Brigadier-General Albert Pike was born in Boston, Mass., December 
29, 1809.  He received his early education at Newburyport and 
Framingham, and in 1825 entered Harvard college, supporting 
himself at the same time by teaching.  He only went as far as the 
junior class in college, when his finances compelled him to 
continue his education alone, teaching, meanwhile, at Fairhaven 
and Newburyport, where he was principal of the grammar school, 
and afterward had a private school of his own.

In later years he had attained such distinction in literature 
that the degree of master of arts was bestowed upon him by the 
Harvard faculty.  In 1831 he went west with a trading party to 
Santa Fe.  The next year, with a trapping party, he went down the 
Pecos river and into the Staked Plains, whence with four others 
he traveled mostly on foot until he reached Fort Smith, Ark.

His adventures and exploits are related in a volume of prose and 
verse, published in 1834.  While teaching in 1833 below Van Buren 
and on Little Piney river, he contributed articles to the Little 
Rock Advocate, and attracted the attention of Robert Crittenden, 
through whom he was made assistant editor of that paper, of which 
he was afterward for two years the proprietor.

He was admitted to the bar in 1835 and studied and practiced law 
until the Mexican war, when he recruited a company of cavalry and 
was present at the battle of Buena Vista under the command of the 
famous Col. Charles May.  In 1848 he fought a duel with Gen. John 
S.  Roane on account of something said by him in his story of that 
battle, which the governor considered as reflecting unjustly on 
the Arkansas regiment.

In 1849 he was admitted to the bar of the Supreme court of the 
United States at the same time with Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal 
Hamlin.  In 1853 he moved to New Orleans, having prepared himself 
for practice in the courts of Louisiana by reading the 
"Pandects," of which he translated the first volume into English.  
He also made translations of many French authorities.

He wrote, besides, an unpublished work of three volumes upon "The 
Maxims of the Roman and French Law."  In 1857 he resumed practice 
in Arkansas.  He acted for many years as attorney for the Choctaw 
Indians, and in 1859, assisted by three others, he secured for 
them an award by the United States Senate of $2,981,247.  He was 
the first proposer of a Pacific railroad convention, and at one 
time obtained from the legislature of Louisiana a charter for a 
road with termini at San Francisco and Guazemas.

When the war of secession began he cast his fortunes with the 
South, and was Confederate commissioner to the tribes of Indian 
Territory.  As such he brought the Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws, 
Chickasaws and part of the Cherokees into alliance with the 
Confederate States.  On August 15, 1861, he was commissioned 
brigadier-general in the army of the Confederate States, and at 
the battle of Pea Ridge he commanded a brigade of Indians.

On November 11, 1862, he resigned his commission, on account of 
some unpleasant relations with General Hindman, and appealed to 
the authorities at Richmond, when the dispute was settled and the 
matter dropped.  From this time he disappears from Confederate 
military history, but he remained true to the Confederacy to the 
last.

After the war he resided in Memphis, Tenn., and edited the Appeal 
in 1867.  The next year he moved to Washington, D. C., and 
practiced in the courts until 1880.  From that time until his 
death, which occurred at Washington, April 2, 1891, he devoted 
himself to literature and to freemasonry.  He was the highest 
masonic dignitary in the United States, and was author of several 
valuable masonic works.