An Artist in Treason: The Extraordinary Double Life of General James Wilkinson

by Andro Linklater

  This fear of a professional army extended beyond its physical power to the pervasive influence it exerted. When Jefferson criticized the retired officers’ association, the Society of Cincinnati, for being hierarchical, undemocratic, and creating “a distinction . . . between the civil & military, which it is for the happiness of both to obliterate,” he was also criticizing the values encouraged by the army in general.

  Yet the institution could not help being political. In his farewell to his soldiers, Washington had dwelled on the army’s surprising power as a unifying force. “Who, that was not a witness, could imagine,” he asked, “that Men who came from the different parts of the Continent, strongly disposed, by the habits of education, to despise and quarrel with each other, would instantly become but one patriotic band of Brothers?” Under his command, the Continental Army had been the Union in action, a single force, a model of what the loose association of states whose representatives gathered in Congress could become if they really wanted to unite into a single nation. Since most states recoiled from such a goal, the army that Congress finally brought into being on June 3, 1784, was as small as it could be—a force of just seven hundred men enlisted for one year, drawn from the four middle states, and formally designated the First American Regiment.

  This in effect was the army that Wilkinson rejoined in 1791. The only change had been made in response to Little Turtle’s victory. Echoing the Continental Army’s old complaints against citizen- soldiers, Harmar blamed the headlong flight of his troops on “the ignorance, imbecility, insubordination and want of equipment of the militia.” This presented an uncomfortable challenge to Congress’s stubborn belief that the nation could be defended by a well-regulated militia. But the commander of the Continental Army was now president, and western settlers were demanding adequate protection. Ideology had to give way to reality. Reluctantly Congress voted to raise a second regiment of professionals, thus creating the opening for a new lieutenant colonel to command it.

  On November 7, the Senate confirmed Washington’s appointment of Wilkinson to command the Second American Regiment. His relief at being able “to resume the sword of my country” was unmistakable. “Ignorance of commerce” had brought nothing but disappointment and misfortune, he told friends in Philadelphia, but he knew about soldiering, and the rewards it could bring. “My views in entering the Military Line are ‘Bread & Fame,’ ” he confided with a flash of his old optimism, “uncertain of either I shall deserve both.”

  Later that day, he duly took the oath of loyalty required of every American soldier, “to bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and to serve them honestly and faithfully, against all their enemies or opposers whomsoever.” Spain might not be an enemy, but she was an opposer. From now on, he was forsworn whichever course he followed. He had pledged allegiance to Spain, offered to serve in her army, and was now drawing her wage. He could continue to aid her— or he could abide by his oath to the United States. Either way, he would betray one of them.

  11

  A GENERAL AGAIN

  IN THE FALL OF 1791, General Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory, led an army fourteen hundred strong northward out of Fort Washington, the gigantic red- walled fortress that protected Cincinnati’s thriving settlement. The intention was to construct a chain of forts from the Ohio River across the low, rolling land hunted over by the Miami and other western confederation tribes, to extend as far as modern Fort Wayne, Indiana. About four hundred regulars, including a company of artillery with eight guns, made up the core of the force, but the remainder were Kentucky militia, accompanied by almost six hundred wives, children, and camp followers. It was hoped that this slow-moving but overwhelming display of force, whose peaceful intentions were made plain by the families traveling with the soldiers, would convince the Indians to make a treaty that would establish new boundaries for their territory.

  Although two forts, Hamilton and Jefferson, were constructed and garrisoned about twenty and forty miles from Cincinnati, the lack of aggression infuriated the Kentucky militia. They resented the discipline imposed on them and were, in the words of Congressman John Brown, “extremely averse to a co-operation with the regulars.” The division made itself felt on the night of November 3. When the army camped close to their final destination near the Wabash River, the militia chose to pitch their tents across a creek some distance from St. Clair and the regulars of the First and Second American regiments.

  During the night, they were surrounded by about one thousand men of the Miami, Shawnee, Kickapoo, and other tribes of the western confederation led by Little Turtle of the Miami, and the Shawnee Blue Jacket. Although warned by Washington to be wary of ambush, St. Clair had had no fortifications erected, and when the first shot was fired before dawn, the surprise was total.

