An Artist in Treason: The Extraordinary Double Life of General James Wilkinson (64 page)

276 “I can distinctly trace the source of my persecutions”:
Memoirs
, vols. 2, 3.

276 “I recognize no right to hold me accountable”: Jacobs,
Tarnished Warrior
, 218.

276 “I denounce John Randolph”: Quoted in Crackel,
Mr. Jefferson’s Army
.

277 The story of the Annapolis party:
Memoirs
2:7.

277 “I [was] a secret agent of the Spanish government”: January 7, 1808,
Annals of
Congress
, 10th Cong., 1st sess.

279 Jefferson’s assertion that Clark’s evidence “is the first direct testimony ever made known to me” was contradicted not just by Ellicott, but by the contents of Gallatin’s note in 1806.

279 “the present administration has been minutely informed”: Ellicott to Clark, January 10, 1808, Clark,
Proofs
.

280 “If I could believe that there was the least danger to the liberties”: Taylor, February 1808, quoted in Crackel,
Mr. Jefferson’s Army
.

281 “The armed resistance to the embargo laws on the Canada line”: Jefferson to JW, August 13, 1808, PTJ.

282 “it multiplies our wants, depresses our tastes”: JW to Jefferson, October 6, 1808, PTJ. For Jefferson’s decision to send JW to Cuba, see Cox, “The Pan- American Policy of Jefferson and Wilkinson.”

282 “Many of the appointments were positively bad”: Winfield Scott,
Memoirs of
Lieutenant- General Scott
, quoted in Crackel,
Mr. Jefferson’s Army
.

283 “as large a proportion of our regular troops at New Orleans”: Dearborn to JW, December 2, 1808.

283 “His Majesty had some relations [with] No. 13”: quoted in Szaszdi, “Governor Folch and the Burr Conspiracy.”

284 “Sweet was the song sung on Monday evening”:
Pensioner’s Mirror
(New Orleans), April 20, 1809, quoted in Jacobs,
Tarnished Warrior
.

285 The melancholy narrative of Terre aux Boeufs is based largely on the “Report of the Committee appointed to inquire into the great Mortality in the Troops at New Orleans,”
Annals of Congress
, April 1810, and JW’s defense in
Memoirs
, vol. 2.

C
HAPTER 28:
M
ADISON’S
A
CCUSATIONS

The remorseless accumulation of documents by JW in his defense to an avalanche of accusations makes
Memoirs
, vol. 2, a prime source. Theodore Crackel’s
Mr. Jefferson’s
Army
and William Skelton’s
An American Profession of Arms
provide essential ballast. For the diplomatic and political lead-up to the war of 1812, see Stagg,
Mr. Madison’s War
.

289 “I confess, the strength of my mind was shaken”:
Memoirs
2:22.

290 “Mr. Eustis received me with great cordiality”: Ibid., 2:25.

292 “the untarnished companion of my thigh for forty years”: Hay,
Admirable Trumpeter
, 306.

292 The story of the court- martial proceeding is primarily drawn from
Memoirs
, 2:3–577. The faked Nolan account that explained his Spanish payments appeared on page 119, as follows:

General Wilkinson in Account with Don E. M[iró].

This should be compared to the real account kept by his Spanish handlers: see Appendix 1.

295 “to vary or expunge any rank Epithet”: Jacobs,
Tarnished Warrior
, 251.

296 “to take care of the interests of the North:” Samuel Perkins,
History of the Political and Military Events of the Late War between the United States and Great Britain
.

297 “I therefore feel anxious not only to add the Floridas to the South”: Grundy, December 9, 1811,
Annals of Congress
.

298 “It has been hinted to me that I may be recalled”: Hay,
Admirable Trumpeter
, 313.

299 The capture of Mobile:
Memoirs
, 3:339-41.

300 “Why should you remain in your land of
cypress
”: John Armstrong to JW, March 12, 1813, ibid., 3:342.

C
HAPTER 29:
T
HE
L
AST
B
ATTLE

JW’s role in the Canadian campaign is reflected darkly through
Memoirs
, vol. 3, written around the defense he presented in his last trial. The military background comes primarily from Quimby,
The U.S. Army in the War of 1812: An Operational and Command
Study
; Skelton,
An American Profession of Arms
; Stagg,
Mr. Madison’s War
; and as always Henry Adams provided the broader view.

302 “a general officer does not expose his person”: JW’s comment represents the shift from the front-led collisions of eighteenth-century warfare, to the distantly generaled battles of maneuver that Napoléon bequeathed to the nineteenth century. It was unfortunate for JW, and the entire army, that Armstrong remained mired in the earlier era.

302 “struck at the very foundation of military character”:
Memoirs
, 3:345.

305 “Two heads on the same shoulder”: JW to Armstrong, August 24, 1813, American State Papers, Military Affairs.

306 “I have escaped my pallet and with a giddy head”: September 16, 1813, ibid.

306 “General Wilkinson arrived this day in Sackett’s Harbor”: Armstrong’s entry quoted in
Memoirs
, 3:69.

