Albert Pike

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Albert Pike
Albert Pike

Albert Pike (December 29, 1809–April 2, 1891) was an attorney, soldier, writer, and Freemason. Pike is the only Confederate military officer or figure to be honored with an outdoor statue in Washington, D.C. (in Judiciary Square).

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[edit] Biography

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Pike was born in Boston, son of Ben and Sarah (Andrews) Pike, and spent his childhood in Byfield and Newburyport, Massachusetts. He attended school in Newburyport and Framingham until he was fifteen. In August 1825, he passed his entrance exams and was accepted at Harvard University though, when the college requested payment of tuition fees for the first two years, he chose not to attend. He began a program of self-education, later becoming a schoolteacher in Gloucester, North Bedford, Fairhaven and Newburyport.[1]

In 1831 Pike left Massachusetts to travel west, first stopping in St. Louis and later moving on to Independence, Missouri. In Independence, he joined an expedition to Taos, New Mexico, hunting and trading. During the excursion his horse broke and ran, forcing Pike to walk the remaining 500 miles to Taos. After this he joined a trapping expedition to the Llano Estacado in New Mexico and Texas. Trapping was minimal, and after traveling about 1300 miles (650 on foot), he finally arrived at Fort Smith, Arkansas.[citation needed]

Settling in Arkansas in 1833, he taught school and wrote a series of articles for the Little Rock Arkansas Advocate under the pen name of "Casca."[citation needed] The articles were popular enough that he was asked to join the staff of the newspaper. Later, after marrying Mary Ann Hamilton, he purchased part of the newspaper with the dowry. By 1835 he was the Advocate's sole owner. Under Pike's administration the Advocate promoted the viewpoint of the Whig party in a politically volatile and divided Arkansas.[citation needed]

He then began to study law, and was admitted to the bar in 1837, selling the Advocate the same year. He was the first reporter for the Arkansas supreme court, and also wrote a book (published anonymously), titled The Arkansas Form Book, which was a guidebook for lawyers.[citation needed]

[edit] Military career

When the Mexican-American War started, Pike joined the cavalry and was commissioned as a troop commander, serving in the Battle of Buena Vista. He and his commander, John Selden Roane, had several differences of opinion. This situation led finally to a duel between Pike and Roane. Although several shots were fired in the duel, nobody was injured, and the two were persuaded by their seconds to discontinue it.[citation needed]

After the war, Pike returned to the practice of law, moving to New Orleans for a time beginning in 1853.[citation needed] He wrote another book, Maxims of the Roman Law and some of the Ancient French Law, as Expounded and Applied in Doctrine and Jurisprudence.[citation needed] Although unpublished, this book increased his reputation among his associates in law. He returned to Arkansas in 1857, gaining some amount of prominence in the legal field and becoming an advocate of slavery, although retaining his affiliation with the Whig party. When that party dissolved, he became a member of the Know-Nothing party. Before the Civil War he was firmly against secession, but when the war started he nevertheless took the side of the Confederacy.[citation needed]

He also made several contacts among the Native American tribes in the area, at one point negotiating an $800,000 settlement between the Creeks and other tribes and the federal government. This relationship was to influence the course of his Civil War service.[citation needed] At the beginning of the war, Pike was appointed as Confederate envoy to the Native Americans. In this capacity he negotiated several treaties, one of the most important being with Cherokee chief John Ross, which was concluded in 1861.[citation needed]

Pike was commissioned as a brigadier general on November 22, 1861, and given a command in the Indian Territory.[citation needed] With Gen. Ben McCullough, Pike trained three Confederate regiments of Indian cavalry, most of whom belonged to the "civilized tribes", whose loyalty to the Confederacy was variable. Although victorious at the Battle of Pea Ridge (Elkhorn Tavern) in March, Pike's unit was defeated later in a counterattack, after falling into disarray.[citation needed] Also, as in the previous war, Pike came into conflict with his superior officers, at one point drafting a letter to Jefferson Davis complaining about his direct superior.[citation needed]

