of San Pasqual a victory because the Californios “fled the field” when re-enforcements arrived.  Stockton reported it as a loss for the Army.  The Lancers considered it their victory. 

After a brief rest Stockton and Kearny’s combined force marched to Los Angeles where they were to join with 400 men under Frémont.  On January 8, 1847, with Stockton in command and Kearny his second, approximately 600 men from the San Diego column with artillery support dispersed 150 Californios under José Mariá Flores in the short but sharp Battle of Rio San Gabriel.  Remnants of Flores’s men were defeated again the next day at the battle of Battle of La Mesa, the last significant action of the California campaign.  

Commodore Robert Stockton won his bureaucratic and inter-service struggle with General Kearny for ultimate command and as Military Governor, but his choice of Fremont to succeed him fell afoul of the Pathfinder's Regular Army status as a mere Captain and therefore subordinate to Keary.

American forces re-entered Los Angeles and Major Gillespie personally raised the same American flag he had been forced to haul down months earlier. 

With fighting essentially over, the conquerors fell to bickering among themselves for command.  Both Stockton and Kearney held equivalent one-star rank but there was no ordinary precedent for an officer of one branch to serve under one of the other of the same rank.  Stockton on the scene longer and asserted military command as well as the post of military governor.    Kearny insisted his orders from Washington were more recent and included both military command and authority to establish a government.   

Frémont, acting for Stockton signed the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13 which ended local fighting with the surrender of Californio artillery and return of prisoners on both sides, and which allowed the Californios to return unmolested to their homes without having to surrender Mexican citizenship until a final and comprehensive end to the broader war, which would finally be ended in 1848 by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the official cession of California to the U.S. 

Stockton appointed Frémont his successor as governor.  Frémont, a mere captain in the Regular Army, several times defied a direct order from his Army superior to surrender the Governorship.  Kearney appealed to Washington, which confirmed him as Governor.  He had Frémont arrested, put in chains, and court marshaled for mutiny and insubordination.  Frémont was convicted and sentenced to be dishonorably discharged from the service.

Polk upheld the verdict but bowing to pressure from Frémont’s powerful father-in-law, Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri and considering his service, vacated the sentence and allowed Frémont to honorably resign his commission.  

President James Knox Polk may or may not have given secret orders to Fremont and others before the War with Mexico officially broke out.  He also spent a lot of time sorting through the squabbles, charges, and counter charges involving Sloat, Stockton, Kearny, and Fremont.  About the only major figure to emerge with their reputation unsullied was Carson, who rose rapidly in the Army after the war

Frémont returned to California where he was subsequently elected Governor and Senator.  He was the first Republican Party candidate for President in 1856 and commanded Union forces in Missouri and in western Virginia during the Civil War displaying remarkably bad generalship in both assignments.  He ended up sitting out most of the war in disgrace. 

Kearney saw further service in the Mexican War and was appointed Military Governor of Vera Cruz and then Mexico City.  While in Mexico he contracted Yellow Fever.  He died of the illness at his home in St. Louis 1848. 

His rival Stockton resigned from the Navy in 1850 and was elected to the Senate as a Democrat from New Jersey the next year.  He was the sponsor of the bill that finally ended flogging in the Navy. In 1861 he was a delegate to an unsuccessful Peace Conference trying to head off the Civil War.  He was appointed commander of the New Jersey Militia during the war but saw no action.  He died in 1865. 

Frémont, Stockton, and Kearny—even Kit Carson—were all lauded as heroes for their part in the annexation of California.  Place names in several states honor each of them as did Army posts and Navy ships. 

And what of Commodore Sloat?  Ill health ended his career as a sea-going officer.  He was assigned shore duty, including the planning of the Mare Island Naval Shipyard at Vallejo, California.  He retired from the service in 1866 and died in New York the next year.  Largely forgotten, you can find a stone monument in his memory, if you know where to look at the Presidio of Monterrey and streets in residential areas of Monterrey and Los Angeles are named in his honor.

 

How Winfield Scott’s Plan to Put a Fatal Squeeze on the Rebellion

A Civil War era illustration of Winfield Scott's  Anaconda Plan to win the war against the Confederacy.

On May 3, 1861 aged Lt. General Winfield Scott, Commanding General of the United States Army, presented President Abraham Lincoln and his Cabinet, with his Anaconda Plan to conduct the war against secessionist rebel states.    The plan was widely derided by the press and public, which believed that a quick, decisive battle with the main Confederate army in Virginia would win the War of Rebellion.  Scott knew better.  He anticipated a long and bloody conflict.  

