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Return to First Page ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY, Volume 12 (Winter 1953) p. 302
to Mexico and that he would be expected to lead them. He also knew that it would mean a great personal sacrifice to surrender his valuable law practice for a year; but greater still must have been the humiliation he felt at the thought of serving in a Democratic war with which he had little sympathy.(3) With these things in mind, Pike, who was absent from Little Rock attending a session of the Hempstead County Circuit Court when the request for volunteers appeared, immediately dispatched a letter to the chief executive of the state offering him the "service of one company of infantry."(4) But when Pike returned to Little Rock a few days later, he discovered that his men would not be satisfied to sit out the war at Fort Smith. At a special meeting on June 7 the Guards voted to volunteer as a company of "Flying Artillery" for duty in Mexico. Should their services as artillerists not be accepted by the governor, they requested to be sent as a company of horse in the Arkansas cavalry regiment. (5)
Pike, notified by Governor Drew that his company would be received in the service of the United States only as mounted gunmen, accepted the inevitable, hurriedly converted the Guards into a cavalry corps, and arranged with Jessie Turner of Van Buren, Arkansas, to assume charge of his law practice during his absence.(6) By June 15 Pike's command had acquired its full complement of horsemen and had held a new election of officers. In the voting Pike was the unanimous choice for captain, while Hamilton Reynolds and William H. Causins were elected first and second lieutenants respectively.(7) On June 20 the company left for the rendezvous in Hempstead County.(8)
All ten companies of the Arkansas regiment were assembled at Washington on July 7 when the election of
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3 Albert Pike, The Evil and the Remedy (Little Rock, 1844), 183; Albert Pike to Jessie Turner, Washington, [Arkansas], July 13, [18] 46, Jessie Turner Papers, Duke University Archives. Microfilm copy in possession of author. Pike requests Turner to assume responsibility for his cases during his absence and informs Turner that "Circumstances forced me to this expedition. . . ."
4 Albert Pike, "To the Little Rock Guards," May 29, 1846," in Gazette, June 1, 1846.
5 Gazette, June 8, 1846.
6 Ibid., Pike to Turner, July 13, 1846, Turner Papers.
7 Ibid., June 15, 22, 1846.
8 Ibid., June 22, July 13, 1846.