Washington

According to Porter, once he reached Washington, John Horse quickly ran into troubles in his working arrangement. Possibly he did not understand the requirements of working as a manservant, or perhaps he did not care to understand them -- either way, within a month of their arrival, Mason sued "Gofer John (a free Seminole Negro)" for reimbursement of back pay and the cost of his passage east. No less a personage than the Secretary of War himself, William Marcy, arranged for John Horse's legal defense. Marcy enlisted James Hoban, the U.S. district attorney for the Capital, to take John Horse's side against Mason. The case was apparently settled to John Horse's satisfaction. The black warrior may have overestimated his ability to be a manservant, but his employer had even more seriously underestimated his manservant's federal connections.