The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 30, July 1926 - April, 1927 Page: 272

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

THE JOURNAL OF, CAPTAIN ISAAC L. BAKER'
CONTRIBUTED BY C. F. AnnowooD
[The first leaf of this Journal is torn vertically from top to bottom,
so that on the first and second pages no complete sentences remain. It
is evident that Captain Baker and his company left Nashville, Tennessee,
on July 15, 1814, and, following the route taken by General Jackson's
forces the autumn before, marched by way of Franklin, Tennessee, to
Huntsville, Alabama. 'See J. S. Bassett, The Life of Andrew Jackson,
map following page 88.]
Journal
12 o'clock marched with my [company]
from Coleman's spring near
Left one sick man, David
at the Cantonment encountered
Harper 10 miles from Nashivlle
July 16th
'The Journal of Captain Isaac L. Baker is owned by Miss Celeste Jones
of Houston, Texas. Miss Jones is a relative of the writer of the Journal
and it is by her kind permission that this transcript has been made and
offered for publication.
The Journal bear its writer's name, and the date line, "Henry Clay's
Law Office, Lexington, Ky., 1812." I have taken no liberties with spell-
ing, and have transcribed words through which lines have been drawn as
well as sentences begun and left unfinished. I have occasionally supplied
a comma when Captain Baker has used a dash, but only in those cases
where I felt sure that the meaning of the passage could not be affected
by the substitution.
Isaac L. Baker was a native of Kentucky. He attended Transylvania
University, and while there formed an intimacy with Stephen Fuller Aus-
tin. Austin left Lexington, apparently in the spring of 1810, and Baker
continued as a student there, later entering the law office of Henry Clay.
Letters passed between the two friends; four of Baker's letters to Stephen
F. Austin appear in The Austin Papers. The first was written from
Transylvania University, July 1st, 1810. The last is dated "Camp 4
miles below New Orleans, Janry 5th 1815." (See The Austin Papers in
the Annual Report of the American Historical Association, 1919; Vol. II,
Part I, pages 174-176, 178--179, 183-185, 245-247.)
Baker was appointed to the army on July 6, 1812, with the rank of
ensign in the Second Regiment of Infantry. He participated in the fight-
ing about Frenchtown and, at the River Raisin, was captured by the
Indians, and taken to Detroit, where, a week after his capture, he was
ransomed by an American and allowed to return to the American lines.
Niles' Register, Volume 4, pages 67, 68, 94, and 95 carries his story of his
capture and release and of the events about Frenchtown between January
22, and February 25, 1813. On April 25, 1813, he was made captain in
the Forty-fourth Infantry, and subsequently assisted in enlisting men for
his regiment in Tennessee. During the late summer of 1814 he with
Captain Butler ,and a part of the Forty-fourth joined General Jackson at
Fort Jackson and accompanied him to Mobile. He was soon placed in
command of his regiment and served with great gallantry before New
Orleans. His conduct in the fighting of December 23, 1814, won him a

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