Against General Scott, the Democrats nominated Franklin Scott Pierce, the nomination being in the nature of an accident, though Pierce was in every way a worthy candidate. His family record begins with his father, Benjamin Pierce, who, as a lad of seventeen, stirred by the tidings of the fight at Lexington, left his home in Chelmsford, musket on shoulder, to join the patriot army before Boston. He settled in New Hampshire after the Revolution, and his son Franklin was born there in 1804. He followed the usual course of lawyer, congressman and senator, and served throughout the war with Mexico, rising to the rank of brigadier-general, and securing a reputation second only to that of Scott and Taylor. At the Democratic convention of 1852, Pierce was not a candidate for the nomination, and did not know that any one intended to mention his name, or even thought of him in that connection. But the convention was unable to agree on a candidate, and on the fourth day and thirty-third ballot, some delegate cast his vote for General Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire. The name attracted attention, Pierce's career had been distinguished and above reproach, other delegates voted for him, until, on the forty-ninth ballot, he was declared the unanimous choice of the convention. His election was overwhelming, as he carried twenty-seven states out of thirty-one. Once in the presidential chair, however, this popularity gradually slipped away from him. He found himself in an impossible position, between two fires, for the slavery question was dividing the country more and more and there seemed no possible way to reconcile the warring sections. Pierce, perhaps, made the mistake of trying to placate both, instead of taking his stand firmly with one or the other; and the consequence was that at the convention of 1856, he received a few votes from courtesy, but was never seriously in the running, which resulted in the nomination of James Buchanan. Pierce returned to his home in New Hampshire, to find his friends and neighbors estranged from him by his supposed pro-slavery views, which had yet not been radical enough to win him the friendship of the South; but time changed all that, and his last years were spent in honored and opulent retirement.