American Historical Ephemera & Photography

4 pages, folio, 7 5/8 x 12 5/8 in., toned, some brown spotting.

Jones was an officer in the US Marine Corps, the longest-serving Adjutant General of the United States Army (1825-1852), and a prominent member of the distinguished Jones military family. He was appointed as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps on 29 January 1809 and quickly thereafter promoted to first lieutenant. He resigned in 1812 to accept a commission as captain of artillery in the Army. Interestingly, he was the recipient of brevets to major and lieutenant colonel for his service during the War of 1812. Appointed adjutant general in 1818 with the rank of colonel, and became the Adjutant General of the United States Army in March 1825, receiving further brevets to colonel (1824), brigadier general (1832), and major general (1848).

Penned after his War of 1812 service, General Roger Jones acknowledges the origin and need for a brevet system during the Revolution and the recent War of 1812. He does, however, take umbrage with the post-war system: "The reduction of the Army after the Peace with Great Britain however, invented a spurious kind of brevet, which in my humble opinion, if not ignoble, is arguably illegal. This newfangled species of brevet commissions…is perhaps better known in common parlance by the beautiful term of 'Razeling'.  By this harmonious word, we are to understand that the officer must first, of necessity, be reduced one or more grades below the commission he had actually held, and then by some necromantic power strangely brought up by brevet to the grade from whence he had been precipitated. Strange species of honor this novel sort of promotion."