Special Message

To the Senate of the United States:

I nominate William Gates, late major of the First Regiment of Artillery, for reappointment in the Army, to be major in the Second Regiment of Artillery, to take rank from the 30th May, 1832, the date of his former commission. This officer was stricken from the rolls of the Army by my order on the 7th of June last, upon a full consideration by me of the proceedings of a court of inquiry held at his request for the purpose of investigating his conduct during and subsequent to the attack on Fort Barnwell, at Volusia, in Florida, in April last, which court, after mature deliberation on the testimony before them, expressed the opinion "that the effective force under the command of Major Gates was much greater than the estimated force of the Indians who attacked him on the morning of the 14th of April, 1836, and that therefore he was capable of meeting the enemy in the field if necessary; also, that the bodies of two volunteers killed were improperly left exposed, and ought to have been brought in on the morning when they were killed, such exposure necessarily operating injuriously on the garrison." He is now nominated for a reappointment to the end that he may be brought to trial before a court-martial, such a trial being solicited by him.

ANDREW JACKSON