by Lyndon Orr
THE STORY OF AARON BURR
There will come a time when the name of Aaron Burr will be cleared fromthe prejudice which now surrounds it, when he will stand in the publicestimation side by side with Alexander Hamilton, whom he shot in a duelin 1804, but whom in many respects he curiously resembled. When thewhite light of history shall have searched them both they will appearas two remarkable men, each having his own undoubted faults and at thesame time his equally undoubted virtues.
Burr and Hamilton were born within a year of each other--Burr being agrandson of Jonathan Edwards, and Alexander Hamilton being theillegitimate son of a Scottish merchant in the West Indies. Each ofthem was short in stature, keen of intellect, of great physicalendurance, courage, and impressive personality. Each as a young manserved on the staff of Washington during the Revolutionary War, andeach of them quarreled with him, though in a different way.
On one occasion Burr was quite unjustly suspected by Washington oflooking over the latter's shoulder while he was writing. "Washingtonleaped to his feet with the exclamation:
"How dare you, Colonel Burr?"
Burr's eyes flashed fire at the question, and he retorted, haughtily:
"Colonel Burr DARE do anything."
This, however, was the end of their altercation The cause of Hamilton'sdifference with his chief is not known, but it was a much more seriousquarrel; so that the young officer left his staff position in a furyand took no part in the war until the end, when he was present at thebattle of Yorktown.
Burr, on the other hand, helped Montgomery to storm the heights ofQuebec, and nearly reached the upper citadel when his commander wasshot dead and the Americans retreated. In all this confusion Burrshowed himself a man of mettle. The slain Montgomery was six feet high,but Burr carried his body away with wonderful strength amid a shower ofmusket-balls and grape-shot.
Hamilton had no belief in the American Constitution, which he called "ashattered, feeble thing." He could never obtain an elective office, andhe would have preferred to see the United States transformed into akingdom. Washington's magnanimity and clear-sightedness made HamiltonSecretary of the Treasury. Burr, on the other hand, continued hismilitary service until the war was ended, routing the enemy atHackensack, enduring the horrors of Valley Forge, commanding a brigadeat the battle of Monmouth, and heading the defense of the city of NewHaven. He was also attorney-general of New York, was elected to theUnited States Senate, was tied with Jefferson for the Presidency, andthen became Vice-President.
Both Hamilton and Burr were effective speakers; but, while Hamilton waswordy and diffuse, Burr spoke always to the point, with clear andcogent reasoning. Both were lavish spenders of money, and both wereengaged in duels before the fatal one in which Hamilton fell. Bothbelieved in dueling as the only way of settling an affair of honor.Neither of them was averse to love affairs, though it may be said thatHamilton sought women, while Burr was rather sought by women. WhenSecretary of the Treasury, Hamilton was obliged to confess anadulterous amour in order to save himself from the charge of corruptpractices in public office. So long as Burr's wife lived he was adevoted, faithful husband to her. Hamilton was obliged to confess hisillicit acts while his wife, formerly Miss Elizabeth Schuyler, wasliving. She spent her later years in buying and destroying thecompromising documents which her husband had published for hiscountrymen to read.
The most extraordinary thing about Aaron Burr was the magnetic qualitythat was felt by every one who approached him. The roots of thispenetrated down into a deep vitality. He was always young, alwaysalert, polished in manner, courageous with that sort of courage whichdoes not even recognize the presence of danger, charming inconversation, and able to adapt it to men or women of any age whatever.His hair was still dark in his eightieth year. His step was stillelastic, his motions were still as spontaneous and energetic, as thoseof a youth.
So it was that every one who knew him experienced his fascination. Therough troops whom he led through the Canadian swamps felt the iron handof his discipline; yet they were devoted to him, since he shared alltheir toils, faced all their dangers, and ate with them the scraps ofhide which they gnawed to keep the breath of life in their shrunkenbodies.
Burr's discipline was indeed very strict, so that at first raw recruitsrebelled against it. On one occasion the men of an untrained companyresented it so bitterly that they decided to shoot Colonel Burr as heparaded them for roll-call that evening. Burr somehow got word of itand contrived to have all the cartridges drawn from their muskets. Whenthe time for the roll-call came one of the malcontents leaped from thefront line and leveled his weapon at Burr.
"Now is the time, boys!" he shouted.
Like lightning Burr's sword flashed from its scabbard with such avigorous stroke as to cut the man's arm completely off and partly tocleave the musket.
"Take your place in the ranks," said Burr.
The mutineer obeyed, dripping with blood. A month later every man inthat company was devoted to his commander. They had learned thatdiscipline was the surest source of safety.
But with this high spirit and readiness to fight Burr had a mostpleasing way of meeting every one who came to him. When he was arrestedin the Western forests, charged with high treason, the sound of hisvoice won from jury after jury verdicts of acquittal. Often thesheriffs would not arrest him. One grand jury not merely exonerated himfrom all public misdemeanors, but brought in a strong presentmentagainst the officers of the government for molesting him.
It was the same everywhere. Burr made friends and devoted allies amongall sorts of men. During his stay in France, England, Germany, andSweden he interested such men as Charles Lamb, Jeremy Bentham, SirWalter Scott, Goethe, and Heeren. They found his mind able to meet withtheirs on equal terms. Burr, indeed, had graduated as a youth withhonors from Princeton, and had continued his studies there aftergraduation, which was then a most unusual thing to do. But, of course,he learned most from his contact with men and women of the world.
Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, in The Minister's Wooing, has given what isprobably an exact likeness of Aaron Burr, with his brilliant gifts andsome of his defects. It is strong testimony to the character of Burrthat Mrs. Stowe set out to paint him as a villain; but before she hadwritten long she felt his fascination and made her readers, in theirown despite, admirers of this remarkable man. There are many parallels,indeed, between him and Napoleon--in the quickness of his intellect,the ready use of his resources, and his power over men, while he wasmore than Napoleon in his delightful gift of conversation and the easyplay of his cultured mind.
Those who are full of charm are willing also to be charmed. All hislife Burr was abstemious in food and drink. His tastes were mostrefined. It is difficult to believe that such a man could have been anunmitigated profligate.
In his twentieth year there seems to have begun the first of theromances that run through the story of his long career. Perhaps oneought not to call it the first romance, for at eighteen, while he wasstudying law at Litchfield, a girl, whose name has been suppressed,made an open avowal of love for him. Almost at the same time an heiresswith a large fortune would have married him had he been willing toaccept her hand. But at this period he was only a boy and did not takesuch things seriously.
Two years later, after Burr had seen hard service at Quebec and onManhattan Island, his name was associated with that of a very beautifulgirl named Margaret Moncrieffe. She was the daughter of a Britishmajor, but in some way she had been captured while within the Americanlines. Her captivity was regarded as little more than a joke; but whileshe was thus a prisoner she saw a great deal of Burr. For severalmonths they were comrades, after which General Putnam sent her with hiscompliments to her father.
Margaret Moncrieffe had a most emotional nature. There can be no doubtthat she deeply loved the handsome young American officer, whom shenever saw again. It is doubtful how far their intimacy was carried.Later she married a Mr. Coghlan. After reaching middle life she wroteof Burr in a way which shows that neither y
ears nor the obligations ofmarriage could make her forget that young soldier, whom she speaks ofas "the conqueror of her soul." In the rather florid style of thosedays the once youthful Margaret Moncrieffe expresses herself as follows:
Oh, may these pages one day meet the eye of him who subdued my virginheart, whom the immutable, unerring laws of nature had pointed out formy husband, but whose sacred decree the barbarous customs of societyfatally violated!
Commenting on this paragraph, Mr. H. C. Merwin justly remarks that,whatever may have been Burr's conduct toward Margaret Moncrieffe, thelady herself, who was the person chiefly concerned, had no complaint tomake of it. It certainly was no very serious affair, since in thefollowing year Burr met a lady who, while she lived, was the only womanfor whom he ever really cared.
