The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr

by H. W. Brands

  Theo becomes enchanted with Blennerhassett Island. Mrs. Blennerhassett is as much younger than her husband as Theo is than Burr; the two women become fast friends, while little Aaron toddles about the house and grounds, amusing the servants, vexing the pets, alarming his mother and gratifying his grandfather.

  Blennerhassett joins Burr in preparing the expeditionary force for a journey downstream. Burr has contracted at Marietta for the construction of fifteen flat-bottomed boats—bateaux, after the French design and nomenclature—and a large keel boat. The bateaux collectively can accommodate five hundred men and their arms and provisions. On the island itself, workers construct kilns for drying and preserving corn. Pigs are slaughtered and their flesh salted and packed into barrels. Wheat is ground into flour and bagged.

  Burr meanwhile recruits volunteers for the expedition. He begins with the local militia, who have heard of his service during the Revolutionary War and who respect him the more for his duel with Hamilton. He guarantees each of them one hundred acres of land in the Washita tract, and he suggests that much larger prizes await them in Mexico should war break out.

  Blennerhassett talks up the expedition among the influential men of the neighborhood. He recounts the complaints of westerners against the merchants and politicians of the East, and he wonders aloud whether nature dictates an independent destiny for the region. The American colonies severed their ties to Britain when the cost of those ties outweighed the benefits; why shouldn’t the West do the same to the East, seize Spanish territory and forge a new nation looking to the setting sun?

  Encouraging a separation of the West from the East will get a man into trouble with the national government, which cannot but interpret it as treason; knowing this, Burr is more circumspect than the garrulous Blennerhassett. He lets others’ imaginations roam while himself saying little. Yet his military background and the influence in Washington he lets the westerners think he still enjoys—even if, as he intimates, partisan politics keeps the administration from acknowledging him—make his silence more persuasive than any of his words might be.

  Aaron Burr in his enigmatic prime

  Theodosia Burr Alston, her father’s darling, pupil and confidante

  Richmond Hill, where young Theo astonished New York with her maturity and grace

  The 1800 electoral tally that started the troubles

  Alexander Hamilton,

  Burr’s all-too-mortal enemy

  Weehawken, New Jersey, where the fatal duel took place

  Andrew Jackson, who hosted Burr in Tennessee

  Thomas Jefferson, who determined to crush Burr

  James Wilkinson, Burr’s accuser

  John Marshall, Burr’s unlikely ally in the treason trial

  Older, perhaps wiser, certainly sadder

  20

  His silence doesn’t stop the authorities from taking note of his movements and activities. The gathering of armed men would arouse suspicion in any case; combined with the rumblings of separation it compels government officials to respond. Jefferson in Washington pens a special message to Congress painting the western conspiracy in the darkest colors. He describes the recruiting, provisioning and arming of the group on the Ohio and asserts its dual purposes. “One of these was the severance of the Union of these States by the Alleghany Mountains; the other an attack on Mexico. A third object was provided, merely ostensible, to wit, the settlement of a pretended purchase of a tract of country on the Washita.” The Washita settlement was a ruse to entice the unwitting persons drawn into the plot, Jefferson says.

  And the evil genius who conceived the objects of the expedition and set the dangerous chain of events in motion? “The prime mover in these was Aaron Burr, heretofore distinguished by the favor of his country,” the president declares.

  Jefferson concedes that what he knows of the plot is compounded from sources individually incomplete and collectively still imperfect. “It is chiefly in the form of letters, often containing such a mixture of rumors, conjectures, and suspicions as renders it difficult to sift out the real facts and unadvisable to hazard more than general outlines, strengthened by concurrent information or the particular credibility of the relator.” Prudence dictates discretion in drawing surmises. “In this state of the evidence, delivered sometimes, too, under the restriction of private confidence, neither safety nor justice will permit the exposing names, except that of the principal actor, whose guilt is placed beyond question.”

