Camp near Plattsburg [N. Y.], Oct. 12th, 1812.
Sir:
However incompatible it may be with the character and profession of a soldier, to enter into the party politics of the day, yet when the honor of the government, the corps he commands, and his personal fame are wantonly attacked, and attempted to be sacrificed to satiate the malignant venom of party purposes, it becomes his duty as a man, a patriot, to come forward and boldly contradict the base calumniator. The following piece "from the Connecticut Herald" and republished in the New York Herald of October 3d, is not only calculated to bring disrepute on the government, but to hold up our army as a mob wanting in discipline as well as in patriotism. The piece alluded to is as follows, viz.:
"The multiplied proof of folly, or of madness, or some worse cause, that have driven the nation into a ruinous, offensive war, are accumulating with every day's experience. Barely to enumerate the evidence would occupy columns. Two or three facts of recent occurrence, which have come to my knowledge, are in point and worthy of record. It is then a fact (for I state it on the best authority) that either the national treasury is so miserably empty, or the proper department so deficient in duty, that the army under General Dearborn, which has so long been idling away their time near Albany, was not only unpaid, but unprovided with the common necessaries of a camp; and when, a few days since, a part of these troops were ordered to the frontiers, one whole regiment (Colonel Pike's) absolutely refused, and deliberately stacked their arms, declaring they would not move until paid. In this refusal they were justified by their colonel, and an old soldier, who admitted they ought not to march unless the government would first pay the arrears due them. It fortunately happened that Mr. Secretary Gallatin was then at Albany, and on learning the state of affairs at the encampment, he borrowed $20,000 from one of the banks on his private credit, by which means the troops were paid, and cheerfully followed their commander."
In contradiction to this statement it will be sufficient to give the following facts:
[Firstly]—That the regimental paymaster had in his hands funds to pay the whole regiment up to the 31st. And [that] within three days of the period when the troops moved, three companies were paid previous to the march and the balance so soon as the troops halted a sufficient time to give the officers an opportunity to adjust the rolls and prepare the accounts of the recruits.
Secondly—That those funds were received by the regimental paymaster from the district paymaster, Mr. Eakins, who was then at Albany, and not from Mr. Gallatin whom, it is believed, did not arrive till after the regiment moved from Greenbush.
These facts can be corroborated by every officer of the 15th Infantry, who one and all deem the paragraph published in the Herald a base calumny, a direct attack on their honor as soldiers, and declare that the author, whoever he may be, has asserted gross untruths. As for myself, I have had the honor to serve in the army from the rank of volunteer to the station I now hold, during the Administration of Gen. Washington, Mr. Adams, Mr. Jefferson, and Mr. Madison, and can affirm that I have known some troops under the three first to have been upward of a year without a payment, and under the latter for eight months. This was owing to the dispersed state of our troops on the western frontiers. But never did I hear of a corps shewing a disposition to refuse to do their duty, because they had not received their pay; nor do I believe the American army has been disgraced by an instance of the kind since the Revolutionary War. But ask any man of consideration, what time it requires to organize an army, or a corps of new recruits—if, owing to the want of a knowledge of the officers to forms of returns, accounts, etc., it will not be some time before a new corps can be as well equipt, or appear as much like soldiers, as an old one? Every soldier will reply that it will require two years at least to teach both officers and men to reap the same benefit from the same supplies as old soldiers. And although at this time the 15th regiment has been as regularly supplied as any other corps with clothing, pay, arms, and accoutrements, even to watch coats to protect the centinel against the winter storms, yet were there an old regiment laying by their side, who had received the same supplies, they would most indubitably be better equipped and make themselves more comfortable, having the saving of two or more years' supplies on hand. But whether ill or well supplied, the soldiers and officers have too just a sense of the duty they owe their country and their own honor, ever to refuse to march against the enemy. And the colonel begs leave to assure the author of the above paragraph, that he hopes he will forbear any future attempt to injure his reputation by praising an action which, if true, must have forever tarnished the small claim he now has to a military character.
[Signed] Z. M. Pike,
Colonel 15th U. S. Infantry.
Colonel Pike seldom had occasion to make proclamations of a politico-military character. But one such which he issued while he was in command of a district may be here cited. It is not dated, in the printed form before me, but was no doubt given out in Jan., 1813, as it appears in Niles' Register for the week ending Jan. 30th, III. No. 22, p. 344: