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Lot 117
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Captain Zachary Taylor War of 1812 Letter
Captain Zachary Taylor War of 1812 Letter
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Description:

Captain Zachary Taylor War of 1812 Letter

In this brief letter, Captain Zachary Taylor writes from Louisville, Kentucky, to the accountant of the War Department in Washington regarding reimbursement for his traveling expenses. The following day, he departed to take command of Fort Harrison. His successful defense of the small fort five months later gave the United States its first land victory of the War of 1812 and set him on the road to the Presidency.

ZACHARY TAYLOR, Autograph Letter Signed, to William Simmons, April 13, 1812, Louisville, Kentucky. 1 p., 8" x 10". Expected folds; some chipping at edges; contemporary smudging of a few words; very good.

Complete Transcript
Louisville Kentucky April 13th 1812
Sir,
I have enclosed duplicate accounts for my transportation from the City of Washington to this place. When I was at the City in November 1811 I was ordered by the Secretary of War to this place to cary on the recruiting service & from the hurry of business the order could not be made out & by an arrangement with the Adj't & Inspecr the order was to have been forwarded to this place that I might draw my transportation which was never done. I will thank you to inform me in what manner I am to dispose of the funds which was furnished me to carey on the recruiting service as they are not all expended & I shall leave this tomorrow mornig for Fort Harrison. And if the account of transportation should be allowd I wish you to enclose it to the care of Ricd & Wm Steele Merchant of this place. I am sir very respectfully your obt servt
Z Taylor Capt
7th Regt U.S. Inft
Wm Simmons Esq

Historical Background
Zachary Taylor joined the U.S. Army in 1808, receiving a commission as a first lieutenant in the Kentuckian Seventh Infantry Regiment from President Thomas Jefferson. After postings in Louisiana, he was promoted to captain in November 1810 and given command of Fort Knox in Indiana Territory (modern Vincennes) in July 1811. Taylor was called to Washington to testify at the court-martial of General James Wilkinson for his role in the Burr Conspiracy and his heavy-handed administration of the Louisiana Territory. While away in Washington, Taylor missed the pivotal Battle of Tippecanoe in November 1811, in which the army and militia led by William Henry Harrison defeated Native American forces under the leadership of Shawnee leader Tecumseh's brother Tenskwatawa ("The Prophet"), destroying their town and food supplies for the coming winter.

After Taylor testified in the court-martial that ultimately exonerated Wilkinson, Secretary of War William Eustis (1753-1825) sent Taylor to his childhood home of Louisville to recruit additional soldiers for a possible war over increasing tensions between the United States and Great Britain. Despite the modest efforts Eustis made to improve military readiness, when the War of 1812 began, army logistics were in disarray and there was no overall commander. When the war began with the surrender of Detroit in August 1812, critics blamed Eustis, and he resigned in December 1812.

Taylor mentions that he is leaving the next day for Fort Harrison, which had been constructed in October 1811 on the Wabash River at what is now Terre Haute, Indiana. Taylor assumed command of Fort Harrison in April 1812. In early September, a band of Miami arrived at the fort and warned Captain Taylor that a large force of Native Americans was planning to attack the force. Taylor commanded a garrison of fifty soldiers, but illness had reduced the number of effective soldiers to fifteen. On September 4, a force of 600 Potawatomi, Wea, Shawnee, Kickapoo, and Winnebago warriors approached the fort and requested a parley with Taylor the following day. Taylor agreed, but a warrior set fire to the blockhouse during the night, and the war party attacked. The fire created a twenty-foot-wide gap in the outer wall, but the garrison sealed it with a five-foot-high breastwork and returned fire so fiercely that they held off the attack. The garrison repaired the wall by daybreak, but the fire had destroyed much of the fort's food, and the soldiers and area settlers inside the fort faced starvation.

News of the siege reached Fort Knox in Vincennes, sixty miles to the south, as Colonel William Russell with a company of regular infantry and a company of rangers were passing through on their way to the Illinois territory. These companies joined local militia and the 7th U.S. Infantry to march to the relief of Fort Harrison, where 1,000 men arrived on September 12. The Native American forces departed without an engagement, but a Potawatomi war party attacked and plundered two supply columns between Fort Knox and Fort Harrison, killing nearly twenty soldiers. The Battle of Fort Harrison was the first land victory for the United States during the War of 1812 and gained Zachary Taylor a brevet promotion to major, beginning his rise in military fame that led to his election to the Presidency in 1848.

Zachary Taylor (1784-1850) was born in Virginia and in 1810 married Margaret Smith, with whom he had six children. In 1808, Taylor joined the army with a commission as a first lieutenant. During the War of 1812, he successfully defended a fort in Indiana Territory from an attack by Native Americans. By 1819, he had been promoted to lieutenant colonel, and he served in the Black Hawk War in Illinois and the Second Seminole War in Florida. His Christmas Day victory at the Battle of Lake Okeechobee in 1837 gained him a promotion to brigadier general. After posts in Florida and Arkansas, Taylor was posted to Louisiana in anticipation of the annexation of Texas. Although Winfield Scott and Edmund P. Gaines were more senior generals, they were closely identified with the Whig Party, and Democratic President James K. Polk selected the apolitical Taylor for the task. Taylor moved his forces to near Corpus Christi, Texas, before advancing to the Rio Grande in March 1846. During the Mexican War, Taylor led his army to victories at the Battles of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, and Monterrey. After many of his troops were transferred to the command of General Winfield Scott, he successfully resisted an attack by the Mexicans at the Battle of Buena Vista in February 1847. As a career army officer, Taylor had not been involved in politics, but the Whigs nominated him as their presidential candidate in 1848. He defeated Democrat Lewis Cass and Free-Soil candidate Martin Van Buren to win the presidency and took office in March 1849. His brief presidency was marked by preparations for the admission of California as a state, the organization of Utah as a territory, and the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850 with Great Britain to construct a canal between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through Nicaragua. Taylor died suddenly in Washington on July 9, 1850, and Vice President Millard Fillmore became president.

William Simmons (ca. 1759-1825) was born in New York and served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. By 1781, he seems to have left the army and gone into government service as a clerk successively in the Comptroller's Office, Treasury Department, and Quartermaster Department. In 1785, he married Elizabeth Simmons, with whom he had two children. President George Washington appointed him as principal clerk of the U.S. auditor's office in 1789, and he remained in the position until 1795, when Washington appointed Simmons as the accountant of the War Department. In 1799, he married Josephine Bertrand Lapoint (1782-1808) in Philadelphia, and they had three children. Because of Simmons's alleged "bitter hostility to the government" and "rudeness to his superiors," especially Secretary of War John Armstrong Jr., President James Madison dismissed Simmons in July 1814, a few weeks before the British captured and burned Washington, D.C. Despite his dismissal, Simmons oversaw the evacuation of the War Department at General William Winder's order, including the removal of ordnance that the British might use against the Americans. After the disposition of his father's will in 1820, Simmons moved to the land grant in Coshocton County, Ohio, that he received for his Revolutionary War service and died there in 1825.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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