My remembrances of that secret visit have ever remained most keen. Often, when I think of the lonely grave on the quiet hillside at Concord, I recall the night when weariness of body and State formalities impelled the President to our cozy fireside, though he beat his way to it through snow and winds, stealing from the trammels of his position for the mere pleasure of walking the streets unimpeded and free as any other citizen.
President Pierce entered the White House in 1853, full as a youth of leaping life. A year before his inauguration I had seen him bound up the stairs with the elasticity and lightness of a schoolboy. He went out after four years a staid and grave man, on whom the stamp of care and illness was ineradicably impressed.
I often contrasted the pale, worn, haggard man whose “wine of life was drawn, and the mere lees left i’ the vault,” ere his term (so coveted by many) was spent, with the buoyant person I first met on the breezy New Hampshire hills!
Especially a lovable man in his private character, President Pierce was a man of whom our nation might well be proud to have at its head. Graced with an unusually fine presence, he was most courtly and polished in manner. Fair rather than dark, of graceful carriage,[[4]] he was also an eloquent speaker, and, though reserved to a degree, was very winning in manner. He was still in middle life when elected to the Presidency, being less than forty-nine years of age when inaugurated.
Taken all in all, the Cabinet circle formed by Mr. Pierce was one of the most interesting bodies that has ever surrounded an American Chief Magistrate. Selected wisely, the ministerial body remained unchanged throughout the entire Administration, and this at a time of unceasing and general contention. But three such instances are recorded in the histories of the twenty-six Presidents of the United States, the others occurring in the terms of J. Q. Adams and James A. Garfield. The tie which bound President Pierce and his Cabinet so inalienably was one of mutual confidence and personal friendship. Perhaps the closest ally of the President’s was his Secretary of State, William L. Marcy. That great Secretary was a man whose unusual poise and uniform complacency were often as much a source of envy to his friends as of confusion to his enemies. I commented upon it to my husband on one occasion, wondering interrogatively at his composure, whereupon Senator Clay told me the following story:
Some one as curious as I once asked the Secretary how he preserved his unvarying calmness. “Well,” he answered, confidentially, “I’ll tell you, I have given my secretary orders that whenever he sees an article eulogistic of me, praising my ‘astuteness,’ my ‘far-seeing diplomacy,’ my ‘incomparable statesmanship,’ etc., he is to cut it out and place it conspicuously on my desk where I can see it first thing in the morning; everything to the contrary he is to cut out and up and consign to the waste-basket. By this means, hearing nothing but good of myself, I have come naturally to regard myself as a pretty good fellow! Who wouldn’t be serene under such circumstances?”
MRS. WILLIAM L. MARCY
of New York
To add to his contentment thus philosophically assured, the Secretary’s home surroundings were peculiarly satisfactory to him. Mrs. Marcy was a demure and retiring woman, taking little part in the gayer happenings of the city, but on Cabinet days her welcome was always diplomatically cordial and her full parlours gave evidence of her personal popularity. A charming member of her family, Nellie, daughter of General R. B. Marcy, became the wife of General McClellan, whose son, named for that military hero, at this writing is Mayor of America’s metropolis. Between President and Mrs. Pierce and Secretary and Mrs. Marcy a firm friendship existed. It was to the home of the Secretary that President and Mrs. Pierce retired while the White House was being rehabilitated for the occupancy of Mr. Buchanan, who had just returned from his residence abroad, where, as Mr. Pierce’s appointee, he served as Minister to the Court of St. James.
On the day of Mr. Buchanan’s inauguration a curious oversight occurred which demonstrated in marked manner how eagerly a populace hastens to shout “The king is dead! Long live the King!” The procession of carriages had already formed and the moment for beginning the march to the Capitol had almost arrived ere it was observed that the vehicle set apart for President Pierce was unoccupied. Inquiry was hastily instituted, when it was discovered that, owing to some omission on the part of the Master of Ceremonies, his Excellency had not been sent for! The horses’ heads were turned in a trice, and they were driven furiously to the Marcy residence, where the quiet gentleman who was still the President of the United States awaited them.