To James Madison from the Union Volunteers of Westmoreland and Fayette Counties, Pennsylvania, ca. 14 December 1811 (Abstract)
§ From the Union Volunteers of
Westmoreland and Fayette Counties, Pennsylvania
Ca. 14 December 1811. The officers of the light infantry company called the Union Volunteers, attached to the Seventy-second Regiment, Second Brigade, of the Thirteenth Division of the Pennsylvania militia, are anxious to serve their country “in the field of Mars.” At a full meeting of the company in Uniontown, Fayette County, they resolved to offer their services to the president in order to assist Governor Harrison “on the Wabash against the Indians” for six months or longer after their arrival. They are ready to march at a moment’s warning.1
RC (DNA: RG 107, LRRS, F-9:6). 1 p. Signed by Capt. John S. Farr and Lt. Isaiah H. Marshall. Undated; date assigned here on the basis of the docket by a War Department clerk indicating the letter was received on 17 Dec. 1811.
1. At JM’s instruction, the secretary of war wrote to thank the “Citizen Soldiers … for the laudable Zeal they have expressed on this occasion.” Eustis continued: “Presuming that the severe check which has been recently given to the iniquitous temerity of a portion of the Savage Nations on our North West frontier, together with the energetic measures by which it has been followed up, will tranquilize our fellow Citizens in that Quarter, the President does not think it necessary at the present moment, to avail himself of your patriotic Offer of military service in that distant Region” (Eustis to John Farr, 27 Dec. 1811 [DNA: RG 107, LSMA]).