Appeal for Reinstatement of Sword Colonel Isaac Clark, ALS to 26th Regiment

Regimental Rendezvous,

Burlington May 13, 1815.

To the Officers of the 26th Regt. now at this Rendezvous -

Gentlemen,

I have the honor of acknowledging the re [-] ceipt of your address of the 12th int. on the subject of my arrest. -The sentiments you have expressed towards me personally, cannot fail of engaging all my feel [-] ings in favor of complying with your earnest request - but having for many years of my life been em [-] ployed on Military duty, and having from long experience, considered it as a privacy [privileged?] duty in every officer of an army to set the example of subordination, that soldiers may be induced the more promptly to follow the example.

The subject of your acidress [sp?] involves a very se [-] rious question, which has not, to my knowledge been decided upon by a court-martial - it therefore be [-] comes my duty to take counsel on the subject before I take a step that may reflect dis honor on my military character. - This being the Just time that I ever received even the slightest repri [-] mand from a superior officer, not even for a mis - take in any of the complicated duties that have been assigned me - therefore, Gentlemen, you cannot but See the pro [-] priety of my desire to preserve the principle so necessary for the government of an army: - but before I close this answer, I beg leave to observe, that it has ever been my expectation that the question would have been promptly decided by the Department of War - and that officers, merely from their high standing in rank, would not in future be permitted to interphere with the recruiting regulations of that Department, which I am conscious of having pursued with unremitting ardor, until sickness deprived the Regiment of my a∫ [-] sistance, in a measure. - In this situation the General deprived me of my sword on the 12th day of July last - and altho’ repeated applica - tions have been made to him in becoming language for a trial, I have not been able to obtain one - neither have I been furnished with a proper copy of the charges, specifications upon which my arrest was predicated, [?] which was necessary to a suitable defense. -

I am, Gentlemen,

very respectfully,

your obedient Servea: [sp?]

Isaac Clark

Original Document provided by Special Collections at the University of Vermont: Documents Pertaining to Isaac Clark, 61

Isaac Clark Papers 1781-1821. Special Collections, University of Vermont Bailey/Howe Library, Burlington, Vermont. 61.

Transcription: Paul Fischer