Pike, Albert

Pike, Albert, 1809–91, American lawyer, Confederate general in the Civil War, b. Boston. He settled (1832) in Arkansas, where he became a newspaper editor and a lawyer. He was a captain in the Mexican War. In the Civil War, Pike secured for the Confederacy the loyalty of the tribes in the Indian Territory. Criticized for inept handling of his Native American brigade, especially at the battle of Pea Ridge (Mar., 1862), he resigned. After the war he practiced law in Memphis and Washington. His Prose Sketches and Poems Written in the Western Country (1834) resulted from a trip over the Santa Fe Trail. A prominent Freemason (he joined the order in 1850), his writings on the movement include Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871).

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Pike, Albert (1809–91) lawyer, journalist, soldier; born in Boston, Mass. Leaving New England to seek his fortune in the West in 1831, he taught school, wrote for and later owned an Arkansas newspaper, and was admitted to the bar in 1837. He took a break from the law to serve in the Mexican War. By the 1850s he had become a popular poet as well as a successful lawyer. An opponent of secession, he nevertheless obtained a brigadier's commission in the Confederate army and commanded Indian troops at the battle of Pea Ridge (1862). A dispute with a superior led to his arrest and then his resignation in 1863. After the war, he practiced law in Memphis, Tenn., and Washington, D.C. A prominent Freemason, he headed the southern branch of the Scottish Rite from 1859 until his death, and he rewrote the rituals in a book, Morals and Dogma of the… Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1872; revised several editions).