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Modern War Studies
Winfield Scott: The Quest for Military Glory
One of the most important public figures in antebellum America, Winfield Scott is known today more for his swagger than his sword. "Old Fuss and Feathers" was a brilliant military commander whose tactics and strategy were innovative adaptations from European military theory; yet he was often underappreciated by his contemporaries and, until recently, overlooked by historians.
Although John Eisenhower's recently published Agent of Destiny provides a solid summary of Scott's remarkable life, Timothy D. Johnson's much deeper critical exploration of this flawed genius will become the standard work. Thoroughly grounded in an essential understanding of nineteenth-century military professionalism, Johnson's work draws extensively on unpublished sources to reveal neglected aspects of Scott's life, present a complete view of his career, and accurately balance criticism and praise.
Johnson dramatically relates the key features of Scott's career: how he led troops to victory in the War of 1812 and the Mexican War, fought against the Seminoles and Creeks, and was instrumental in professionalizing the U.S. Army, which he commanded for two decades. He also tells how Scott tried to introduce French methods into army tactical manuals, and how he applied his study of the Napoleonic Wars during the Mexico City campaign but found European strategy of little use against Indians. Johnson further suggests that Scott's creation of an officer corps that boasted Grant, Lee, McClellan, and other veterans of the Mexican War raises important questions about his influence on Civil War generalship.
More than a military history, this book explains how Scott's aristocratic pretensions were out of place with emerging notions of equality in Jacksonian America and made him an unappealing political candidate in his bid for the presidency. Johnson recounts the details of Scott's personality that alienated nearly every one who knew him, as well as the unsavory methods Scott used to promote his career and the scandalous ways he attempted to alleviate his lifelong financial troubles.
Although Scott's legendary vanity has tarnished his place among American military leaders, he also possessed great talent and courage. Johnson's biography offers the most balanced portrait available of Scott, by never losing sight of the whole man.
Although John Eisenhower's recently published Agent of Destiny provides a solid summary of Scott's remarkable life, Timothy D. Johnson's much deeper critical exploration of this flawed genius will become the standard work. Thoroughly grounded in an essential understanding of nineteenth-century military professionalism, Johnson's work draws extensively on unpublished sources to reveal neglected aspects of Scott's life, present a complete view of his career, and accurately balance criticism and praise.
Johnson dramatically relates the key features of Scott's career: how he led troops to victory in the War of 1812 and the Mexican War, fought against the Seminoles and Creeks, and was instrumental in professionalizing the U.S. Army, which he commanded for two decades. He also tells how Scott tried to introduce French methods into army tactical manuals, and how he applied his study of the Napoleonic Wars during the Mexico City campaign but found European strategy of little use against Indians. Johnson further suggests that Scott's creation of an officer corps that boasted Grant, Lee, McClellan, and other veterans of the Mexican War raises important questions about his influence on Civil War generalship.
More than a military history, this book explains how Scott's aristocratic pretensions were out of place with emerging notions of equality in Jacksonian America and made him an unappealing political candidate in his bid for the presidency. Johnson recounts the details of Scott's personality that alienated nearly every one who knew him, as well as the unsavory methods Scott used to promote his career and the scandalous ways he attempted to alleviate his lifelong financial troubles.
Although Scott's legendary vanity has tarnished his place among American military leaders, he also possessed great talent and courage. Johnson's biography offers the most balanced portrait available of Scott, by never losing sight of the whole man.
328 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 1998
About the author
Timothy D. Johnson
17 books3 followersTimothy D. Johnson is University Research Professor in History at Lipscomb University, where he has taught since 1991. Johnson earned his B.S. in history, his M.Ed. in education, and his M.A. and Ph.D., History from the University of Alabama.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 15, 2025
He was the longest serving general officer in American history, with a military career that spanned more than half a century. During that time, he commanded American forces in two major wars, devised the winning strategy for a third, and waged campaigns that earned him praise as the greatest solider of his age. Over the course of his career, he spearheaded the transformation of the United States Army into a professional force, averted war with Great Britain, and ran for president as the nominee of a major political party. Yet even in spite of these manifold achievements Winfield Scott’s name is one that is largely unknown to Americans today, and often goes unmentioned in discussions of the nation’s greatest military leaders.
One reason for this, in Timothy D. Johnson’s estimation, is that Scott’s victories were won in wars that are less familiar to modern Americans than the conflicts that currently dominate the popular imagination. Nor does it help that many of Scott’s personal papers were destroyed in a fire, and that the remainder are so dispersed as to make it challenging to write a modern biography of him based on the available primary sources. That Johnson attempted such a task is in itself laudatory, and simply in filling this gap he has provided a useful service. Fortunately, his book goes beyond this to provide a valuable assessment of Scott’s life and achievements, one based upon not only the contemporary documentation but the considerable scholarly research written about the era for context.
