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To the President of the Historical 
Society of New York. 
SIR, 
Those who have undertaken to write 
the History of the late war between G. 
Britain and the United States, having! 
done great injustice to the officers of the 
first regiment of infantry, I am induced 
to appeal to you to correct the numerous 
errors into which they have fallen, by co¬ 
pying into their works the misrepresenta¬ 
tions and misstatements of the official re¬ 
ports, in which the conduct of that regi¬ 
ment and its officers is detailed. 
In the accounts which they give of the 
sortie from Fort Erie, on the 17th of Sep¬ 
tember, 1814, in enumerating the officers 
who distinguished themselves on that oc¬ 
casion, Lieutenant Shaw’s name is prin¬ 
ted Shore, Lieutenant Brunot’s Bridnot, 
and my own Simms . As I was the senior 
officer of the first regiment in this action, 
and as Lieutenants Shaw and Brunot 
were under my command, I feel that I 
have failed in ray duty in suffering these 
errors to remain so long uncorrected. But 
these misstatements are of trifling import, 
when compared with others, which have 
been made by the same authors in relation 
to the first regiment. I will call your at¬ 
tention to a few of these and shall expect 
from you an impartial investigation ol the 
statements which I shall make. 
The official report, and the histories 
which have copied from it, slate that, in 
the sortie above mentioned, lieutenant 
Frazier, Brigade Major of General Por¬ 
ter’s corps, was wounded in the act of spi¬ 
king a cannon in battery number 2 ; and 
upon this report he was actually brevet¬ 
ed. The only cannon in this battery was 
in fact 9piked by myself. The winter al¬ 
ter the campaign of 1814,1 met with lieu¬ 
tenant Frazier in the city of New York, 
and he then stated to me that he was not 
in battery No. 2 on the day of the sortie, 
hut was wounded near it. Subsequent to 
this conversation, I discovered, from a 
succeeding register, that the date of his 
brevet wa?altered to another day But 
still the honor of the transaction if any 
there was, has never been given to the per- 
son to whom it was due. 