  “The [regular] Troops were instantly formed to Receive them,” William Darke of the First Regiment reported to Washington, “and the pannack Struck [sic] Militia Soon broke in to the Center of our incampment; in a few Minutes our Guards were drove in and our whole Camp Surrounded by Savages advancing up there to our Lines, and Made, from behind trees Logs etc., Grate Havok with our Men.” Courageously Darke rallied his troops and with two charges drove off the Indians in front, but behind them others got into the camp and scalped its defenders. Then confusion took over, and in Darke’s words “the whole Army Ran together like a mob at a fair, and had it not been for the Gratest Exertions of the officers would have Stood there til all killed.”

  Small groups formed up and with bayonets fixed kept the enemy at bay. But as Major Ebenezer Denny noted in his journal, “[The Indians] could skip out of reach of bayonet and return, as they pleased. The ground was literally covered with the dead . . . It appeared as if the officers had been singled out, as a very great proportion fell.” Surrounded on all sides, the resistance grew weaker until St. Clair ordered a retreat to Fort Jefferson that might have become a massacre had Little Turtle’s army not been distracted by the huge booty of arms, artillery, and equipment they had captured. Everything was abandoned, including more than a hundred wives and children, nearly half of whom were slaughtered.

  Almost six hundred of the fourteen hundred soldiers in St. Clair’s force were killed, including his second-in- command, Brigadier General Richard Butler, and thirty-seven other officers, while wounds accounted for as many more. It was the bloodiest defeat Native Americans ever inflicted on the U.S. army. The shock felt throughout the nation was epitomized by the reaction of the president when he read St. Clair’s dispatch with the news. Having waited until the room was cleared of strangers, Washington burst out to his secretary Tobias Lear, “To suffer that army to be cut to pieces— hacked, butchered, tomahawked— by a surprise—the very thing I guarded him [St. Clair] against! O God, O God, he’s worse than a murderer! How can he answer for it to his country! The blood of the slain is upon him— the curse of widows and orphans— the curse of Heaven!”

  Yet amid the chaos and terror, the resistance of the trained soldiers, who had withstood the initial onslaught and held their ground for some hours, stood out. When the national horror had subsided, it left a clear determination to create a professional army that would be large enough to inflict decisive military defeat on the Indians. In December 1791, Henry Knox, Washington’s secretary of war, proposed that its strength should be 5,120 men, the same number as that of a Roman legion. Three months later, in March 1792, Congress conquered its doubts about professional soldiers and not only voted the necessary funds but left it to Washington to determine the exact composition of the new army that was soon to be termed the Legion of the United States. He was also to appoint its commander.

  COLONEL JAMES WILKINSON assumed that position would fall to him. Early in December 1791, he wrote to Miró, primarily to explain why he had joined the army—“my private interest, the Duty which I owe to the Country I live in, & the aggrandizement of my family”— but he predicted that with the death of General Butler and expected di
smissal of General St. Clair, “it is most probable that I shall be promoted [to] the chief command.”

  To underline his credentials, he embarked on a whirlwind campaign designed to display his energy and unswerving adherence to the virtues of discipline and obedience. In January 1792, he arrived at the army’s western headquarters, Fort Washington. This massive defensive post, two stories high with a blockhouse at each corner, was, according to Harmar’s report, “one of the most solid substantial wooden fortresses . . . of any in the Western Territory.” It was home to almost three hundred soldiers, roughly the same number as the inhabitants of Cincinnati.

  Pausing only to organize a covering party of militia cavalry, Wilkinson led out a column of 150 men on January 24, “whilst the snow is on the ground,” as he informed Knox, to follow the route taken by General St. Clair’s army. He resupplied the defenses at Forts Hamilton and Jefferson, the first two links in a chain of forts that would eventually stretch north from the Ohio. From Hamilton he sent an urgent message back to Samuel Hodgdon, in charge of supplies at headquarters, demanding that a depot be established at Fort Jefferson. “The depth of the snow and the hardness of the Roads makes [sic] it almost impossible for the Corn to be got on,” he admitted, “but it is an object of such great Moment that no effort should be left untried. The moment the season breaks, you are to get the business done.”

