Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1883 — Zachary Taylor’s Scholarship. [ARTICLE]

Zachary Taylor’s Scholarship.

In the course of an article with the general scope of which I heartily agreed, you were led to assert that Gen. Zachary Taylor was barely able to write his name. This, be assured, is a great error. The present writer served as a subaltern officer, in close daily relations with Gen. Taylor at Fort Jesup, in Louisiana, and Corpus Christi, Texas, immediately preceding the war with Mexico, as also in the Rio Grande, in the first battles of that war. My regiment had an excellent library, of which I had charge, and to which the General had access. He read a good deal —substantial books covering a considerable range of historical and genpral literature. He was also an attentive reader of such political journals as the National Intelligencer and the Globe, and no one of his' dky was better acquainted with the early political history of this country. He wrote vigorously and clearly on public questions and affairs, as was shown in -several letters to a kinsman, which got into the newspapers during the war. Col. Bliss, of hi< staff, was known to be a master of English style, and these letters were ascribed to him, but I neard the Colonel say that ho had had nothing at all to do with their composition. The fact is, G-en. Taylor was one of those men who are always gathering information so long as they live. It seems to me this figment about his illiteracy, having really no truth in it, ihouhf" not be uncontradicted any longer.—Neto York Times.