This was Theodosia Prevost, the wife of a major in the British army.Burr met her first in 1777, while she was living with her sister inWestchester County. Burr's command was fifteen miles across the river,but distance and danger made no difference to him. He used to mount aswift horse, inspect his sentinels and outposts, and then gallop to theHudson, where a barge rowed by six soldiers awaited him. The barge waswell supplied with buffalo-skins, upon which the horse was thrown withhis legs bound, and then half an hour's rowing brought them to theother side. There Burr resumed his horse, galloped to the house of Mrs.Prevost, and, after spending a few hours with her, returned in the sameway.
Mrs. Prevost was by no means beautiful, but she had an attractivenessof her own. She was well educated and possessed charming manners, witha disposition both gentle and affectionate. Her husband died soon afterthe beginning of the war, and then Burr married her. No more idealfamily life could be conceived than his, and the letters which passedbetween the two are full of adoration. Thus she wrote to him:
Tell me, why do I grow every day more tenacious of your regard? Is itbecause each revolving day proves you more deserving?
And thus Burr answered her:
Continue to multiply your letters to me. They are all my solace. Thelast six are constantly within my reach. I read them once a day atleast. Write me all that I have asked, and a hundred things which Ihave not.
When it is remembered that these letters were written after nine yearsof marriage it is hard to believe all the evil things that have beensaid of Burr.
His wife died in 1794, and he then gave a double affection to hisdaughter Theodosia, whose beauty and accomplishments were knownthroughout the country. Burr took the greatest pains in her education,and believed that she should be trained, as he had been, to be brave,industrious, and patient. He himself, who has been described as avoluptuary, delighted in the endurance of cold and heat and of severelabor.
After his death one of his younger admirers was asked what Burr haddone for him. The reply was characteristic.
"He made me iron," was the answer.
No father ever gave more attention to his daughter's welfare. As toTheodosia's studies he was very strict, making her read Greek and Latinevery day, with drawing and music and history, in addition to French.Not long before her marriage to Joseph Allston, of South Carolina, Burrwrote to her:
I really think, my dear Theo, that you will be very soon beyond allverbal criticism, and that my whole attention will be presentlydirected to the improvement of your style.
Theodosia Burr married into a family of good old English stock, whereriches were abundant, and high character was regarded as the best ofall possessions. Every one has heard of the mysterious tragedy which isassociated with her history. In 1812, when her husband had been electedGovernor of his state, her only child--a sturdy boy of eleven--died,and Theodosia's health was shattered by her sorrow. In the same yearBurr returned from a sojourn in Europe, and his loving daughterembarked from Charleston on a schooner, the Patriot, to meet her fatherin New York. When Burr arrived he was met by a letter which told himthat his grandson was dead and that Theodosia was coming to him.
Weeks sped by, and no news was heard of the ill-fated Patriot. At lastit became evident that she must have gone down or in some other wayhave been lost. Burr and Governor Allston wrote to each other letterafter letter, of which each one seems to surpass the agony of theother. At last all hope was given up. Governor Allston died soon afterof a broken heart; but Burr, as became a Stoic, acted otherwise.
He concealed everything that reminded him of Theodosia. He never spokeof his lost daughter. His grief was too deep-seated and too terriblefor speech. Only once did he ever allude to her, and this was in aletter written to an afflicted friend, which contained the words:
Ever since the event which separated me from mankind I have been ableneither to give nor to receive consolation.
In time the crew of a pirate vessel was captured and sentenced to behanged. One of the men, who seemed to be less brutal than the rest,told how, in 1812, they had captured a schooner, and, after their usualpractice, had compelled the passengers to walk the plank. All hesitatedand showed cowardice, except only one--a beautiful woman whose eyeswere as bright and whose bearing was as unconcerned as if she were safeon shore. She quickly led the way, and, mounting the plank with acertain scorn of death, said to the others:
"Come, I will show you how to die."
It has always been supposed that this intrepid girl may have beenTheodosia Allston. If so, she only acted as her father would have doneand in strict accordance with his teachings.
