Scott is depicted leading troops at the Battle of Cerro Gordo during the Mexican-American War in 1847.
Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott did not play with insurrectionists.
When the commanding general of the United States Army heard that pro-Southern secessionists might disrupt the Feb. 13, 1861, Electoral College certification in Washington, D.C., he declared that anyone making the attempt “should be lashed to the muzzle of a 12-pounder gun and fired out of the window of the Capitol. I would manure the hills of Arlington with fragments of his body. … It is my duty to suppress insurrection — my duty!”
Scott often used such blustery rhetoric. He was a man of considerable personal presence and enormous vanity. During the republic’s formative and often bloody years, he exerted profound influence on the national life.
Scott, from Dinwiddie County near Petersburg, served 14 presidential administrations, from Thomas Jefferson to Abraham Lincoln. During his 53 years in the army, 20 of which as commanding general, Scott’s leadership transformed the U.S. military into a professional fighting force. His insight and expertise made him the “Sage of the Army,” while his passion for regulations and affinity for extravagant uniforms earned him the snarky nickname of “Old Fuss and Feathers.”
Timothy D. Johnson, in his 1998 book “Winfield Scott: The Quest for Military Glory,” observes that when the Duke of Wellington, victor of Waterloo against Napoleon, heard that Scott captured Mexico City against great odds, he proclaimed Scott “the greatest living soldier.”
Today, Scott is little known because his greatest battlefield feats occurred during two dimly understood wars, that of the War of 1812 and against Mexico. His reputation from today’s perspective is complicated by the brutal suppression of Native Americans and his assertive role in expansionist conflicts.
Johnson observes that at Laurel Branch, the family’s Dinwiddie farm, Scott’s father, William, “owned land and slaves and made a comfortable living from the soil.” He died in Scott’s sixth year.
Scott’s widowed mother, Ann, instilled in him the values of book learning and perseverance. His passion for reading built a wide-ranging knowledge and an immense vocabulary, both of which he enjoyed flouting. Ann’s 1803 death orphaned the 17-year-old Scott. These circumstances impelled Scott to make something of himself.
He graduated from the College of William & Mary and went into practicing law. The profession satisfied neither his restlessness nor ambition.
In 1808, Scott chose military service, then left the army. By 1812, the army needed experienced officers as war brewed with Great Britain, and Scott was reinstated as a lieutenant colonel and posted to upstate New York.
Following his valorous leadership at the 1814 battles of Chippawa and Lundy’s Lane, the 27-year-old Scott was promoted to brigadier general, becoming the youngest general ever in the army.
On March 11, 1817, he married Maria DeHart Mayo of the prominent and landed Richmond family at Bellville near present Grace and Lombardy streets.
They settled into a Mayo property, Hampton Place of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, where they parented seven children: five girls and two boys. Johnson writes that the deaths of both sons and two daughters “came as periodic blows to the couple.”
In 1838, President Martin Van Buren ordered the forced removal of the Cherokee from the Southern Appalachians and the responsibility of the military component fell to Scott in what became The Trail of Tears.
He issued orders prohibiting molestation of people and property, but some soldiers disregarded Scott’s directives. Of the 18,000 Cherokees who marched in phases out of Georgia, 20% died of disease and exposure.
Scott likewise didn’t personally approve of President James K. Polk’s war against Mexico, but, as Johnson writes, “he did his duty, which is what soldiers do when their country calls.”
He led a near-flawless campaign, besting armies twice the size of his own in a series of running battles for 250 miles between Vera Cruz and Mexico City. Within Scott’s army served 135 future Civil War generals, 78 Union and 57 Confederate. They included George McClellan, Ulysses S. Grant, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and Robert E. Lee, who was regarded by Scott as one of the best field officers he’d ever encountered.
Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott, 1855
Scott was a walking contradiction. He agreed with the right of states to secede — but also the authority of the federal government to stop them. While not a slave owner, he considered gradual emancipation as an eventuality but backed compensation to the owners. He also mentioned using public funds to educate and assimilate freed Blacks — or financially supporting their resettlement to Africa. He opposed unrestricted immigration and voting by naturalized citizens, but in public speeches he praised immigrant soldiers.
And though he devoted his life to the defense of the Constitution and the vision of a united nation, he looked with anxiety and contempt on the rise of the “degenerate” populism of slaveholding Andrew Jackson. The Whig Party formed in opposition to Jacksonian egalitarianism.
Scott favored a near-monarchical president-for-life to fix the country’s ills — and believed himself the man for the job. The Whigs nominated Scott as their 1852 presidential candidate. Franklin Pierce delivered a humiliating electoral defeat, and the Whigs were done.
At 75, Scott’s age, corpulence and accumulated illnesses prevented him from taking field command as events moved toward civil war. He unsuccessfully attempted to persuade his Mexican War staff officer Lee to command the Union forces.
He advocated to Lincoln defense-in-depth of Washington, the occupation of government forts and arsenals along rivers and on harbors, a vice-like blockade of Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico ports, and a large Union army to sever the rebel states by seizing important Mississippi River sites down to New Orleans. Scott intended, first, to demonstrate that resistance was futile and, second, to prevent great bloodshed.
Scott’s “Anaconda Plan” “was derided as a foolhardy plan devised by a senile old general,” Johnson said in recent correspondence. In 1861, most people didn’t think the war would last long enough for such an elaborate strategy. While Scott’s concept was never officially adopted, “as the war dragged on, Union strategy gradually fell in line” with Scott’s strategy.
Scott’s 1861 “Anaconda Plan” sought to create a blockade around the Confederacy’s ports.
Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, who served in the Mexican War and respected the commander, nonetheless possessed an ego equal to Scott’s but also better political connections. McClellan maneuvered Scott out of office. He did less well on battlefields against Scott’s protégé, Lee.
The 75-year-old Scott retired, spending most of his remaining years in West Point, New York, near the military academy he adored but never attended. He concentrated on shoring up his legacy with his memoirs. His wife, Maria, died in Rome on June 10, 1862, during one of her extended European sojourns. The old soldier, overcome by age, infirmities and financial straits, faded away on May 29, 1866. He is buried at West Point.
The Scott’s Addition neighborhood is named after him for reasons of inheritance and annexation — none of his family members ever lived on those lands.
