Winfield Scott

Winfield Scott (1786-1866) was a general of the United States Army and holds the record for longest active service at the rank of general in US military history. He was breveted Brigadier General in March 1814 and retired at the rank of Lieutenant General in November 1861. (In 1856 he became only the second American soldier to hold the latter rank; the first was George Washington.) He commanded US forces during the War of 1812, Mexican War, Black Hawk War, Second Seminole War, and American Civil War, and was Commanding General of the United States Army for twenty years, the longest service in the history of the post.

At the beginning of the Civil War he masterminded the Anaconda Plan, a strategy that called for a slow war of attrition against the Confederate States. A modified version of the plan would eventually prove the key to Federal victory in the war, but in the summer of 1861 the plan was unpopular, with political support for a major offensive against the Confederate capital of Richmond being the most fashionable strategy. A combination of rapidly deteriorating health and political pressure by allies of the incompetent George McClellan, who aspired to succeed Scott as Commanding General, led Scott to tender his resignation to President Abraham Lincoln on November 1, 1861, ending a fifty-five year military career that had seen him serve under fourteen of the sixteen Presidents to have held office up to that point. (He had enlisted in the Virginia militia in 1806 and was commissioned a captain of the US Army in 1808.) Despite being retired, Scott was informally consulted as a military advisor by President Lincoln at different points throughout the war.

In 1852, Scott was the final presidential nominee of the Whig Party before that party went defunct. Scott was defeated by Democrat Franklin Pierce.

Winfield Scott in "Lee at the Alamo"
After the newly promoted Colonel Robert E. Lee returned to territory effectively controlled by the United States after the fall of the Alamo, General Winfield Scott informed his one-time prized pupil that President Lincoln intended to offer Lee field command of the US Army during the coming civil war. Lee left the meeting having neither accepted nor refused the assignment, prompting Lincoln to invite Lee to meet with him personally.