307 “in my feeble condition”: Ibid., 3:71.

307 The story of the St. Lawrence campaign comes from Adams,
History of the
United States
, 7:193–98; the testimony of General Lewis in
Memoirs
, 3:128–29; and JW’s reports in American State Papers, Military Affairs, 1: 462–79.

308 JW’s poor health was apparent in a flood of references: October 28 he was “very ill”; on November 2 “very feeble”; on November 30 “sick”; and on December 7 “seriously indisposed.” Colonel Joseph Swift thought that between the two commanders, “Wilkinson and Lewis had not a day of sound health.” November 21, 1813, Swift,
Memoirs
, 122.

310 “The mortality spread so deep a gloom over our camps”:
Memoirs
, vol. 3, appendix 9.

310 “on which a box is placed to receive my bed”: Hay,
Admirable Trumpeter
, 323.

310 “He threatens to make a dash soon”: Daniel Tompkins to Armstrong, ibid., 324.

310 “blasted all my hopes”:
Memoirs
, vol. 3, appendix 53.

310 La Colle Mill skirmish: Ibid., 3:102.

C
HAPTER 30:
T
HE
C
HANGING OF THE
G
UARD

The proceedings of JW’s court-martial form the core of
Memoirs
, vol. 3. The final stages of his life are covered by his letters, the autobiographical torrent finally running dry with the publication of
Memoirs
, vol. 2, in 1816. Academic sources are Thomas R. Hay, “Some Reflections on the Career of General James Wilkinson,” and for his last days in Mexico, Bolton, “General James Wilkinson as Advisor to Emperor Iturbide.”

313 JW’s successful protest against his court- martial:
Memoirs
, 3:492–93.

313 JW’s family loss left Celestine distraught: Jacobs,
Tarnished Warrior
, 282. JW was seemingly a caring father; shortly before James Biddle left with Pike’s expedition in 1806, JW wrote anxiously to the hard-driving Pike, “My Son has the foundation of a good Constitution but it must be tempered by degrees, do not push Him beyond his capacities in hardships too suddenly. He will I hope attempt any thing but let the stuff be hardened by degrees.”

314 Henry Adams’s scathing account of the burning of Washington ends with a bitter jab: “Before midnight the flames of three great conflagrations made the whole country light, and from the distant hills of Maryland and Virginia the flying President and Cabinet caught glimpses of the ruin their incompetence had caused.”

314 JW’s account of the opening of the court- martial, and his success in disposing of Van Buren,
Memoirs
, 3:4–22.

315 “a vice my soul detests”: Supported by the testimony of several witnesses, ibid., 3:104, 144–45, 163, 211.

315 “He is hereby honourably acquitted”: Ibid., 3:496.

315 “the first victory gained over the enemy on a plain”: Quoted in Kimball, “The Battle of Chippawa: Infantry Tactics in the War of 1812.”

316 “The British were beaten. It was evident”: Fortescue,
History of the British Army
, 10:109–10.

316 “that so great a difference existed between regular troops and a militia force”: Madison quoted in Carl Benn,
The War of 1812
(New York: Osprey Publishing, 2002), 20.

317 “The Die is Cast,” Cushing wrote when he heard of his forcible retirement, “unless it should please the President of the United States to reward me for long and faithful services by a civil office, I shall be left on the verge of sixty years of age, after devoting almost forty years to the military service of my country, with no other prospect before me but that of spending the remnant of my days in poverty and wretchedness.” Quoted in Skelton, “Social Roots of the American Military Profession.”

317 “General Wilkinson has broken through all decorum”: Dallas to Madison, August 3, 1815, Dallas,
Life of Dallas
, 436.

320 “As to Long Tom—meaning you”: JW to Jefferson, January 21, 1811, PTJ.

320 “that I should descend to so unmeaning an act of treason”: Jefferson to Monroe, January 11 or 12, 1812, PTJ.

321 The story of Chisholm’s unexpected encounter with Jefferson and JW appears in Isaac Joslin Cox, “The Louisiana-Texas Frontier I.” Cox’s authority lends weight to his conclusion: “We are led to believe that Jefferson’s interest in Nolan extended farther than to the latter’s description of the wild horses of Texas.”

321 “I have ever and carefully restrained myself”: Jefferson to Monroe, January 11 or 12, 1812, PTJ.

322 “Suppose I get you a plantation adjoining me”: JW to van Rensselaer, December 29, 1815, Wilkinson Papers, N.Y. State Library.

322 “Blessed with my Celestine and two beloved little daughters”: JW to M. R. Thompson, January 14, 1818, Darlington MSS, University of Pittsburgh. Thompson, a wealthy Baltimore merchant, was a new friend who brought out the best of JW’s domestic side.

323 “new flushed, as elastic as [a] Billiard Ball”: Ibid.

323 “You can not find any one of virtue & Intelligence”: JW to van Rensselaer, January 16, 1821, Wilkinson Papers, N.Y. State Library.