  21

  With the president proclaiming Burr’s unquestionable guilt, subordinate officials of the executive branch swing into action. The federal district attorney at Frankfort, Kentucky, J. H. Daviess, is a Federalist from the days when Hamilton was the rising star of the republic; he is that rare westerner who holds Hamilton’s death against Burr. Daviess’s personal feelings complement Jefferson’s condemnation of Burr, and he brings charges against Burr for preparing to make war on a country—Spain—with which America is at peace.

  A grand jury is summoned and witnesses called. Burr, having read about Jefferson’s declaration of his guilt, attends the session to rebut the president’s charges. He represents himself, with the assistance of Henry Clay, the local favorite. Two of Daviess’s key witnesses, doubtless discouraged by the overwhelming popular support for Burr, fail to appear. Twice Daviess tries to obtain an indictment; twice he fails. The second failure is treated by the locals as a vindication of Burr; Frankfort hosts a ball that draws men and women from near and far to shake the hand of the illustrious war hero and former vice president.

  Burr travels from Frankfort to Nashville to supervise certain matters relating to the expedition. Word of his courtroom triumph precedes him, and the inhabitants of the Tennessee capital hold another ball in his honor. He thanks the good citizens for their congratulations and employs the opportunity to enlist additional recruits.

  While at Nashville he learns that Jefferson has called for his arrest. The president rejects the finding of the Kentucky grand jury; on his own authority he decides that Burr is too dangerous to remain free.

  Burr gets wind of the order as soon as Tennessee’s governor does, and before the latter—perhaps slowed by sympathy for Burr—can arrest him, Burr disappears down the Cumberland River with two boats and a handful of men.

  At the confluence of the Cumberland and the Ohio he makes rendezvous with Blennerhassett, who has effected a similar escape from his island. Their combined party includes thirteen boats and some sixty men.

  Burr leads the fleet down the Ohio to the Mississippi and down the Mississippi toward New Orleans. Most of the way he is greeted with the same warmth he elicited the year before; new men answer his summons to glory and join the force.

  But his prospects narrow the farther south he goes. Mississippi is a federal territory rather than a state, and its governor owes his position to appointment by Jefferson rather than election by the locals; for this reason, perhaps among others, he vows to stifle the Burr rebellion, as he and the president are calling it. He summons the militia and orders them to intercept Burr’s force.

  In early 1807 one company of the Mississippi militia creeps up the river toward Burr’s camp at Bayou Pierre, near Natchez; a second squadron, mounted on horseback, closes in through the forest. The pursuers greatly outnumber Burr’s force, and Burr surrenders himself without a fight. He declares to the attorney general of the territory, who personally directs the arrest, that he has no designs whatsoever upon the interests or security of the United States.

  Again he finds himself in court. Again a grand jury is summoned. And again the grand jury, persuaded by Burr’s history, demeanor and disavowal of any wrongdoing, refuses to indict him. Beyond this, the jury chides the attorney general for wasting their time and endangering American liberties by persecuting an innocent man. Once more Burr exits the courtroom to a hero’s reception.

  He thereupon requests a statement from the court that he is free to leave the town. The court refuses, to his surprise. The attorney general
evidently plans further action against him.

  Boldness has marked Burr’s steps till now; it suddenly yields to caution and stealth. Concluding that Jefferson will throw one hurdle after another in his path, he disguises himself as a boatman and slips out of town.

  The court convenes the next day, with Burr nowhere to be seen. The governor publicizes the flight and offers two thousand dollars for the fugitive’s capture. The offer meets a mixed response: a few persons share Jefferson’s fear of Burr’s designs, a larger number are enticed by the money and a still larger portion wish Burr godspeed.

  Some in the last category facilitate his flight as he heads east across Mississippi and Alabama in the direction of Spanish Florida, where at Pensacola he hopes to find a British vessel to spirit him away. For weeks he eludes his pursuers, living off the land and local sympathy.