This resolute courage, this stern joy in danger, this perfectequanimity, made Burr especially attractive to women, who love courage,the more so when it is coupled with gentleness and generosity.
Perhaps no man in our country has been so vehemently accused regardinghis relations with the other sex. The most improbable stories were toldabout him, even by his friends. As to his enemies, they took boundlesspains to paint him in the blackest colors. According to them, no womanwas safe from his intrigues. He was a perfect devil in leading themastray and then casting them aside.
Thus one Matthew L. Davis, in whom Burr had confided as a friend, wroteof him long afterward a most unjust account--unjust because we haveproofs that it was false in the intensity of its abuse. Davis wrote:
It is truly surprising how any individual could become so eminent as asoldier, as a statesman, and as a professional man who devoted so muchtime to the other sex as was devoted by Colonel Burr. For more thanhalf a century of his life they seemed to absorb his whole thought. Hisintrigues were without number; the sacred bonds of friendship wereunhesitatingly violated when they operated as barriers to theindulgence of his passions. In this particular Burr appears to havebeen unfeeling and heartless.
It is impossible to believe that the Spartan Burr, whose life was oneof incessant labor and whose kindliness toward every one was so wellknown, should have deserved a commentary like this. The charge ofimmorality is so easily made and so difficult of disproof that it hasbeen flung promiscuously at all the great men of history, including, inour own country.
Washington and Jefferson as well as Burr. In England, when Gladstonewas more than seventy years of age, he once stopped to ask a questionof a woman in the street. Within twenty-four hours the London clubswere humming with a sort of demoniac glee over the story that this agedand austere old gentleman was not above seeking common street amours.
And so with Aaron Burr to a great extent. That he was a man of strictmorality it would be absurd to maintain. That he was a reckless andlicentious profligate would be almost equally untrue. Mr. H. O. Merwinhas very truly said:
Part of Burr's reputation for profligacy was due, no doubt, to thatvanity respecting women of which Davis himself speaks. He never refusedto accept the parentage of a child.
"Why do you allow this woman to saddle you with her child when you KNOWyou are not the father of it?" said a friend to him a few months beforehis death.
"Sir," he replied, "when a lady does me the honor to name me the fatherof her child I trust I shall always be too gallant to show myselfungrateful for the favor."
There are two curio
us legends relating to Aaron Burr. They serve toshow that his reputation became such that he could not enjoy thesociety of a woman without having her regarded as his mistress.
When he was United States Senator from New York he lived inPhiladelphia at the lodging-house of a Mrs. Payne, whose daughter,Dorothy Todd, was the very youthful widow of an officer. This youngwoman was rather free in her manners, and Burr was very responsive inhis. At the time, however, nothing was thought of it; but presentlyBurr brought to the house the serious and somewhat pedantic JamesMadison and introduced him to the hoyden.
Madison was then forty-seven years of age, a stranger to society, butgradually rising to a prominent position in politics--"the great littleMadison," as Burr rather lightly called him. Before very long he hadproposed marriage to the young widow. She hesitated, and some onereferred the matter to President Washington. The Father of his Countryanswered in what was perhaps the only opinion that he ever gave on thesubject of matrimony. It is worth preserving because it shows that hehad a sense of humor:
For my own part, I never did nor do I believe I ever shall give adviceto a woman who is setting out on a matrimonial voyage ... A woman veryrarely asks an opinion or seeks advice on such an occasion till hermind is wholly made up, and then it is with the hope and expectation ofobtaining a sanction, and not that she means to be governed by yourdisapproval.
Afterward when Dolly Madison with, her yellow turban and kittenish wayswas making a sensation in Washington society some one recalled her oldassociation with Burr. At once the story sprang to light that Burr hadbeen her lover and that he had brought about the match with Madison asan easy way of getting rid of her.