Lincoln may have wished for a short, glorious war, but the former Black Hawk War militia Captain read everything on military strategy and tactics that he could lay his hands on in the Library of Congress and sensed that his Commanding General may be right. Although he did not accept Scott’s proposal in every detail, questioned his timeline, and felt he had to order a major attack on Richmond to keep public support, from that point on despite the public ridicule and outcry the President conducted the war broadly on Scott’s plan.

The plan called for:   

1. Blockade ports in the Atlantic and Gulf to reduce foreign supplies and cotton and tobacco exports from Confederate ports.

2. Blockade the Mississippi River to reduce grain and meat shipments from the western to eastern Confederacy and foreign supplies through neutral Mexico. 

3. Control the Tennessee River Valley and a march through Georgia to prevent cooperation among the eastern Confederate states. 

4. Demonstrations against Confederate capital to keep the main Rebel Army pinned down and on the defensive with a campaign by Army troops with Navy support along the James River. 

And that is pretty much exactly how the war was won by the Union.  

Commanding General of the Army Winfield Scott presents his plan to Abraham Lincoln and his Cabinet. 

The Navy successfully blockaded most Confederate ports and captured key ports like Pensacola, Mobile, and New Orleans.  Western troops, experiencing much greater success than the ponderous Army of the Potomac in the East, secured the length of the Mississippi with the capture of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863 (coincidently the also the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg) splitting the Confederacy in two.  Another Yankee Army drove down the Tennessee River protecting the loyal border state of Kentucky, splitting divided Tennessee, and setting up Sherman’s campaign through the railroad and industrial heart of the South in northern Alabama and Georgia, including the capture of Atlanta, which cut off the lower South.  

Campaigns in Virginia and along the James, under incompetent leadership were long, bloody, and inconclusive until the end, but without the logistical support of the rest of the nation, Lee’s legendary Army of Northern Virginia was doomed.  Just about the way Scott foresaw.  

In 1861 Scott was winding down a 47-year Army career serving 14 presidents from Jefferson to Lincoln.   He served in the War of 1812, the Seminole Wars, Black Hawk War, and Mexican War.  He was the Commanding General of the Army for twenty years, longer than anyone before or since and was the first officer since George Washington to carry the rank of Lt. General.  No other officer in American history served with such distinction at every rank—militia enlisted man, artillery captain, infantry regimental commander, leader of a victorious army in the field, and Commanding General.  He has been called the greatest American soldier ever.

General Scott in full regalia at the beginning of the Civil War.

Yet he also cut something of a ridiculous figure.  His once powerful 6-foot 3-inch frame frame ballooned to over 300 pounds.  Notoriously vain, he swathed that mass in outrageously gaudy uniforms with gigantic epaulets, extravagant gold braid and decoration, every medal he was ever awarded, topped off with a great Napoleonic Era plumed hat.  Ailing from both gout and narcolepsy—uncontrollably lapsing into sleep—he knew that he would not be able to take command of his troops in the field. 

Instead, he offered field command to fellow Virginian Col. Robert E. Lee, universally regarded as the ablest officer in the service.  Unfortunately, unlike Scott, who unhesitatingly placed his loyalty to his nation over that of his native state, Lee chose Virginia and the Confederacy.  

Scott had to entrust the command of the rapidly swelling Volunteer army to the untried hands of Brigadier Gen. Irvin McDowell.  Scott despaired of both McDowell and the ill trained, short term enlisted Volunteers.  During his whole career he advocated for a highly trained professional army with militias and volunteers called to service and thoroughly trained before introduction to combat.  

Instead of ending his career abruptly, young artillery Captain Winfield Scott's clash with the Army's Commanding General James Wilkinson in 1808 enhanced his reputation when Wilkinson was exposed as a Spanish agent and treasonous plotter.

In 1808, as a young Virginia lawyer and a corporal in the militia cavalry, he secured an appointment as a Captain of Artillery in the tiny Regular Army.  He made his mark early by crossing his superior, Commanding General James Wilkinson, a corrupt scoundrel and innervate plotter.  Wilkinson had him court-martialed for insubordination and suspended for a year.  After Wilkinson was exposed as Spanish secret agent—just one of his many intrigues that included plotting with Aaron Burr to set up an independent inland republic—Scott was able to resume his duties with his reputation enhanced.  

