The good-natured Benjamin Silliman defended Hitchcock from the attacks in The Knickerbocker in its review of Hitchcock's first article on fossil footprints that appeared in the American Journal of Science in the January 1836 issue. The defense was in a personal letter from Silliman to Hitchcock and did not appear in The Knickerbocker.
I have in person reproved the author of the attack on you in The Knickerbocker. It was, as I supposed, Mr. Chapin of Wallingford, the same who two years ago wrote on trap veins & dykes in the Journal. I protested against the extreme injustice & impropriety of attempting to set aside facts which he had never examined, having never seen a specimen or a cast & the meanness also of attacking from behind the bush a man who had labored so hard for the development of truth. He attempted to shelter himself behind Percival . . . I had myself heard & heard much more of Percival's sneers & told Chapin he was an able but an unamiable man who loved to carp & find fault. I told Chapin he would hear from you in some way on the subject, but this does not commit you. I have also protested in a public lecture before a large audience (I read to them a part of Mr. Kingsley's reply) against this attack on you & also at the same time protested publicly against Prof. Stuart's rude & ignorant assaults.