Zachary Taylor

Zachary Taylor is presented as a commander whose authority reaches Captain Kidd through both military organization and the hazards of campaign. By entrusting Kidd with communications work and securing his brevet rank, Taylor turns the printer into a military officer; the battles fought by Taylor’s forces then become the setting in which Kidd’s practical service and memories take shape.

Command and Communications

During the Mexican War, Taylor’s forces needed Kidd to organize communications. Kidd’s printing experience made him useful beyond the print shop: he prepared orders of the day on a small hand press, while couriers carried messages between Port Isabel on the Gulf and the Army encampment north of Matamoros, on the Rio Grande. The arrangement joined printed information to mounted delivery, making communication a working part of the campaign rather than a distant administrative concern.

Taylor formalized Kidd’s position by making him a brevet captain in the Second Division. Kidd needed the rank to organize the couriers and obtain supplies—paper, ink, and horses. His earlier service in the War of 1812 recommended him, and the title endured: afterward, he was known as Captain Kidd. Taylor’s role in the narrative is thus concrete but largely institutional; his decision gives Kidd the standing and material means to perform his wartime work.

The Campaigns of Taylor’s Forces

At Resaca de la Palma, a twelve-pound ball fired from José Mariano Martín Buenaventura Ignacio Nepomuceno García de Arista’s lines passed through the staff tent and shattered a table only three feet from Kidd. The blast sent lamp oil into transparent dots across the canvas and left a major with a table splinter through his neck; the major fainted but survived. The scene conveys the immediate physical danger surrounding Taylor’s command, without attributing the incident or the men’s subsequent actions directly to Taylor.

Kidd was also with Taylor’s forces at the Battle of Buena Vista, in the high mountains above Monterrey, in mid-February 1847. The troops had faced shots all the way from the Rio Grande, fired either by Mexican sharpshooters or Apaches. Kidd, familiar with the weapons, was handed a Model 1830 Springfield flintlock; lying in a wagon bed, he fired toward the gunsmoke and hoped to hit a hidden sniper. Taylor’s forces provide the military frame for this episode, while the account keeps its attention on the conditions and actions of the men in the field.

Taylor’s Place in Kidd’s Story

Taylor’s importance is clearest in the connection between command and transmission. He recognizes Kidd’s usefulness, grants him a rank tied to a specific logistical task, and places him within forces moving through dangerous campaigns. The narrative does not develop Taylor’s private character or give him a sustained speaking role; instead, his decisions establish the circumstances in which Kidd becomes Captain Kidd and carries both orders and stories.

That distinction matters at Buena Vista, where young soldiers ask Kidd about the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, seeking to measure their own conduct against that of an earlier generation. Taylor’s command supplies the present-tense setting for their questions, but Kidd’s recollection supplies the answer. Taylor therefore anchors the military chronology, while the remembered experience of an older soldier gives the campaign its human measure.