  At the scene of St. Clair’s defeat, they found, in the words of one officer, “upwards of six hundred bodies, horribly mangled with tomahawks and scalping knives and by wild beasts.” Although blackened by frost, the corpses had been preserved through the winter, and the scene was “too horrible for description.” While some men were detailed to dig pits for burial of the bodies, Wilkinson ordered others to scour the battlefield, where they recovered a cannon and several hundred muskets. On the way home, he set the men to building another fort, which he named St. Clair, midway between Hamilton and Jefferson, boasting that although put up in just six days, it was as “handsome, stronger & as extensive” as its neighbors. Early in March, he sent an order for “60 good felling axes, 2 cross-cut saw, 4 whipsaws” and two carpenters to help in the construction of the new fort. It was followed soon afterward by a demand for mattocks, shovels, spades, ropes, and chains.

  When the exhausted column returned to Fort Washington at the end of the month, the colonel turned his unrelenting energy to the task of restoring discipline in the garrison. Despite St. Clair’s devastating defeat, and the scalping of an army blacksmith within sight of the wooden walls, the fort was laxly defended, and Wilkinson was appalled by the disorderly atmo-sphere and by the sight of brawling soldiers in the town.

  “A drunken Garrison and a Guardhouse full of prisoners appears to be the result of a relaxation in [discipline],” he stormed in a general order following his inspection. “Any private, therefore, who may henceforward be discovered drunk beyond the Walls of the Garrison Shall receive fifty lashes on the spot where he may be detected.” To enforce his order, he instituted daily patrols to pick up defaulters and established a routine of drill and exercise culled from Steuben’s Blue Book “to check and restrain the licentious habits which have infested the troops.”

  Deeply impressed, the garrison chaplain, the Reverend William Hurt, assured Washington, “General Wilkinson is the prominant character in this country, & is thought by many will have the Chief command in the next expedition, & I really believe he has abilities equal to it; & far superior to what his enemies, or even friends, are aware of.” From Philadelphia, Wilkinson received a letter of congratulations from Henry Knox. “The Zeal and promptitude with which you execute the wishes of the executive are noted with pleasure,” Knox wrote, “and will not fail of receiving the approbation of the President.”

  ON MARCH 9, the president brought together his innermost cabinet of Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and Henry Knox to consider the candidates for command of the Legion. Washington ran through the qualities of each, and even in the official version of their discussions his verdicts sound uncompromising. Of the nine major generals from the Revolutionary War, most were ruled out by age, drink, or reluctance to serve. The fifth was Anthony Wayne. “More active & enterprizing than judicious & cautious,” Washington decided. “No oeconomist it is feared. Open to flattery—vain— easily imposed upon—and liable to be drawn into scrapes. Too indulgent (the effect perhaps of some of the causes just mentioned) to his Officers & men. Whether sober— or a little addicted to the bottle, I know not.”

  Wilkinson came at the head of the brigadier generals—his brevet rank dating from November 1777 gave him seniority over those promoted later—and the president’s opinion was curiously brief: “As he was but a short time in Service, little can be said of his abilities as an Officer. He is lively, sensible, pompous and ambitious; but whether sober, or not, is unknown to me.” In public at least, not a word was said of his failings as clothier general, or of the allegations of conspiracy leveled at him. But from Jefferson, who jotted private notes of cabinet meetings, came the suggestion of a deeper discussion of his background. Wilkinson was deemed to be “brave, enterprising to excess, but many unapprovable points in his character.” Among those points were presumably the doubts aroused by his Spanish connections.

  At the end of March, while Wilkinson was still waiting to hear the results of the president’s deliberations, Nancy and the boys joined him at Fort Washington, and the Kentucky Gazette soon reported that in the colonel’s “schemes for adornment and social pleasure he was ably and cordially seconded by his wife.” There was not much to choose between Louisville and Cincinnati in terms of population, but Nancy’s preference was always to be with her husband. And for the first time since they came out to the frontier, his regular salary and access to government transport opened up the long-deferred chance to see her family in Philadelphia again.

