Nothing was laid down by the proper authority; therefore all manner of things were taken up without any authority at all. Amid this confusion, or wide latitude of choice, General Pike, though brought up in the old school, was often tempted, by his ambitious desire for improvement, to run into novelties. With a prescribed rule, he would have been the most steady and uncompromising observer of it. But, in such a competition for beneficial change, he most naturally believed himself as capable as others of changing for the better.
In this spirit of innovation, the 15th regiment underwent many changes, and exhibited, even in times when novelties and singularities were no rarities, perhaps the widest departure from common standards of any regiment in service. Adopting the French system of forming in three ranks, his third rank was armed in a manner peculiar to itself, having short guns, being the ordinary musket cut off some inches, and long pikes. It was said, by the wags of the day, that his own name suggested the manner, and the regiment was often called "Pike's regiment of pikes."
These pikes presented a formidable appearance on drill and dress parade, when the men could display their tactics with the precision of automata. They were even retained in the assault of Fort York. But at the first engagement after the fall of General Pike, the men threw them away, together with the cut-off pieces, and picked up English muskets to fight with. The experiment of putting his regiment on snow-shoes which Pike tried--doubtless remembering their serviceability to himself and his company on the upper Mississippi in the winter of 1805-6--does not seem to have proven any more lasting or decided a success.
Colonel Pike's sword was stronger than his pen, as we know; but he could sharpen either weapon on occasion, as the following spirited repulse of a newspaper attack on his regiment will show:[M-16]
CAMP NEAR PLATTSBURG [N. Y.], _Oct. 12th, 1812_.
However incompatible it may be with the character and profession of a soldier, to enter into the party politics of the day, yet when the honor of the government, the corps he commands, and his personal fame are wantonly attacked, and attempted to be sacrificed to satiate the malignant venom of party purposes, it becomes his duty as a man, a patriot, to come forward and boldly contradict the base calumniator. The following piece "from the Connecticut Herald" and republished in the New York Herald of October 3d, is not only calculated to bring disrepute on the government, but to hold up our army as a mob wanting in discipline as well as in patriotism. The piece alluded to is as follows, viz.: