Will Genl. Dearborne accept of my sincere acknowledgements for the many favours he has conferred on me and believe me to be with sincere respect and Esteem.
His obt Sert
[Signed] Z M Pike
The War Department proved to be a liberal subscriber; for General Dearborn indorsed the above in his own handwriting, "We will take 50 copies."
Matters thus being satisfactorily arranged for the publication of his book, Major Pike seems to have returned at once, or very soon, to military duty in his new rank—unless he went to see his wife on leave of absence. We find him at Belle Fontaine in August of this year, as evidenced by a letter I will transcribe in part, epitomizing the rest:
Camp Belle Fontain—
18 Augt. 1808.
Sir!
Col. Hunt[M-14] deceased last night at half past 12 O. C. after an illness of some weeks—He has left a distressed widow and nine children unprovided for, and unprotected. [The letter recommends military appointments for Col. Hunt's two sons, George and Thomas; states that the command of the district has devolved on Capt. James House of the artillery; that Capt. Clemson's company of the 1st Infantry had marched 10 days before for Fire Prairie, 25 miles up the Missouri, and Capt. Pinckney's company was to march in about 10 days for the Des Moines r., which would leave only one company of artillery at Belle Fontaine; wishes to know when he shall have definite orders to join his battalion in New Jersey; expects to be at Pittsburgh next October; and continues:] which is my anxious wish as from appearances we shall again have to meet the European Invaders of our country and if I know myself, I feel anxious to have the honor of being amongst the first to rencounter their boasted phalanx's—and to evence to them that the sons are able to sustain the Independence handed down to us by our Fathers
[Signed] Z. M. Pike, Majr.
6th Regt Inf
Before the year closed Major Pike had come East, and found his hands full, no doubt, in presenting to Congress the claims of himself and his men to the generous consideration of that body, in the little matter of an appropriation for their benefit. Those who have ever had occasion to cool their heels in the halls of greatness, till the mercury of their hopes congealed in the bulbs of their thoroughly refrigerated boots, will best appreciate Pike's plight. The novelist's realism of little Miss Flite in Chancery is out-realized in the Bleak House on Capitol Hill, which William McGarrahan haunted for a lifetime, and from which his injured ghost may not yet be freed. The following letter was written when Pike had not lost hope:
Capitol Hill, 2 Decemr. 08.