Selection of a book review often involves diversion down unexpected pathways. With the annual commemoration of the Battle of Plattsburgh scheduled each September, I’ve been thinking about Zebulon Pike, who commanded troops in this area during the winter of 1812. Pike may be more often associated with Colorado, where he first set sight on Pike’s Peak. But there is much that links him to our region.

Born in 1779 near Trenton, New Jersey, to a father who fought in the American Revolution, Pike himself enlisted in the army at age fifteen. Despite lack of formal education, he quickly earned a reputation for efficiency, fairness and organizational skills.

Such assets brought him to the attention of superiors. Pike was chosen by General James Wilkinson to lead an 1804 expedition of the newly purchased Louisiana Territory, with the objective of exploring the source of the Mississippi River. Successful efforts on that assignment led to another expedition under the aegis of Wilkinson. Pike headed further southwest in 1806-7, making efforts to follow the Osage, Red, and Arkansas Rivers and further mapping the country’s newly acquired western lands.

Pike’s treks were done for the same reasons that Thomas Jefferson sent Meriweather Lewis and William Clark to explore the Missouri River and across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. America was assessing its new territory and assimilating its sense of manifest destiny.

Pike, like Lewis and Clark, kept meticulous journals. Much of the material can be easily found online, but grammar and punctuation were not among Pike’s strong suits. Thus, edited and newly transcribed versions of his diaries are more readable.

I read “The Southwestern Journals of Zebulon Pike 1806-1807,” edited by Stephen Harding Hart and Archer Butler Hulbert, and published by University of New Mexico Press. Considerable interpretive material accompanies the text. Of special note is analysis of now generally discounted assertions that Pike was actually spying for Wilkinson, who was part of Aaron Burr’s thwarted plot to establish an independent empire in the American west.

Much of Pike’s journals covers humdrum day-to-day activities–distances covered, amount of game gathered for meals, astronomical calculations, and the like. Pike was understandably transfixed by such sights as a prairie filled with buffalo herds, and natural features like the prominent peak in Colorado that has since borne his name.

Unexpected meetings with Native American groups enliven the narrative. The journals become especially interesting once the Spanish military learned of Pike’s presence on their territory. Though courteously treated, he and his companions were forced to accompany soldiers first to Santa Fe, and then further south into Mexico.

Many of Pike’s papers were confiscated by the Spanish, though he retained one journal that proved indispensable when writing a widely read account of his travels for publication in 1810. Amazingly, the confiscated papers were found a century later in a Mexican storage vault to which they had been consigned for safekeeping. Thus, modern historians became able to better interpret and analyze his travels.

Pike eventually returned to more routine military duties. He had been given a series of promotions in absentia, and in 1811 became a colonel in the 15th Infantry. When the United States declared war on Great Britain in 1812, Pike found himself assigned to the northern frontier, given charge of a winter encampment along the Saranac River just outside Plattsburgh.

Upon orders from the Secretary of War, he moved his men to Sackets Harbor the following spring. From there his troops successfully attacked York (today’s Toronto). However, when the British detonated powder magazines during retreat, Pike was killed by the explosion.

His remains were brought to Sackets Harbor. Consequently, this onetime hero linked to the American west actually lies permanently buried in New York’s North Country. This journal gave me a greater sense of the legacy to which this soldier and explorer is entitled.