After Pea Ridge, Pike was faced with charges that his troops had scalped soldiers in the field. Maj. Gen. Thomas C. Hindman also charged Pike with mishandling of money and material, ordering his arrest.[citation needed] Both these charges were later found to be considerably lacking in evidence; nevertheless Pike, facing arrest, escaped into the hills of Arkansas, sending his resignation from the Confederate Army on July 12.[citation needed] He was at length arrested on November 3 under charges of insubordination and treason, and held briefly in Warren, Texas, but his resignation was accepted on November 11 and he was allowed to return to Arkansas.[citation needed]

[edit] In Freemasonry

Pike in Masonic regalia.
Pike in Masonic regalia.

He had in the interim joined a Masonic lodge and become extremely active in the affairs of the organization, being elected Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite's Southern Jurisdiction in 1859.[citation needed] He remained Sovereign Grand Commander for the remainder of his life (a total of thirty-two years), devoting a large amount of his time to developing the rituals of the order.[citation needed] Notably, he published a book called Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in 1871, of which there were several subsequent editions.

Pike is still sometimes regarded in America as an eminent[2] and influential[3] Freemason. His anti-Roman Catholic pronouncements were seen as representative of American freemasonry by Catholic sources.[4][citation needed]

[edit] The "Letter" of 1871 to Mazzini

There has been speculation of a letter that Albert Pike wrote to Giuseppe Mazzini in 1871 regarding a conspiracy involving three world wars that were planned in an attempt to take over the world. This letter has been claimed by many internet sites to reside in the British Library in London. The British Library, however had the following to say:


The letter supposedly written from Albert Pike to Giuseppe Mazzini in 1871 does not exist.

Please see below an extract from The Cause of World Unrest (1920), a slim volume explaining the role of world freemasonry, the Jesuits, and the Elders of Zion in jointly bringing about the Bolshevik revolution, is almost certainly the origin of this misapprehension. Although the author believes in the conspiracy, he doesn’t actually believe in the letter, and makes it clear that there is no independent witness to its existence.


In the year 1896 there appeared in Paris a curious publication called ‘Le Diable au XIXieme Siècle’. It was an attack upon Freemasonry, and came out in parts, illustrated with grotesque and revolting engravings. The name on the title-page is Dr Bataille, but it is stated in the British Museum Catalogue that the real authors were Gabriel Jogand-Pagès and Charles Hacks. The book, with evident knowledge and a show of authority, set out to trace the connection between Freemasonry and revolutions, but its sensationalism and the extremely doubtful character of some of the documents produced brought it into disrepute. It is now forgotten, and yet it contains a good deal that can be verified from other sources, and some things which seem to be verified by recent events. In particular there is a letter-or an alleged letter-said to have been written by Alfred Pike, the “Sovereign Pontiff of Universal Freemasonry” assisted by the Ten Ancients of the Grand Lodge of the Supreme Orient at Charleston, to “the very illustrious brother” Giuseppe Mazzini. This letter is dated (in Masonic style) August 15th, 1871, and sets forth an anti clerical policy which Mazzini is to follow in Italy. What is to our purpose occurs towards the end of the letter. The writer explains that owing to the working out of this policy the Pope may be driven at some future time out of Italy, and that established religion will then find it’s last refuge in Russia. And the letter proceeds:
“That is why, when the autocratic Empire of Russia will have become the citadel of Papal Christianity (adonaisme papiste), we shall unchain the revolutionary Nihilists and Atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm, which will demonstrate clearly to the nations, in all its horror, the effect of absolute unbelief, mother of savagery and of the most bloody disorder. Then, everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the mad minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate these destroyers of civillisation, and the multitude, disillusioned of Christianity, whose deist soul will up to that moment be without compass, thirsting for an ideal, but not knowing where to bestow their worship, will receive the True Light, by the universal manifestation of the pure Lucifarian doctrine, at last made public, a manifestation which will arise from the general movement of reaction following the destruction of Atheism and Christianity, both at the same time vanquished and exterminated.”
Now this letter is at least as old as 1896 (if it a forgery); if it is genuine, it is as old as 1871. It must therefore be considered remarkable, whether as a forgery or as a genuine document. For it predicts what has happened in Russia, and it claims for its authors that they were preparing to bring about what has happened.