In the War of 1812, he made his mark as a commander and a hero.  Captured in the Battle of Queenston Heights in 1812 when the New York Militia refused to cross into Canada in support of his Regulars, Scott was paroled and went to Washington to appeal to raise regiments of regular troops. 

The following year as a full colonel he planned and led the amphibious assault on Ft. George which required a coordinated crossing of the Niagara River and a landing from Lake Ontario, which was considered the most brilliant American maneuver of the war.  

In 1814 as a brevet Brigadier General Scott commanded the American First Brigade in the Niagara campaign.  He trained and drilled his Regulars to a fine edge for months.  But unable to secure regulation blue cloth for their uniforms, outfitted them sharply in gray with tall shako caps.  When the British saw them marching in disciplined ranks into battle, a horrified officer exclaimed, “That’s not the Terrytown militia.  Those are by God Regulars!”  

American Regular Army troops trained by Col. Winfield Scott proved that they were the match of British veterans at the battles of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane in the American attempt to invade Canada during the War of 1812, but Scott was grievously wounded in action.

Those regulars soundly whipped veteran British troops at in the Battle of Chippewa and then held the battlefield at fiercely fought Lundy’s Lane, where Scott and overall American commander Major General Jacob Brown were both severely injured.  

Although the invasion of Canada was stalled, Scott was hailed as a hero for showing that American troops could beat British professionals in a stand-up battle.  The battles were commemorated at the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, where the Corps of Cadets still wears grey uniforms and shakos.  And the Confederate Army, dominated by West Pointers would, ironically adopt a gray uniform.  

In the years after the war, Scott turned to the routine occupation of a Regular Army Officers—Indian wars.  Scott was assigned command of 1000 Regulars and Volunteers from the East to relieve expiring volunteers units in the Black Hawk War of 1832.  Unfortunately, the men brought the cholera with them, not only rendering them unfit for service, but unleashing a deadly epidemic in the West.  Although Scott never got to the battlefield, he arrived on the scene to play a critical role in negotiating Black Hawk’s surrender and drafting a peace treaty.  

Three years later he was commanding a large column fruitlessly chasing hostiles in the Florida swamps during the Second Seminole War.  

No sooner was that bit of business concluded than President Andrew Jackson called on Scott to be the Federal brawn behind the Force Act, meant to compel South Carolina to honor the Tariff of Abominations in the face of Nullification threats.  Sent with reinforcements to the garrison at Ft. Sumner at Charleston, South Carolina, Scott had to juggle the bellicose desire of the President to “Hang the traitors,” and Joel R. Poinsette’s delicate task of rallying South Carolina Unionists while a new tariff acceptable to the state was moved through Congress.  

He got high marks for both his strong military resolution and for local diplomacy.  When the city caught fire, he dispatched troops from the garrison to help quell the blaze—and improved relations with the locals. 

With the crisis passed Jackson’s successor President Martin Van Buren turned to Scott to enforce the Cherokee Removal from the Eastern states.  Scott disapproved of the policy but did a soldier’s duty.  He considered it the low point of his career.  He was able to negotiate the voluntary removal of a large number under the leadership of Chief John Ross and managed to round up other bands with a minimum of bloodshed.  He tried, as far as possible, to make conditions on the march tolerable, ordering rides, assistance, and extra rations for children, the elderly, and infirm.  Where his reliable Regulars were in charge, things went relatively smoothly.

But many bands were escorted by undisciplined volunteers who abused, harassed, and stole from their charges without mercy.  Scott meant to personally accompany the first body of evacuees on the march west from Athens, Georgia but was recalled to Washington for a delicate diplomatic mission upon reaching Nashville.  

Scott was sent to the Maine/Canada border to negotiate a peace in the bloodless Aroostook War which threatened to erupt into another shooting war with the British.  For his success and service, he was promoted to Major General, the highest rank active in the Army.  

Scott repeated as a diplomat when he negotiated a solution to another border crisis with Britain, this one over St. John Island in the Pacific Northwest in 1859. 

                                

                                            Major General Winfield Scott at Vera Cruz in the Mexican War.

But first there was the Mexican War.  President James Knox Polk forced the war on Mexico by moving troops into disputed land between the Nueces and Rio Grande Rivers. This army, made up mostly of volunteers under the command of Scott’s service rival Zachary Taylor scored victories in heavy fighting at Monterey and Buena Vista but was hundreds of miles north of the capital city, separated by daunting desert.  

