General Pierce's March

In 1852, noted author Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a glowing biography of Franklin Pierce, then a candidate for president.  Pierce was a successful New Hampshire lawyer, a stalwart Democrat, and had been a Brigadier General during the Mexican War.  Hawthorne dedicates two chapters of the biography to Pierce's war service, which proves to be as hagiographic as the rest of the biography.  However, the most interesting part was that Hawthorne included Pierce's war journal.

The war journal begins when Pierce arrived in Vera Cruz at the end of June, 1847, when yellow fever was in full bloom.  He camped outside the city to avoid the disease and spent his days trying to gather the needed mules to transport his reinforcement army to Puebla, where he was to rendezvous with General Winfield Scott.  Though expecting to only take a few days, it was nearly 3 weeks before his troops departed, and then at a snail's pace.  Throughout the march, his army was repeatedly harassed by guerillas.  The guerillas would vanish into the countryside when the Americans sought to counterattack.  At the National Bridge, the guerillas setup a blockade and looked to be prepared for a battle.  Once again, when the Americans leapt the barricades, the guerillas fled.  The next bridge, an old Spanish stone bridge that had spanned a deep crevasse for more than a century, had been blasted apart.  Were the Americans now stuck?  No, Pierce declared that Yankee ingenuity would overcome and by the following day they had built their own route a few hundred yards further down the water way.  Named for the man that engineered it, Captain Caldwell Road saw Pierce's Brigade back on track with only a day's delay.  Pierce camped near Xalapa for a few days before continuing to Perote Castle.  There, he met Captain Samuel Walker, Texas Ranger.  It was the first of August.

Though only about halfway to Puebla, the journal ends here.  Perhaps this was as much of it as Pierce provided to Hawthorne.  Despite my extensive reading of the Mexican-American War, this is the only account I have found of Pierce's march inland.  Despite many skirmishes with hundreds of guerillas at a time, Pierce was never able to pin them down to have a proper battle.  Thus, his march is largely forgotten by historians.  Or I just haven't found the book that details it yet.

Only for the hardcore history nerds.