Henry Alexander Scammel Dearborn papers, 1824-1830. Dearborn (1783-1851), Massachusetts politician and author, attempted to defend the military strategy and performance in the War of 1812 of his father Henry Dearborn (1751-1829) against critics who charged that his mismanagement of military affairs in the Northeast had brought about Hull's western defeat. The original manuscript of H.A.S. Dearborn's publication, Defence of General Henry Dearborn against the Attack of General William Hull (Boston, 1824) is accompanied by additions which were designed to expand the Defence into a “Life of General Dearborn”: a preface and additional pages of biographical data covering the period from 1824 until Henry Dearborn's death in 1829.

Also included are original letters of commendation of the defense efforts signed by John Quincy Adams, Lewis Cass, Greenleaf Dearborn, William Eustis, Thomas Jefferson, Richard M. Johnson, James Madison, Thomas Melvill, Bernard Peyton, and Benjamin Vaughan; copies of several letters by Henry Dearborn giving recollections of his service in Benedict Arnold's expedition to Quebec in 1775, and accounts of the presidential election of 1824 and of a reception and dinner in honor of Lafayette in Washington, D.C. Two other manuscripts are in this volume: an address delivered by Dearborn in 1830 for the “second centennial anniversary” of Roxbury, Massachusetts, and a survey of the financial condition and practices of the banks in Boston made in 1830 when Dearborn was member of a special investigative committee appointed by the governor.