Among the questions Johnson addresses is how Scott attained such a successful career given his unremarkable background. Though born into a middle-class Virginia family, his father’s death at an early age left young Winfield and his siblings to be raised by his mother, Ann. Her death when Scott was only 17 left the young man with little more than her lessons on self-reliance. Following in his father’s footsteps, Scott studied the law and became an attorney, but found that the grind of legal work did little to satisfy his ambitions. The growing tensions with Great Britain soon offered him an outlet for his ambitions. Enrolling in the state militia, Scott participated in patrols of the Virginia coastline and even netted in one of them a party of unarmed British tars who had landed to procure provisions.
Scott’s brief service whetted his interests in a military career, and led him to pursue a commission in the army. Entering as a captain of artillery, he soon found peacetime duties dull, and was court-martialed for withholding his men’s pay. Scott used the year’s suspension he received as punishment to study military science and history, making up for his lack of professional training by reading through the standard texts of the era. This self-education soon came in good stead, as less than a year after the end of Scott’s suspension the United States declared war against Great Britain. In an army commanded by aged veterans of the American Revolution Scott’s youth and aggressiveness ensured his rapid ascent through the ranks, as he rose from captain to major general in just two years thanks to his distinguished combat record in the Niagara theater.
In the aftermath of the war Scott became one of just a handful of active-duty generals remaining in the peacetime force, a status that enhanced his influence. Over the next several decades, he used this position to turn the army into a professional force modeled along European lines. Johnson devotes considerable space to detailing Scott’s efforts during this period, describing his attention to writing and revising the regulations that would train generations of soldiers. While little of this work was original, this did not make it any less influential in terms of shaping the army into the force Scott envisioned. This vision proved a limiting one in several respects, as Johnson notes that Scott’s preference for Napoleonic-era tactics and campaigning proved ill-suited for the operations he conducted against the Seminole in Florida in 1836. Here the author’s analysis of what this setback revealed about Scott’s flaws is disappointingly constrained, as he limits it to an assessment of his subject’s inflexibility and ignores the insights it offers into the issues of status and respectability that permeated Scott’s career.
Scott subsequently proved more successful in defusing tensions along the Canadian border in the aftermath of the “Patriot War,” an achievement that sparked talk of a possible presidential nomination for the first time. Though he was denied the Whig Party’s nomination in 1840, Scott attained his professional goal a year later by becoming commanding general of the army, an office he would hold for the next two decades. Scott’s new position gave full reign to the vanity that justified his nickname “Old Fuss and Feathers,” yet it was one the responsibility for which he took seriously. Scott’s status was such that it made it difficult for James K. Polk to deny him command of American forces when war with Mexico broke out in 1846, as the president’s inability to find anyone better suited to lead the proposed expedition to capture the port of Veracruz led him reluctantly to grant Scott an opportunity to demonstrate his talents.
The campaign that followed proved the triumph of Scott’s career. Johnson recounts the Veracruz landing and subsequent capture of Mexico City in considerable detail, showing how its success was due in no small part to Scott’s careful preparations and wise policies. Cognizant of the political dimensions of his mission and having learned from his failures in Florida a decade earlier, Scott demanded that his men respect Mexican citizens and their property, which helped to negate the threat a major guerrilla movement would have posed to his small and overstretched force. Scott’s political skills also contributed to the successful negotiation of an end to the war, further adding to his luster. Though Whigs awarded the 1848 presidential nomination instead to his rival, Zachary Taylor, Scott finally received his chance to run for president four years later, only to be defeated as the nominee of a political party in terminal decline.
Scott may well have served out his final years quietly but for the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. Loyal to the Union, his plan to cripple the embryonic Confederacy through a campaign of economic strangulation was largely a copy of his strategy in Mexico fourteen years earlier. Yet while the “Anaconda Plan” as it was dubbed would shape Union strategy throughout the war, less than a year into it Scott himself was unceremoniously forced into retirement by George McClellan – a man whose ambition, organizational ability and arrogance was every bit the equal of Scott’s. That McClellan failed despite basing his 1862 Peninsula campaign on Scott’s campaign in Mexico reflected in Johnson’s judgment the crucial element Scott possessed which his successor lacked: the moral courage to execute a bold operation. It’s a conclusion that squares with his overall assessment of Scott’s gifted leadership but flawed personality. And in Johnson’s biography of him readers have an informative introduction to his life and achievements, one that is a good starting point for anyone seeking to learn about this unjustly neglected figure.