There is another curious story which makes Martin Van Buren, eighthPresident of the United States, to have been the illegitimate son ofAaron Burr. There is no earthly reason for believing this, except thatBurr sometimes stopped overnight at the tavern in Kinderhook which waskept by Van Buren's putative father, and that Van Buren in later lifeshowed an astuteness equal to that of Aaron Burr himself, so that hewas called by his opponents "the fox of Kinderhook." But, as Van Burenwas born in December of the same year (1782) in which Burr was marriedto Theodosia Prevost, the story is utterly improbable when we remember,as we must, the ardent affection which Burr showed his wife, not onlybefore their marriage, but afterward until her death.
Putting aside these purely spurious instances, as well as others citedby Mr. Parton, the fact remains that Aaron Burr, like Daniel Webster,found a great attraction in the society of women; that he could pleasethem and fascinate them to an extraordinary degree; and that during hislater life he must be held quite culpable in this respect. Hislove-making was ardent and rapid, as we shall afterward see in the caseof his second marriage.
Many other stories are told of him. For instance, it is said that heonce took a stage-coach from Jersey City to Philadelphia. The onlyother occupant was a woman of high standing and one whose family deeplyhated Aaron Burr. Nevertheless, so the story goes, before they hadreached Newark she was absolutely swayed by his charm of manner; andwhen the coach made its last stop before Philadelphia she voluntarilybecame his mistress.
It must also be said that, unlike those of Webster and Hamilton, hisintrigues were never carried on with women of the lower sort. This maybe held by some to deepen the charge against him; but more truly doesit exonerate him, since it really means that in many cases these womenof the world threw themselves at him and sought him as a lover, whenotherwise he might never have thought of them.
That he was not heartless and indifferent to those who had loved himmay be shown by the great care which he took to protect their names andreputations. Thus, on the day before his duel with Hamilton, he made awill in which he constituted his son-in-law as his executor. At thesame time he wrote a sealed letter to Governor Allston in which he said:
If you can pardon and indulge a folly, I would suggest that Mme. ----,too well known under the name of Leonora, has claims on myrecollection. She is now with her husband at Santiago, in Cuba.
Another fact has been turned to his discredit. From many women, in thecourse of his long life, he had received a great quantity of letterswritten by aristocratic hands on scented paper, and these letters hehad never burned. Here again, perhaps, was shown the vanity of the manwho loved love for its own sake. He kept all these papers in a hugeiron-clamped chest, and he instructed Theodosia in case he should dieto burn every letter which might injure any one.
After Theodosia's death Burr gave the same instructions to Matthew L.Davis, who did, indeed, burn them, though he made their existence ameans of blackening the character of Burr. He should have destroyedthem unopened, and should never have mentioned them in his memoirs ofthe man who trusted him as a friend.
Such was Aaron Burr throughout a life which lasted for eighty years.His last romance, at the age of seventy-eight, is worth narratingbecause it has often been misunderstood.
Mme. Jumel was a Rhode Island girl who at seventeen years of age elopedwith an English officer, Colonel Peter Croix. Her first husband diedwhile she was still quite young, and she then married a Frenchwine-merchant, Stephen Jumel, some twenty years her senior, but a manof much vigor and intelligence. M. Jumel made a considerable fortune inNew York, owning a small merchant fleet; and after Napoleon's downfallhe and his wife went to Paris, where she made a great impression in thesalons by her vivacity and wit and by her lavish expenditures.
Losing, however, part of what she and her husband possessed, Mme. Jumelreturned to New York, bringing with her a great amount of furniture andpaintings, with which she decorated the historic house still standingin the upper part of Manhattan Island--a mansion held by her in her ownright. She managed her estate with much ability; and in 1828 M. Jumelreturned to live with her in what was in those days a splendid villa.
Four years later, however, M. Jumel suffered an accident from which hedied in a few days, leaving his wife still an attractive woman and notvery much past her prime. Soon after she had occasion to seek for legaladvice, and for this purpose visited the law-office of Aaron Burr. Shehad known him a good many years before; and, though he was nowseventy-eight years of age, there was no perceptible change in him. Hewas still courtly in manner, tactful, and deferential, while physicallyhe was straight, active, and vigorous.
A little later she invited him to a formal banquet, where he displayedall his charms and shone to great advantage. When he was about to leadher in to dinner, he said:
"I give my hand, madam; my heart has long been yours."
