LIEUTENANT-GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT
"Old Fuss and Feathers"
Born on the family farm, fourteen miles from Petersburg, Virginia, June 13, 1786.
His father, William Scott, of Scotch blood, a captain in the Revolution and a successful farmer, dies when Winfield is only six years old. Until he is seventeen the boy is brought up by his mother, Ann Mason, for whose brother, Winfield Mason, he is named. All the Scott family connections were prominent and well-to-do.
Winfield is given a good education. When he is twelve he enters the boarding-school of James Hargrave, a worthy Quaker, who said to him after the War of 1812: "Friend Winfield, I always told thee not to fight; but as thou wouldst fight, I am glad that thou weren't beaten." When he is seventeen he enters the school, of high-school grade, conducted in Richmond, Virginia, by James Ogilvie, a talented Scotchman. Here he studied Latin and Greek, rhetoric, Scotch metaphysics, logic, mathematics and political economy.
In 1805, when he is approaching nineteen, he enters William and Mary College, of Virginia. Here he studies chemistry, natural and experimental philosophy, and law, expecting to become a lawyer.
This same year he leaves college and becomes a law student in the office of David Robinson, in Petersburg. He has two companion students: Thomas Ruffin and John F. May. The three lads all rose high. Thomas Ruffin became chief justice of North Carolina; John May became leader of the bar in southern Virginia; Winfield Scott became head of the United States Army.
In 1806 he is admitted to the bar and rides his first circuit in Virginia. At Richmond, in 1807, he hears the arguments by the greatest legal orators of the day in the trial of ex-Vice-President Aaron Burr for high treason.
While the trial is in progress the British frigate Leopard enforces the right of search upon the United States frigate Chesapeake, off the capes of Virginia. On July 2 (1807) President Thomas Jefferson forbids the use of the United