One reason for this, in Timothy D. Johnson’s estimation, is that Scott’s victories were won in wars that are less familiar to modern Americans than the conflicts that currently dominate the popular imagination. Nor does it help that many of Scott’s personal papers were destroyed in a fire, and that the remainder are so dispersed as to make it challenging to write a modern biography of him based on the available primary sources. That Johnson attempted such a task is in itself laudatory, and simply in filling this gap he has provided a useful service. Fortunately, his book goes beyond this to provide a valuable assessment of Scott’s life and achievements, one based upon not only the contemporary documentation but the considerable scholarly research written about the era for context.
Among the questions Johnson addresses is how Scott attained such a successful career given his unremarkable background. Though born into a middle-class Virginia family, his father’s death at an early age left young Winfield and his siblings to be raised by his mother, Ann. Her death when Scott was only 17 left the young man with little more than her lessons on self-reliance. Following in his father’s footsteps, Scott studied the law and became an attorney, but found that the grind of legal work did little to satisfy his ambitions. The growing tensions with Great Britain soon offered him an outlet for his ambitions. Enrolling in the state militia, Scott participated in patrols of the Virginia coastline and even netted in one of them a party of unarmed British tars who had landed to procure provisions.
Scott’s brief service whetted his interests in a military career, and led him to pursue a commission in the army. Entering as a captain of artillery, he soon found peacetime duties dull, and was court-martialed for withholding his men’s pay. Scott used the year’s suspension he received as punishment to study military science and history, making up for his lack of professional training by reading through the standard texts of the era. This self-education soon came in good stead, as less than a year after the end of Scott’s suspension the United States declared war against Great Britain. In an army commanded by aged veterans of the American Revolution Scott’s youth and aggressiveness ensured his rapid ascent through the ranks, as he rose from captain to major general in just two years thanks to his distinguished combat record in the Niagara theater.
In the aftermath of the war Scott became one of just a handful of active-duty generals remaining in the peacetime force, a status that enhanced his influence. Over the next several decades, he used this position to turn the army into a professional force modeled along European lines. Johnson devotes considerable space to detailing Scott’s efforts during this period, describing his attention to writing and revising the regulations that would train generations of soldiers. While little of this work was original, this did not make it any less influential in terms of shaping the army into the force Scott envisioned. This vision proved a limiting one in several respects, as Johnson notes that Scott’s preference for Napoleonic-era tactics and campaigning proved ill-suited for the operations he conducted against the Seminole in Florida in 1836. Here the author’s analysis of what this setback revealed about Scott’s flaws is disappointingly constrained, as he limits it to an assessment of his subject’s inflexibility and ignores the insights it offers into the issues of status and respectability that permeated Scott’s career.
Scott subsequently proved more successful in defusing tensions along the Canadian border in the aftermath of the “Patriot War,” an achievement that sparked talk of a possible presidential nomination for the first time. Though he was denied the Whig Party’s nomination in 1840, Scott attained his professional goal a year later by becoming commanding general of the army, an office he would hold for the next two decades. Scott’s new position gave full reign to the vanity that justified his nickname “Old Fuss and Feathers,” yet it was one the responsibility for which he took seriously. Scott’s status was such that it made it difficult for James K. Polk to deny him command of American forces when war with Mexico broke out in 1846, as the president’s inability to find anyone better suited to lead the proposed expedition to capture the port of Veracruz led him reluctantly to grant Scott an opportunity to demonstrate his talents.
The campaign that followed proved the triumph of Scott’s career. Johnson recounts the Veracruz landing and subsequent capture of Mexico City in considerable detail, showing how its success was due in no small part to Scott’s careful preparations and wise policies. Cognizant of the political dimensions of his mission and having learned from his failures in Florida a decade earlier, Scott demanded that his men respect Mexican citizens and their property, which helped to negate the threat a major guerrilla movement would have posed to his small and overstretched force. Scott’s political skills also contributed to the successful negotiation of an end to the war, further adding to his luster. Though Whigs awarded the 1848 presidential nomination instead to his rival, Zachary Taylor, Scott finally received his chance to run for president four years later, only to be defeated as the nominee of a political party in terminal decline.