If we compare more closely the words of the Masonic letter with what has actually happened in Russia, we cannot but see how close is the correspondence between the threats and the reality:

THE MASONIC LETTER …we shall unchain the revolutionary Nihilists and atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm…horror…savagery…the most bloody disorder.

MR CHURCHILL’S DESCRIPTION …in the same way that you might send a phial…to tear to pieces every institution…long internal terrors…menaced by famine…sufferings more fearful than modern records hold.

Whatever explanation we may incline to give, we must at least allow that it is a document which is very difficult to explain. And there is this much to be said in support of it- that Mazzini certainly was connected with the birth of “Revolutionary Nihilism” called the International.

Albert Pike is mentioned as a (often chief) conspirator in a number of conspiracy theories, occult or otherwise, because of his long membership and great influence in the American Freemasons. Typical of these includes the Taxil hoax in which a quotation about how senior masons worship Lucifer was falsely attributed to Pike.

[edit] Other interests

Pike in Masonic regalia
Pike in Masonic regalia

Additionally, Pike wrote on several legal subjects, and continued producing poetry, a hobby he had begun in his youth in Massachusetts. His poems were highly regarded in his day, but are now mostly forgotten. Several volumes of his works were self-published posthumously by his daughter.[citation needed]

In 1859 he received an honorary Ph.D. from Harvard but declined it ("The Phoenix," Manly P. Hall).

Pike died in Washington, D.C., aged 81, and was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery (against his wishes—he had left instructions for his body to be cremated).

In 1944 his remains were moved to the House of the Temple, headquarters of the Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite.

Statue at Judiciary Square, Washington, D.C.
Statue at Judiciary Square, Washington, D.C.

[edit] Literature

  • Albert Pike: Morals and Dogma. Book
  • Albert Pike: Meaning of Masonry. Kessinger Publishing, May 2004. ISBN 1-4179-1101-8
  • Albert Pike: Reprints of Old Rituals. Kessinger Publishing, March 1, 1997. ISBN 1-56459-983-3
  • Albert Pike: Book of the Words. Kessinger Publishing, March 1, 1997. ISBN 1-56459-161-1
  • Albert Pike: Indo-Aryan Deities and Worship as Contained in the Rig-Veda. Kessinger Publishing, March 1, 1997. ISBN 1-56459-183-2
  • Albert Pike: The Point Within the Circle: Freemasonry Veiled in Allegory and Illustrated by Symbols. Holmes Pub Grou Llc, November 1, 2001. ISBN 1-55818-305-1
  • Albert Pike: Morals and Dogma of the First Three Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite Freemasonry. Kessinger Publishing, May 2004. ISBN 1-4179-1108-5

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Ancestry and family

Albert's descent from his immigrant ancestor John Pike is as follows:

  • John Pike (1572–1654)
    • John Pike (1613–1689/90)
      • Joseph Pike (1638–1694)
        • Thomas Pike (1682–1753/4)
          • John Pike (1710–1755)
            • Thomas Pike (1739–1836)
              • Benjamin Pike (1780–?)
                • Albert Pike (1809–1891)

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Hubbell, Jay B. The South in American Literature: 1607-1900. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1954: 640.
  2. ^ ALBERT PIKE AND FREEMASONRY, March–April 2002 edition, California Freemason On-Line
  3. ^ Albert Pike, masonicinfo.com
  4. ^ Albert Pike in the Official Bulletin, September, 1887, 173, quoted as footnote [172] in Masonry (Freemasonry) from the Catholic Encyclopedia.

[edit] References

[edit] External links