WASHINGTON, _December 26, 1836_.
_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.