Scott may well have served out his final years quietly but for the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. Loyal to the Union, his plan to cripple the embryonic Confederacy through a campaign of economic strangulation was largely a copy of his strategy in Mexico fourteen years earlier. Yet while the “Anaconda Plan” as it was dubbed would shape Union strategy throughout the war, less than a year into it Scott himself was unceremoniously forced into retirement by George McClellan – a man whose ambition, organizational ability and arrogance was every bit the equal of Scott’s. That McClellan failed despite basing his 1862 Peninsula campaign on Scott’s campaign in Mexico reflected in Johnson’s judgment the crucial element Scott possessed which his successor lacked: the moral courage to execute a bold operation. It’s a conclusion that squares with his overall assessment of Scott’s gifted leadership but flawed personality. And in Johnson’s biography of him readers have an informative introduction to his life and achievements, one that is a good starting point for anyone seeking to learn about this unjustly neglected figure.
November 3, 2024
Just finished:
"Winfield Scott: The Quest for Military Glory"
By: Timothy D. Johnson
Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998.
An engrossing account of a walking contradiction. Scott's ego could give anyone throughout history a run for their money. He was a germophobe who pitied the sick, challenged at least one man to a duel when he himself wrote in military code that it was unbecoming for officers to duel. He was a man from middling means who lost his parents at a young age but married into a wealthy family. For all his flaws, he helped modernize a small army. He also learned from the history of the Napoleonic Wars, and the Peninsula Campaign in particular. He decided the best way to win in Mexico was to treat the Roman Catholic Church with respect and that his soldiers would buy what they needed. He disciplined soldiers for wrongdoing in Mexico.
I'd recommend this book.
"Winfield Scott: The Quest for Military Glory"
By: Timothy D. Johnson
Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998.
An engrossing account of a walking contradiction. Scott's ego could give anyone throughout history a run for their money. He was a germophobe who pitied the sick, challenged at least one man to a duel when he himself wrote in military code that it was unbecoming for officers to duel. He was a man from middling means who lost his parents at a young age but married into a wealthy family. For all his flaws, he helped modernize a small army. He also learned from the history of the Napoleonic Wars, and the Peninsula Campaign in particular. He decided the best way to win in Mexico was to treat the Roman Catholic Church with respect and that his soldiers would buy what they needed. He disciplined soldiers for wrongdoing in Mexico.
I'd recommend this book.
July 24, 2025
A clear, thoughtful and readable biography of Scott, with a focus on his military career.
Johnson ably describes Scott’s vanity, arrogance and self-confidence and how it followed Scott throughout his life. He also covers Scott’s ability to combine aggressive military action with diplomatic overtures, his ability to pacify conquered territory, and how his pomposity and elitism cost him his chance at the presidency. The Mexican-American War is probably the best part of the book.
The narrative flows well, the pace is pretty comfortable, and he does a good job balancing Scott’s life with the times he lived in. He does indulge in some psychobabble when talking about the death of Scott’s parents, but this is easy to get through. The narrative also seems rushed once the Mexican War ends. Also at one point John Eaton is called “James.”
A well-written, well-researched, and enjoyable biography.
Johnson ably describes Scott’s vanity, arrogance and self-confidence and how it followed Scott throughout his life. He also covers Scott’s ability to combine aggressive military action with diplomatic overtures, his ability to pacify conquered territory, and how his pomposity and elitism cost him his chance at the presidency. The Mexican-American War is probably the best part of the book.
The narrative flows well, the pace is pretty comfortable, and he does a good job balancing Scott’s life with the times he lived in. He does indulge in some psychobabble when talking about the death of Scott’s parents, but this is easy to get through. The narrative also seems rushed once the Mexican War ends. Also at one point John Eaton is called “James.”
A well-written, well-researched, and enjoyable biography.
September 3, 2016
This is a good book for giving the reader an overview of the life of Winfield Scott. The author does not try to hide the fact that Scott had a giant ego nor that he believed it was his way or the highway. The author does not go into great detail of Scott's military campaigns. There is just about as much detail on Scott writing the first army manual and his struggles to be given back pay as there is coverage of the Mexico City campaign. If the reader is looking for justin overview of the development of the US Army from the War of 1812 till the end of the Mexican-American War and Scott's involvement in it, with little background knowledge, then this is a good book to start with.
December 12, 2024
Timothy Johnson produced an extremely well-written biography on Gen. Winfield Scott, likely the best Scott biography on the market.
Read
January 18, 2016Worth reading for those interested in U.S. military and political history.
On a personal level, I have photocopies of letters that a maternal ancestor exchanged with Winfield Scott when Scott was considering a run for the White House.
On a personal level, I have photocopies of letters that a maternal ancestor exchanged with Winfield Scott when Scott was considering a run for the White House.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews