Considered a failure upon leaving the White House in 1857 and thought to be on his way to a well-deserved obscurity, Franklin Pierce during the Civil War emerged as a major spokesman for that era's Peace Democrats, opposed to President Lincoln's suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and in defense of civil liberties.

A Northerner with many close Southern friends, including Jefferson Davis the president of the Confederacy and his wife, Varina Davis, Pierce was also thought to be a traitor because of such ties and was at one point nearly arrested for suspected seditious behavior.

Garry Boulard is an Albuquerque, New Mexico writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Christian Science Monitor and is also a long-time contributor to the National Conference of State Legislatures? State Legislatures Magazine. He is the author of four other books, including Huey Long Invades New Orleans?The Siege Of A City, 1934?36 (Pelican Publishing Company, 1998).