  In February he and one of the sympathizers, who acts as a guide, approach the village of Wakefield in southwestern Alabama. Night has fallen and the winter cold keeps everyone indoors. Burr and his companion approach a cabin where a lamp burns in the window. They ask directions to the home of a Major Hinson, a gentleman of the district. Nicholas Perkins, the cabin owner, provides the directions but in doing so detects something amiss. The horse of one of the inquirers is too well bred for the neighborhood and the man’s boots too fine.

  While Burr and his associate ride toward the Hinson home, Perkins wakens the local sheriff and says that he has just seen the fugitive Burr. The sheriff and Perkins head toward Hinson’s place.

  Burr and his guide reach Hinson’s first. The colonel is gone but his wife lets them in.

  The sheriff and Perkins approach the cabin carefully. The sheriff explains that since he knows Mrs. Hinson, he will go forward. Perkins should wait in the woods.

  Mrs. Hinson opens the door to the sheriff, who is soon seated with Burr and the other man eating a late supper. Perhaps the sheriff has sympathized with Burr all along; perhaps he is charmed by Burr now. But the result is that he makes no move to arrest him, and when Burr retires for the night, the sheriff lies down before the fire and does the same.

  Perkins grows colder in the dark. He mutters to himself against the sheriff until he can stand it no longer. He mounts his horse and rides several miles to federal Fort Stoddard, where Captain Edmund Gaines commands. He tells Gaines that Burr is in the neighborhood and that the sheriff refuses to take action. The republic is in peril; the captain must act.

  Gaines, like every other officer in the West, knows that capturing Burr is President Jefferson’s priority. He gathers a company of dragoons and all set off at a gallop.

  Divining Burr’s direction, they head for the Pensacola road. An hour after sunrise they spot Burr and his guide in the distance. Gaines catches him ahead of the others. “I presume, sir, that I have the honor of addressing Colonel Burr?” he says.

  Burr demands to know under what authority the captain asks the question.

  “I am an officer of the army,” Gaines replies. “I hold in my hands the proclamations of the president and the governor, directing your arrest.”

  Burr silently assesses the strength of Gaines’s escort and the freshness of their horses and concludes that resistance is futile and escape impossible. With a word he dismisses his guide, whom Gaines allows to leave, and turns his horse to fall in with those of Gaines and the other soldiers.

  They ride to Fort Stoddard, where Gaines prepares a company to transport Burr east, per the orders of the president. Meanwhile Burr charms Mrs. Gaines, the other officers’ wives and most of the men. He comes near to winning over Gaines himself, but the captain refuses to let personal inclination trump his professional judgment. After two weeks, when Burr’s escort of guards is ready, everyone gathers at the gates of the fort to watch the prisoner leave. The ladies wave fondly; some wipe tears from their eyes. Gaines sighs with relief at being rid of the prisoner.

  The guard company is headed by Perkins, who vows to see Burr delivered to justice. For two weeks they ride through the wilderness of southern Alabama. Late-winter rains drench the party; wolves howl at night; Indians shadow them during the day. They sleep on the ground and eat the rudest fare. But Burr never complains or displays the slightest discomfort. He is the first to rise each morning and assists the others in making ready. His good humor and solicitude gradually softens their hearts—as Perkins has feared. Perkins warns them all against Burr’s wiles, yet he can do little but threaten loss of pay if they let him escape.

  Perkins’s worries intensify as the party enters South Carolina, which he knows to be the home of Burr’s daughter and son-in-law. Perkins takes pains to avoid stopping in settlements, and as the single track of the wilderness gives way to a rutted road, he purchases a carriage in which he compels Burr to ride, with the window shades pulled tight. This tactic sufficiently insulates Burr from the populace, and from his guards, that after a final week of long days crossing North Carolina and southern Virginia, they arrive at Richmond on March 26.

