his advance on the city of Mexico. On 19 Aug. the battle of Contreras was fought. The Mexican General Valencia, with 7,000 troops, occupied a strongly intrenched camp. Gen. Scott's plan was to divert the attention of the enemy by a feigned attack on his front, while his flank could be turned and his retreat cut off. But the flanking movement being much delayed, the attack in front (in which Gen. Pierce led his brigade) became a desperate struggle, in which 4,000 raw recruits, who could not use their artillery, fought 7,000 disciplined soldiers, strongly intrenched and raining round shot and shells upon their assailants. To reach the enemy, the Americans who attacked in front were obliged to cross the pedregal, or lava-bed, the crater of an extinct volcano, bristling with sharp, jagged, splintered rocks, which afforded shelter to the Mexican skirmishers. Gen. Pierce's horse stepped into a cleft between two rocks and fell, breaking his own leg and throwing his rider, whose knee was seriously injured. Though suffering severely, and urged by the surgeon to withdraw, Gen. Pierce refused to leave his troops. Mounting the horse of an officer who had just been mortally wounded, he rode forward and remained in the saddle until eleven o'clock at night. The next morning Gen. Pierce was in the saddle at daylight, but the enemy's camp was stormed in the rear by the flanking party, and those of its defenders who escaped death or capture fled in confusion toward Churubusco, where Santa-Anna had concentrated his forces. Though Gen. Pierce's injuries were intensely painful, and though Gen. Scott advised him to leave the field, he insisted on remaining. His brigade and that of Gen. James Shields, in obeying an order to make a detour and attack the enemy in the rear, struck the Mexican reserves, by whom they were largely outnumbered, and a bloody and obstinate struggle followed. By this diversion Gens. Worth and Pillow were enabled to carry the head of the bridge at the front, and relieve Pierce and Shields from the pressure of overwhelming numbers. In the advance of Pierce's brigade his horse was unable to cross a ditch or ravine, and he was compelled to dismount and proceed on foot. Overcome by the pain of his injured knee, he sank to the ground, unable to proceed, but refused to be taken from the field, and remained under fire until the enemy were routed. After these defeats, Santa-Anna, to gain time, opened negotiations for peace, and Gen. Scott appointed Gen. Pierce one of the commissioners to agree upon terms of armistice. The truce lasted a fortnight, when Gen. Scott, discoving Santa-Anna's insincerity, again began hostilities. The sanguinary battles of Molino del Rey and Chapultepec soon followed, on 14 Sept., 1847, the city of Mexico capitulated, and the war was virtually over. Though Gen. Pierce had little opportunity to distinguish himself as a general in this brief war, he displayed a personal bravery and a regard for the welfare of his men that won him the highest credit. He also gained the ardent friendship of those with whom he came in contact, and that friendship did much for his future elevation. On the return of peace in December, 1847, Gen. Pierce returned to his home and to the practice of his profession. Soon after this the New Hampshire legislature presented him, in behalf of the state, with a fine sword. In 1850 Gen. Pierce was elected to represent the city of Concord in a constitutional convention, and when that body met he was chosen its president by a nearly unanimous vote. During its session he made strenuous and successful efforts to procure the adoption of an amendment abolishing the religious test that made none but Protestants eligible to office. But that amendment failed of adoption by the people, though practically and by common consent the restriction was disregarded. From 1847 till 1852 Gen. Pierce was arduously engaged in his profession. As an advocate he was never surpassed, if ever equalled, at the New Hampshire bar. He had the external advantages of an orator, a handsome, expressive face, an elegant figure, graceful and impressive gesticulation, and a clear, musical voice, which kindled the blood of his hearers like the notes of a trumpet, or melted them to tears by its pathos. His manner had a courtesy that sprang from the kindness of his heart and contributed much to his political and professional success. His perceptions were keen, and his mind seized at once the vital points of a case, while his ready command of language enabled him to present them to an audience so clearly that they could not be misunderstood. He had an intuitive knowledge of human nature, and the numerous illustrations that he drew from the daily lives of his strong-minded auditors made his speeches doubly effective. He was not a diligent student, nor a reader of many books, yet the keenness of his intellect and his natural capacity for reasoning often enabled him, with but little preparation, to argue successfully intricate questions of law. The masses of the Democratic party in the free states so strongly favored the exclusion of slavery from the territory ceded by Mexico that their leaders were compelled to yield, and from 1847 till 1850 their resolutions and platforms advocated free-soil principles. This was especially the case in New Hampshire, and even Gen. Pierce's great popularity could not stem the tide. But in 1850 the passage of the so-called "compromise measures" by congress, the chief of which were the fugitive-slave law and the admission of California as a free state, raised a new issue. Adherence to those measures became to a great extent a test of party fidelity in both the Whig and Democratic parties. Gen. Pierce zealously championed them in New Hampshire, and at a dinner given to him and other personal friends by Daniel Webster at his farm-house in Franklin, N. H., Pierce, in an eloquent speech, assured the great Whig statesman that if his own party rejected him for his 7th of March speech, the Democracy would "lift him so high that his feet would not touch the stars." Finally the masses of both the great parties gave to the compromise measures a sullen acquiescence, on the ground that they were a final settlement of the slavery question. The Democratic national convention met at Baltimore, 12 June, 1852. After thirty-five ballotings for a candidate for president, in which Gen. Pierce's name did not appear, the Virginia delegation brought it forward, and on the 49th ballot he was nominated by 282 votes to 11 for all others. James Buchanan, Stephen A. Douglas, Lewis Cass, and William L. Marcy were his chief rivals. Gen. Winfield Scott, the Whig candidate, was unsatisfactory both to the north and to the south. Webster and his friends leaned toward Pierce, and in the election in November, Scott carried only Massachusetts, Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee, with 42 votes, while Pierce carried all the other states with 254 votes. The Whig party had received its death-stroke, and dissolved. In his inaugural address, 4 March, 1853, President Pierce maintained the constitutionality of slavery and the fugitiveslave law, denounced slavery agitation, and hoped that "no sectional or ambitious or fanatical excitement might again. threaten the durability of our institutions, or obscure the light of our prosperity." On 7 March he announced as his cabinet. |