Without any provocation

On 26 March 1811 a fatigue party from the Fort Wayne garrison was at work in the public cornfield. Something happened there that the record calls a riot.

The next day David Gillen, a private in Captain Rhea's company, was brought before Lieutenant William Whistler and William Turner, the surgeon's mate. This was not a court martial. Under Captain James Rhea the garrison used examinations: two men heard the matter, wrote an opinion, and handed it to the captain, who decided.

Gillen pleaded guilty to the charge.

That should have closed it. Then three men were sworn, and what they said was not about the riot.

N Jennings Richards, Bailey, each and Severally being Sworn diposeth and Sayeth that William Perkens without any provocation Called the prisoner David Gillen, a negro bastard and unfit for the Company of any Soldier

Rhea sentenced Gillen to five days hard labour, confinement in the guard house at night, and his whiskey stopped. Then he turned to the other man.

He sentenced Perkens to four days hard labour "for the melicious unsoldierly expression to Gillen", and stopped his whiskey too.

No charge had been laid against Perkens. He entered no plea. Nothing in the order records a finding against him. He appears in the proceeding only inside what the three witnesses said, and then in the sentence. Across 1810 and 1811 every other man sentenced in these orders was first charged and first pleaded. Perkens is the only one who was not.

Three days later Rhea remitted what was left of both punishments and sent the two men back to their company.

Eight weeks after that, on 20 May, Thomas Dougherty was brought before the same two examiners, charged with insolent and abusive language to Corporal Joseph Peatt. Peatt had been a private himself until January, when Rhea made him a corporal.

Dougherty pleaded not guilty.

Noah Jennings was sworn, the same man who had been sworn in March. He said Peatt had spoken first, over a calf that was eating slop Peatt had put out for his hog. Samuel Owens and John Cook swore the same. Thomas Tutaue swore the same.

Whistler and Turner found Dougherty guilty. Then they added a line: "in consequence of the Corporals first abusive language we recommend him to the mercy of the Commanding Officer."

Rhea released him, and said why. "In consequences of the recommendations of the Court and the Corpl. begining with the first abuse." He added that Dougherty was known for abusive language to the non commissioned officers and that he would punish him for it another time.

Corporal Peatt was not charged. He appears as an accused once in eleven years of these orders, in 1808, for neglect of duty.

Dougherty pleaded not guilty and was examined on that charge, so his provocation was evidence for the defence. Gillen pleaded guilty to rioting, so what the witnesses added was not a defence to anything. Peatt was a corporal. Dougherty's rank in May is not stated in the order; where the orders last give it, in 1809, he was a private. Perkens and Gillen were both privates.

What else the record gives about Gillen is short.

In April 1807 he was brought before the commanding officer for not passing the usual call after tattoo. There was no court and no witness. He was given twenty five lashes in front of the guard on the grand parade.

In August 1808 he was tried with Charles Brown and John Paine for taking watermelons from an enclosure of Captain Wells. The court acquitted all three. The commanding officer approved the acquittal, then recorded that in his own opinion the prisoners were guilty.

In December 1810 he was found to have used abusive and insolent language to Sergeant Edwards. He was put to hard labour for six days with a shackle round his leg and confined at night.

In April 1811, two weeks after the cornfield, he was accused of abusing Thomas Dougherty in his own room. Corporal Burns and Simon Noxen swore he had spoken mildly and that Dougherty had sworn at him first. He was acquitted.

The word Perkens used appears once in eleven years of these orders.

The page it sits on carries no footnote. Two pages later the editor stops to explain a barrel of brand, which he thinks was probably bran. The index lists Gillen as court-martialed and gives the page numbers, and there is no entry that would bring a reader to what was said there. Where the editor does describe the episode, in a note on another man, two hundred pages earlier, he writes that Perkens "was sentenced on March 27, 1811 for fighting with David Gillen."

The record gives an insult. It does not give an identity. Nothing else in these orders describes Gillen, and no muster roll survives in these orders to say where he came from or when he enlisted.

Bert Griswold died in March 1927, before the volume he had edited was revised. So the error in his note is visible, and what he meant by it is not.