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Return to First Page ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY, Volume 12 (Winter 1953) p. 303
regimental officers took place. Pike was nominated for regimental colonel to oppose Archibald Yell, who had resigned his seat in Congress and returned to Arkansas to enlist as a private in Solon Borland's company. Pike was easily the most experienced and capable leader in the Arkansas cavalry, but ability counted for little in the eyes of the volunteers. Pike's Whig affiliation, his aristocratic air, and his reputation as a "strict disciplinarian,"(9) most surely gave the citizen soldiers of Arkansas a dark view of what they might expect from him. In the balloting only the officers participated. Pike was passed over in favor of Yell, who was popular as a politician if he knew nothing whatever of military matters.(10) Two other Democrats, John Selden Roane and Solon Borland, were elected lieutenant-colonel and major, respectively.(11)
The regimental election over, the Arkansas volunteers were mustered into the service of the United States government on July 13.(12) Five days later the regiment marched with 800 men and a train of forty wagons for Shreveport, Louisiana, 110 miles away, the first lap of the journey to San Antonio, Texas, where they were to report to Brigadier General John E. Wool, then busily engaged training and organizing an expedition against the State of Chihuahua.(13) After a six day march the Arkansas column reached overland port, where it was learned that they were to march overland to San Antonio. The march from Shreveport got underway on July 26. Eleven days later the column arrived at Robbin's Ferry on the Trinity River, some I65 miles south-
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9 He had severely disciplined, thereby acquiring the dislike of, several of his men who had gone home without his leave on July 4. See G. B. B. "To the Editor," Washington, Arkansas, July 7, 1846, in Gazette, July 13, 1846.
10 Josiah Gregg, the famed author of Commerce of the Prairies, who accompanied the Arkansas volunteers as a sort of "interpreter-scout", considered Colonel Yell "a very clever, pleasant, sociable fellow, but decidedly out of his element" as a military leader. Gregg thought Pike was the "best disciplinarian and drill officer in the corps . . . and decidedly 'number one' in point of talent and acquirements;" but he considered Pike, in despite of his superior ability, "too stiff and aristocratic in his manner to be popular . . .[and doubted] if he could be elected by a general vote to any office in the regiment." Maurice Garland Fulton, ed., Diary & Letters of Josiah Gregg (2 vols., Norman, Oklahoma, 1941), I, 218-219.
11 Gazette, July 13, 1846; see also ibid. a copy of a petition of Pike's men in which they requested him not to participate in the regimental election but to remain in command of their company.
12 Ibid., July 20, 27, 1846.
13 Fulton, ed., Diary & Letters of Gregg, I, 208; Senate Executive Document 32, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., Serial No. 558, p. 5; George Lockhart Rives, The United States and Mexico, 1821-1848 (2 vols., New York, 1913), II, 195-219