History Of The Day - US President-Elect Survives Train Wreck, Loses Son (1853)

[TFD]

Just months before he was inaugurated as the 14th US president, Franklin Pierce, his wife, and his 11-year-old son were in a terrible train wreck in which their car derailed and rolled down an embankment. Pierce and his wife survived but saw their son crushed to death. He was their third child, and the only one to have lived past early childhood. The suddenly childless parents were devastated, and Pierce entered the presidency in mourning. To what did Pierce's wife attribute the train accident? Discuss