  In the winter of 1789, her beloved father had died, but anxiety about the future of her children still made her long to return east. In one of her last letters to John Biddle, she had confessed, “I regret much, indeed it grieves me, that they have not an Opportunity of going to a good School. However I pay every attention to there Learning that my Domestic affairs will admit off; John Reads Prettily, James Spells, but he is so heedless that it is with difficulty I can prevail on him to say a lesson.”

  In Kentucky, she had to make do with what they could learn from “a Poor Simple looking Simon who told me he was taught [in Philadelphia] which prejudiced me in his favor & I concluded he could not learn them bad Pronunciation; at any rate it was better than running about the Streets.” The schooling available in Philadelphia, however, would smooth away the frontier roughness she fought against. In July, before the river dropped and cut off access to the east, she and the boys boarded an army boat and headed upstream to civilization. Looking after them was Lieutenant William H. Harrison, later president of the United States, who had been detailed “to accompany Mrs Wilkinson to Philadelphia” by the new commander in chief of the Legion, Major General Anthony Wayne.

  The president had made the appointment on April 9. On the same day Wilkinson received a consolation prize of promotion to brigadier general, and with it the assurance that he would be second-in- command. Later in the summer, Knox sent the president a note: “Brigadier Wilkinson’s attention to all parts of his duty and his activity render him a great acquisition to the public.” To this Washington immediately replied, “General Wilkinson has displayed great zeal & ability for the public weal since he came into Service— His conduct carries strong marks of attention, activity, & Spirit, & I wish him to know the favorable light in which it is viewed.” The compliment was deserved, but it was also intended to soothe Wilkinson’s wounded vanity.

  IN DECEMBER 1791, Esteban Miró sailed for home, handing over the governorship of Louisiana to Baron Hector de Carondelet. Like Miró, Carondelet had been a soldier before joining the colonial service, but, Flemish-born and something of an outsider, he lacked his long-serving predecessor’s
confident judgment. Small, portly, and fussy, he compensated by paying close attention to administrative detail— his modernization of the municipal government of New Orleans, and the introduction of street lighting and waste collection, left it a better- run and cleaner place. It was also more expensive for, as an anonymous official in Madrid sharply noted, “He has always shown a great predilection for new projects . . . without ever thinking of the funds or expenditures that such Projects naturally will cost.” During his administration the expense of running Louisiana rose to over $800,000 a year, while its revenues never amounted to more than $75,000, a disparity that would eventually force Madrid to look for cheaper ways of defending its silver-cored empire.

  The flair in Carondelet’s administration came from the governor of Natchez district, Manuel Gayoso de Lemos. Miró, who was rarely deceived about character, judged that Gayoso “distinguished himself through his talent, knowledge of various languages and excellent conduct.” He was also artistic, emotional, and devoted to his family. Educated in England and twice married to American women, he had a cosmopolitan background that helped in the government of a fast-growing, volatile population of American, British, French, and Spanish settlers. Although most were concentrated around Natchez, others were scattered across much of modern Alabama and Mississippi, and Gayoso’s responsibilities included command of all the forts that stretched north along the Mississippi.

  On July 5, 1792, he provided Carondelet with a report on the province he now governed, entitled “Political Conditions of the Province of Louisiana.” Ranging widely over the challenges presented by American settlers, British imperialists, and French revolutionaries, Gayoso picked out one unjustly neglected asset: “In Kentucky we have had Don Jaime Wilkinson well affected to our side. He is a person of great talent and influence, who has twice come down to this province and presented several memorials. In his own country he has performed several important services to this province. Yet although he was recommended by Don Esteban Miró for a pension and other help, the resolution was so long delayed because of the distance that separates us from the court [in Madrid] that in the meanwhile he lost his credit in Kentucky for lack of means to maintain it.” To retrieve his fortunes, Gayoso explained, Wilkinson had joined the U.S. army, but since his enlistment he had “suspended his correspondence with the governor at New Orleans and with me.”