Zachary Taylor — 12th President (1849–1850)

**Zachary Taylor** was "Old Rough and Ready" — a career military officer who had never voted before being elected president. He wore rumpled clothes, rode his horse sidesaddle, and approached the presidency with the same practical, no-nonsense attitude he brought to the battlefield. He served only 16 months before dying in office (likely from gastroenteritis), but in that time he surprised everyone by firmly opposing the expansion of slavery into new territories — despite being a slaveholder himself from Louisiana.