Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History
Benson Lossing, Ed.

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Pike, Albert 1809-1891

Lawyer; born in Boston, Mass., Dec. 29, 1809. At the age of sixteen years he entered Harvard College, but, unable to support himself there, he taught school at Newburyport and Fairhaven, and in 1831 travelled (mostly on foot) to St. Louis, where he joined an expedition to New Mexico, acting as merchant's clerk and peddler in Santa Fe. Roving with trappers awhile, he became editor and proprietor of a newspaper in Arkansas in 1834, and in 1836 was admitted to the bar. He was an advocate for State supremacy; served in the war against Mexico in command of Arkansas cavalry; and in the Civil War he organized and led a body of Cherokee Indians in the battle of Pea Ridge (q. v.). After the war he edited the Memphis Appeal for a while. A collection of his poems was printed in Philadelphia, in 1854. He was a Free Mason of high degree. He died in Washington, D. C., April 2, 1891.