Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/168

 130 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS the fort, where Col. Taylor received them, except the Winnebagoes, as prisoners. A lieutenant and a guard were sent with them, sixty in number * men, women, and children by steamboat, to Rock Island, there to report to Gen. Scott for orders in regard to the prisoners. Col. Taylor actively participated in the campaign up to its close, and to him was surrendered the chief who had most illustrated the warlike instincts of the Indian race, to whom history must fairly accord the credit of having done much under the most disadvantageous circumstances. In 1836 Col. Taylor was ordered to Florida for service in the Seminole war, and the next year he defeated the Indians in the decisive battle of Okechobee, for which he received the brevet of brigadier-general, and in 1838 was ap pointed to the chief command in Florida. In 1840 he was assigned to command the southern division of the western department of the army. Though Gen. Taylor had for many years been a cotton- planter, his family had lived with him at his mili tary station, but, when ordered for an indefinite time on field service, he made his family home at Baton Rouge, La. Texas having been annexed to the United States in 1845, Mexico threatened to invade Texas with the avowed purpose to recover the territory, and Gen. Taylor was ordered to defend it as a part of the United States. He proceeded with all his avail-