Franklin pierce when was he born

He was incapable of steming the march towards Civil War. His most notable accomplishment was the Gadsen Purchase, expanding the fronteir to the South and West. Franklin Pierce was born in a log cabin in Hillsborough, New Hampshire. Soon after his birth, his family moved into a spacious home nearby. Pierce's father was active in politics, attaining the governorship of New Hampshire. Pierce received formal schooling from a young age.

He attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, from which he graduated in His mother, Anna Kendrick Pierce, had eight children, whose education she made her top priority. At the age of 12, Pierce left the public school system to attend private academies. When he turned 15, he enrolled at Bowdoin College in Maine, where he excelled at public speaking. In , Pierce graduated fifth in his class. Within two years, he was selected as its Speaker of the House, with the aid of his father, who had by then been elected governor.

In the s, Pierce was sent to Washington, D. Despite his rapid ascent in the world of politics, Pierce soon found his life in Washington both tedious and lonesome.

After developing a dependency on alcohol, he decided it was time to settle down. In , he married a shy religious woman named Jane Means Appleton, who supported the temperance movement. Jane disliked the Washington lifestyle even more than her husband did.

Nevertheless, a year after the couple's first of three sons were born, Pierce accepted his election to the U. In , under his wife's persistent urging, Pierce finally agreed to resign from the Senate. Afterward, he joined the temperance movement and started working as an attorney.

In , Pierce, by then a brigadier general, led an expedition to invade the Mexican shores of Veracruz under General Winfield Scott. When the Mexican government was still unwilling to give in to America's demands, Pierce and Scott headed to Mexico City.

Although they scored two victories there, Pierce injured his leg when he was thrown from his horse. While still recovering, he missed the Army's final victory at the Battle of Chapultepec, in After the war, Pierce went home to his family in New Hampshire. As the presidential election of approached, the Democratic Party sought a candidate who was a pro-slavery Northerner—to attract voters on both sides of the slavery issue. Based on that agenda, Pierce made the ideal candidate, even if it meant that he had to run against his former commander, General Scott of the Whig Party.

A politician of limited ability, Pierce was behind one of the most crucial pieces of legislation in American history. Although he did not author the Kansas-Nebraska Act, he did encourage its passage by Congress. And that piece of legislation set the nation on its path to civil war.

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