To James Madison from William Grainger Blount and Others, [ca. 27 February 1815]
From William Grainger Blount and Others
[ca. 27 February 1815]
We the undersigned are satisfied that the statement made in the certificate of Major Peacock is true.1
We are therefore of opinion that public justice does not require the execution of Wyate Grant, whose pardon we humbly solicit.
RC and enclosure (DNA: RG 94, Letters Received, filed under “Grant”). RC undated; conjectural date supplied based on George W. Campbell’s 27 Feb. 1815 note on the cover sheet: “I am of opinion, under all the circumstances of this case, that public justice does not require, & that the public interest would not by [sic] promoted by the execution of the above named Wyatt Grant,” below which JM wrote: “Let a pardon issue.” Daniel Parker’s note on the same sheet reads: “Driven from the society of soldiers in Genl. Order of March 17th.” Docketed as received in the War Department on 13 Mar. 1815. For enclosure, see n. 1.
1. The enclosed undated statement by Maj. William Peacock of the Thirty-Ninth Regiment of Infantry (1 p.) certified that Grant, sentenced to be shot by order of a court-martial held at Nashville on 19 Oct. 1814, had deserted near Mount Vernon, Mississippi Territory, about 14 Aug. 1814, reportedly because his comrades in arms had convinced him that when his term of service expired in about two weeks, he would be required to reenlist. Before this, according to Peacock, Grant had always done his duty. Below Peacock’s statement is one signed by Tennessee jurist William W. Cooke, also undated: “Majr. Peacock commands at Nashville, where Grant is confined, & where he would have been shot on the 17th. Inst, had he not been brought out on a habeas corpus.”
2. William Grainger Blount (1784–1827), the son of Southwest Territory governor William Blount, was born in North Carolina and spent much of his childhood in Knoxville, Tennessee. Admitted to the state bar in 1805, he practiced law in Knoxville and pursued agricultural interests. He served as Tennessee secretary of state, 1811–15, and as a representative in Congress, 1816–19 (Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, s.v. “Blount, William Grainger”).
3. The final signer, Tennessee district judge John McNairy, added a note following his signature: “this man was brought before me on a writ of Habs. Cors. upon a petition and affidavit Stateing that he was not subject to Military law, but upon investigation I ascertained that he was. However on this investigation circumstances appeared, which I think entitles him to a pardon.”