From a painting by G. P. A. Healy, in the Coran Gallery, Washington, D. C. Franklin Pierce was born in New Hampshire in 1804. He was a student at Bowdoin College with Hawthorne and Longfellow. He represented his state in both houses of Congress from 1833 to 1847. In the Mexican War he displayed bravery and skill, and was raised to the rank of brigadier-general. He died in 1869. Pierce's cabinet was the only one in our history in which there was no change.
