Winfield Scott

General Winfield Scott commanded the United States Army for twenty years and served under fourteen presidents, longer than any other American officer. He was called Old Fuss and Feathers for his insistence on drill and correct uniform, which was not affection but did reflect the thing he was best at: turning militia into soldiers. He was captured at Queenston Heights in the War of 1812 and afterwards wrote the drill manual the army used for decades. In 1838 he was given the job of removing the Cherokee to the west, and although he issued orders insisting on humane treatment, the Trail of Tears happened under his command. His campaign in Mexico in 1847 is the one soldiers study: he landed at Veracruz in the first large amphibious assault in American history, cut loose from his supply line, and fought his way to Mexico City through Cerro Gordo and Chapultepec, the Duke of Wellington reportedly following the maps and pronouncing him the greatest living soldier. He ran for president as a Whig in 1852 and was beaten badly. When the Civil War came he was seventy-four, too heavy to ride, and produced the Anaconda Plan - blockade the coast, take the Mississippi, squeeze rather than seek one decisive battle. It was mocked at the time and is close to what eventually won the war. He retired in November 1861. He also negotiated settlements of two border disputes with Britain without a shot being fired, in Maine and in the San Juan Islands, which he regarded as better work than any battle. He was made a brevet lieutenant general, the first American since Washington to hold the rank. He lived long enough to see the war he had planned for won, dying in 1866.

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