Tuesday; July 14
As I watched our nation celebrate our 250 th birthday under the intense heat, my mind was drawn to President Zachary Taylor. While he isn’t one of our best known presidents (he only served a little more than a year), the events surrounding his death are rather remarkable. During a particularly warm Independence Day celebration in 1850, President Taylor ate some cherries and drank some milk. Not long afterwards, he became ill and passed away on July 9. It wouldn’t surprise me if the “cherries and milk” observation hasn’t taken on a life of its own and overshadowed a more disastrous cause, but it does tend to get our attention. President Taylor may have been a short-term national leader, but he had a pretty extensive record as a military leader. Interestingly, it was something he said as a warrior that has garnered a lot of attention. In bringing a resolution to the Mexican-American War, General Taylor noted, “It would be judicious to ...