  22

  Burr’s first act on arrival is to pen a note to Theo, who took leave from him on the Ohio and has returned to South Carolina. “It seems that here the business is to be tried and concluded,” he writes. “I am to be surrendered to the civil authority tomorrow, when the question of bail is to be determined. In the meantime I remain at the Eagle Tavern.” He tells her not to worry. He reminds her of the lessons of her youth. “You have read to very little purpose if you have not remarked that such things happen in all democratic governments. Was there in Greece or Rome a man of virtue and independence, and supposed to possess great talents, who was not the subjective of vindictive and unrelenting persecution?” He jokingly sets her an exercise: “Madame, I pray you to amuse yourself by collecting and collating all the instances to be found in ancient history, which you may connect together, if you please, in an essay, with reflections, comments, and applications.… I promise myself great pleasure in the perusal, and I promise you great satisfaction and consolation in the composition.”

  But Theo isn’t consoled, nor is she satisfied to remain at a distance while her father is in peril. She insists on traveling to Richmond, despite the doubts of her husband, who fears for his own political future and anyway wonders if her presence will help or hurt her father’s defense. Theo dismisses Alston’s concerns and heads north; he tags along to keep her company and limit the damage to his reputation.

  23

  The Burr trial arrests the attention of the whole country. The alleged crime could not be darker: treason against the American republic. Two decades after the drafting of the Constitution, the republican experiment remains as unfinished and its outcome as uncertain as ever. Skeptics have consistently alleged that a republican form of government suits only small countries; any country as large as the United States will fly apart sooner or later. The contours of American geography—the transit-impeding mountain chain, the west-flowing Ohio River and the Gulf of Mexico–bound Mississippi—add to the ungainliness of the republic. Burr is charged with fomenting the separatism that Americans have long feared.

  The stakes could not be higher. Treason is a capital offense; Burr may die if found guilty. The federal government will score a signal victory if Burr is convicted, and the victory will translate into credibility for federal authority generally. Jefferson’s reputation will be enhanced at a time when the president is trying to establish a Republican dynasty. A verdict of not guilty, by contrast, will spare Burr, obviously, and embarrass Jefferson.

  The participants could not be more illustrious. The defendant is a Revolutionary War hero who has held the second-highest office in the land. His counsel includes Edmund Randolph, formerly a member of the Continental Congress, a framer of the Constitution, attorney general and governor of Virginia, attorney general and secretary of state of the United States; Luther Martin of Maryland, widely considered the most formidable trial lawyer of the age; Charles Lee, another former attorney general of the United States; John Wickham, reputed to
be the best lawyer in Virginia, known for ingenuity in argument and wit in presentation; Benjamin Botts, young but already renowned for agility in court; and Burr himself, whose facile intellect and pleasing manner have made him a favorite of juries for decades.

  The prosecution is headed by George Hay, an ardent Republican commanding not just the ordinary resources of a district attorney but the vigorous backing of Jefferson, who has made clear he wants Burr’s head on a platter. Assisting Hay are William Wirt, the most respected member of the Richmond bar, seconding Hay at the specific request of Jefferson, and Alexander MacRae, the lieutenant governor of Virginia.

  The judge is the emerging giant of American jurisprudence: John Marshall. Supreme Court justices still ride the circuit, and Marshall regularly hears cases in his hometown of Richmond. After the defeat of Adams in 1800 by Jefferson and the killing of Hamilton by Burr in 1804, the defense of Federalist principles has fallen to

  Marshall, whose energy and success in that cause make him obnoxious to Jefferson. With Marshall in the judge’s chair, the Burr trial becomes not simply a matter of treason, as if this were not enough, but a proxy struggle of philosophies of government.

  The proceedings begin with the summoning of a grand jury. Among those called are several of the most eminent citizens of Virginia not already involved in the case. William Giles has been a member of the Virginia assembly and senate, governor of the commonwealth and a member of the federal House and Senate. He is a close friend and strong supporter of Jefferson.

  For this reason his seating on the grand jury is opposed by Burr. The defendant surprises the court by challenging prospective grand jurors, in the manner that prospective trial jurors have long been challenged. The prosecution objects, but John Marshall lets Burr proceed. Burr adduces evidence that Giles has already made up his mind in the case, prejudging the defendant guilty. Marshall concurs and Giles is dismissed.