Hitchcock, Ethan Allen

Hitchcock's nonconformist nature affected his military career. In 1827 he refused to take part in a court of inquiry at the Military Academy, maintaining that the court had overstepped an accepted interpretation of military law. For this he was dismissed from the faculty and ordered to duty at Fort Snelling, Minnesota. Captain Hitchcock appealed to President John Quincy Adams. A subsequent investigation upheld Hitchcock's original assertion, and in 1829 he was reinstated at the academy, this time as commandant of cadets. Hitchcock, however, found disfavor with President Andrew Jackson over the issues of discipline and political interference. Hitchcock would allege that his promotion to major was withheld several years as a result of his stand.

Although Hitchcock's antiwar conviction mellowed somewhat during the Mexico City campaign, he remained aloof from the typical pleasures and pastimes of army life. In his journal he wrote, "I find so little to interest me in the military profession that I had rather study or read books of philosophy. I fear I am not in my proper vocation." Following the Mexican War, Hitchcock was appointed as commander of the Military Division of the Pacific, where he was instrumental in forcing the arrest of William Walker, an American adventurer who had attempted to establish an independent republic in Baja California. Hitchcock ordered the seizure of Walker's brig, Arrow, an act that reportedly angered Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. In 1855--perhaps spitefully--Davis refused Hitchcock's request for a leave of absence due to ill health; Hitchcock reacted by submitting his resignation from the army on 18 October 1855.