Scott conceived of a second attack by a sea landing at the port of Veracruz and driving quickly to Mexico City.  He executed the first major amphibious assault in American history when he successfully landed 12,000 Regular Army, Marines, and well-trained Volunteers and all their artillery and baggage outside the fortified city.  

In coordination with the Naval Squadron under the command of Commodore Mathew Perry, he laid siege to the fortified city, which was reduced by Army artillery and naval gunfire and surrendered after 12 days.  With the port open to keep his supply line clear, Scott began his march west, roughly following the route of Cortez.  Yellow Fever struck the Americans and Scott was only able to move with 8,500 healthy troops, among them many future Civil War generals including Lee, U.S. Grant, George Meade, and Thomas (Stonewall) Jackson.  

Mexican President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna moved from the Mexico City at the head of 12,000 well-armed and trained troops.  He entrenched across the road at Cerro Gordo, roughly halfway to the city.  Instead of a frontal assault, Scott sent artillery into the rugged mountains and enfiladed the Mexicans in deadly fire and flanked the dug-in Mexicans, who were routed with heavy casualties.  

Several other sharp engagements marked the march to the capital, culminating in the attack on the Mexican Military Academy at the Castle of Chapultepec.  When that fell, Scott negotiated a peaceful entry to the city. 

The Duke of Wellington upon studying Scott’s campaign declared him to be “the greatest living general.”  The offensive is still studied and much of later Army combat doctrine was drawn from the experience.  

The President appointed Scott the Military Governor of Mexico City, where he drew praise for enforcing bans on looting and molestation of citizens.  He threaded the thorny issue of what to do with the captured San Patricios—Irish deserters from the U.S. Army who took up the Mexican cause.  He was appalled when a court martial sentenced 72 of them to hang.  The former lawyer scoured his law books to find excuses to vacate the sentences of as many as possible.  He objected to the death penalty in 22 of the cases and later pardoned or commuted the sentences of 15 more.  

With Scott still on administrative duty in Mexico City, his rival Taylor arrived back in the States and won the Presidency on the Whig ticket.  Scott was sure he would have been a better man for the job.  Taylor died leaving Millard Fillmore to complete his term.  

Shattered over slavery, the Whigs took 54 ballots to nominate Winfield Scott as their candidate in 1852.  He was trounced by the handsome non-entity Democrat Franklin Pierce, a subordinate Volunteer general in the Mexican War.  Despite the loss, he served the new President loyally as Commanding General of the Army.

When the Democrats in 1852 nominated handsome, dashing Franklin Pierce, one of Scott’s less distinguished subordinate Volunteer generals in Mexico, the Whig convention stalemated before finally dumping Fillmore and nominating Scott on the fifty-fourth ballot.  

The party was split on slavery, particularly the issue of enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act.  The Party platform endorsed enforcement over Scott’s objection leading to loss of support of the Whig ticket in New England, and disillusion with the candidate among pro-slavery Southerners who jumped en-mass to the Democrats.  Despite his personal popularity Scott carried only four states.  It was also the last hurrah of the shattered Whigs as a national party.  

Scott, his vanity bruised, none-the-less went back to work as Commanding General.  

It is fortunate for Lincoln and the Union that he stayed as long as he did.  But after McDowell’s raw and ill trained volunteer army was routed at First Bull Run, Lincoln had to turn to the ambitious Democrat George McClellan as his field commander.  McClellan, popular with the troops and with the press, was openly insubordinate to the Commanding General and plotted to replace him.  Seeing the writing on the wall and in ill health, Scott finally retired in November.  McClellan got his job while retaining field command.  

In the classic but wildly inaccurate Warner Bros. Custer bio-pic They Died with their Boots On Sydney Greenstreet portrayed Winfield Scott still in command deep into the Civil War, seen here listening to an appeal from Olivia de Haviland as loyal Libby Custer.

McClellan would be just as insubordinate to the President as he was to Scott and despite assembling a massive, well trained, and well-appointed Army proved too timid.  Lincoln replaced him as Commanding General with General Henry “Old Brains” Halleck, a plodding administrator who did not get in the way of the field commanders like Grant and Sherman who could actually win battles.

Winfield Scott, Old Fuss and Feathers, as he was known by his men, died at West Point in 1866.