These attentions he followed up with several other visits, and finallyproposed that she should marry him. Much fluttered and no lessflattered, she uttered a sort of "No" which was not likely todiscourage a man like Aaron Burr.
"I shall come to you before very long," he said, "accompanied by aclergyman; and then you will give me your hand because I want it."
This rapid sort of wooing was pleasantly embarrassing. The lady ratherliked it; and so, on an afternoon when the sun was shining and theleaves were rustling in the breeze, Burr drove up to Mme. Jumel'smansion accompanied by Dr. Bogart--the very clergyman who had marriedhim to his first wife fifty years before.
Mme. Jumel was now seriously disturbed, but her refusal was not astrong one. There were reasons why she should accept the offer. Thegreat house was lonely. The management of her estate required a man'sadvice. Moreover, she was under the spell of Burr's fascination.Therefore she arrayed herself in one of her most magnificent Parisgowns; the members of her household and eight servants were called inand the ceremony was duly performed by Dr. Bogart. A banquet followed.A dozen cobwebbed bottles of wine were brought up from the cellar, andthe marriage feast went on merrily until after midnight.
This marriage was a singular one from many points of view. It wasstrange that a man of seventy-eight should take by storm the affectionsof a woman so much younger than he--a woman of wealth and knowledge ofthe world. In the second place, it is odd that there was still anotherwoman--a mere girl--who was s
o infatuated with Burr that when she wastold of his marriage it nearly broke her heart. Finally, in the earlypart of that same year he had been accused of being the father of anew-born child, and in spite of his age every one believed the chargeto be true. Here is a case that it would be hard to parallel.
The happiness of the newly married pair did not, however, last verylong. They made a wedding journey into Connecticut, of which stateBurr's nephew was then Governor, and there Burr saw a monster bridgeover the Connecticut River, in which his wife had shares, though theybrought her little income. He suggested that she should transfer theinvestment, which, after all, was not a very large one, and place it ina venture in Texas which looked promising. The speculation turned outto be a loss, however, and this made Mrs. Burr extremely angry, themore so as she had reason to think that her ever-youthful husband hadbeen engaged in flirting with the country girls near the Jumel mansion.
She was a woman of high spirit and had at times a violent temper. Oneday the post-master at what was then the village of Harlem wassurprised to see Mrs. Burr drive up before the post-office in an opencarriage. He came out to ask what she desired, and was surprised tofind her in a violent temper and with an enormous horse-pistol on eachcushion at her side.
"What do you wish, madam?" said he, rather mildly.
"What do I wish?" she cried. "Let me get at that villain Aaron Burr!"
Presently Burr seems to have succeeded in pacifying her; but in the endthey separated, though she afterward always spoke most kindly of him.When he died, only about a year later, she is said to have burst into aflood of tears--another tribute to the fascination which Aaron Burrexercised through all his checkered life.
It is difficult to come to any fixed opinion regarding the moralcharacter of Aaron Burr. As a soldier he was brave to the point ofrecklessness. As a political leader he was almost the equal ofJefferson and quite superior to Hamilton. As a man of the world he washighly accomplished, polished in manner, charming in conversation. Hemade friends easily, and he forgave his enemies with a broadmindednessthat is unusual.
On the other hand, in his political career there was a touch ofinsincerity, and it can scarcely be denied that he used his charm toooften to the injury of those women who could not resist his insinuatingways and the caressing notes of his rich voice. But as a husband, inhis youth, he was devoted, affectionate, and loyal; while as a fatherhe was little less than worshiped by the daughter whom he reared socarefully.
One of his biographers very truly says that no such wretch as Burr hasbeen declared to be could have won and held the love of such a wife andsuch a daughter as Burr had.
When all the other witnesses have been heard, let the two Theodosias besummoned, and especially that daughter who showed toward him anaffectionate veneration unsurpassed by any recorded in history orromance. Such an advocate as Theodosia the younger must avail in somedegree, even though the culprit were brought before the bar of Heavenitself.