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

by Andro Linklater

  In contrast to their ebullient spirits, Burr found Wilkinson depressed, exhausted by his battles with the settlers, but affected more deeply than anything else by his wife’s deteriorating health. Nancy Wilkinson had developed tuberculosis and, during the steamy heat of the St. Louis summer, suffered difficulty in breathing. Her illness added a bitter note to Wilkinson’s patronizing onslaughts against his enemies. One particular target, Judge John Lucas, who combined speculation with his official position as a land commissioner, was accused not only of venality, but of attacking Wilkinson “because I do not acknowledge his superiority, because I sometimes wear a cocked hat and a sword, and am fond of a clean shirt, which are Eyesores to him, [and] because my infirm wife rides daily for her Health in a carriage, which he considers aristocratic.” In the months ahead, Wilkinson’s erratic behavior would bewilder friend and foe, but one explanation for it lay in the anxiety he felt for his wife’s condition.

  His gloomy outlook cast a shadow over his first meeting with Burr. A major difference arose over Burr’s belief that the western settlers could be induced to secede from the United States. According to his own account, Wilkinson exclaimed, “My friend, no person was ever more mistaken! The western people disaffected to the government! They are bigoted to Jefferson and democracy.”

  Having lived in the west for more than twenty years and spent ten of them unsuccessfully promoting the Spanish Conspiracy, it was understandable that he should have been exasperated by the easterner’s assumption that sentiments in the west were as volatile as in the 1780s. In the argument that ensued, Burr apparently questioned the depth of Wilkinson’s commitment to the plan to invade Mexico, demanding angrily, in the governor’s recollection, “ ‘whether I could be content to vegitate or moulder in that d—d government?’ meaning the government of Louisiana.” Wilkinson replied in subdued terms that “I was making arrangements to retire to private life; that I was tired of the erratic life I had long led; and that the delicate situation of my wife, to whom I owed more than I could render, made it necessary.”

  Quite implausibly, the governor claimed that this was when Burr first broached his Mexican plan: “But suppose some grand enterprize should present, which would lead direct to fame and fortune?” This lie apart, there clearly was a disagreement between them, because a second, hurried meeting was held as Burr was leaving. By way of compromise, they apparently decided to put aside the matter of secession and concentrate on what was essential for Burr, Wilkinson’s proposals to march on Santa Fe. War would bring out Jackson and Adair, and so long as the army was engaged in the west, New Orleans would be defenseless, and its French inhabitants would willingly turn it over to Burr. Beyond that, any conflict around Santa Fe would draw Spanish troops away to the north of Mexico, leaving little opposition to an invasion of Veracruz in the south.

  Their discussions took place at a time of high alert, when the mounting tensions over the border between Louisiana and Texas seemed to make war with Spain inevitable. In the summer, the U.S. representatives in Spain, James Monroe and John Armstrong, broke off negotiations and secretly advised the president simply to seize Texas. Days before Burr’s arrival, Wilkinson had actually sent the war secretary a lucid and obviously well-considered proposal for invading Mexico by way of Santa Fe, approaching the city either by the Santa Fe trail or the Arkansas River, and employing “a Corps of 100 Artillerists, 400 Cavalry, 400 Rifle men and 1100 Musquetry.” An otherwise bizarre proposal to bring along “a band of Irish Priests who have been educated in Spain, (of whom I have a dozen)” indicated that the general planned not merely to seize “the Northern Provinces” but to take permanent possession. Clearly Wilkinson envisioned the silver-bearing Sierra Madre as a prize.

  That fall, Dearborn wrote to advise Wilkinson that the army should be kept on alert. In a rare show of harmony, he commented approvingly on the general’s plan to invade Mexico with guns and priests: “I am not sure that a project of that kind may not become necessary.” In November, after Burr’s departure, Wilkinson promised Dearborn, “If I do not reduce New Mexico, at least, in one campaign, I will forfeit my command.”

  It was Aaron Burr’s habit, according to the modern editor of his papers, “to hear what he wanted to hear.” What he evidently heard was that Wilkinson intended to move against Santa Fe shortly. People he tried to recruit testified later that Burr talked as though the Veracruz attack was part of the official strategy to invade Mexico. What he did not hear was the caveat that the general added when he told Dearborn of his invasion plan, that it would only take place “should we be involved in a War, (which Heaven avert).”

  They parted with sufficient goodwill for Wilkinson to give Burr an introduction to Governor William Harrison of Indiana Territory, and a warm letter asking him to consider appointing Burr as the territory’s delegate to Congress. Soon after the col onel’s departure, however, the governor received another warning, this time from Dearborn: “There is a strong rumor that you, Burr, etc are too intimate. You ought to keep every suspicious person at arms length, and be as wise as a serpent and as harmless as a dove.” Wilkinson’s reaction was carefully designed to distance himself from Burr but without giving him away.

  In a friendly message to Robert Smith, secretary of the navy, and brother of Samuel, Wilkinson dropped in a significant phrase: “Burr is about something, but whether internal or external, I cannot discover. I think you should keep an eye on him.” So vague was the wording that Smith did not notice its import and did nothing to act on it. The tone was not so much a warning from someone anxious about possible insurrection as insurance by someone concerned to protect his own back. Should war come, and Burr encourage secession in Kentucky and Tennesee, General Wilkinson could at least claim to have alerted the government.

  Yet the general remained troubled. In December 1805, he contacted his old friend John Adair, fishing for information about Burr’s secessionist plans. Adair sent a teasing reply. “You observe to me,” he wrote in January 1806, “that I ‘have seen Colonel Burr, and ask me what was his Business in the west?’ Answer. Only to avoid a prosecution in New York. Now, Sir, you will oblige me by answering a question in turn for I know you can, Pray how far is it, and what kind of way from St. Louis to Santa Fé, and from thence to Mexico?” The answer he received sounded boastful on first reading, but more cautious on the second. “Do you know that I have reserved these places for my own triumphal entry,” Wilkinson declared, “that I not only know the way but all the difficulties and how to surmount them? I wish we could get leave, Mexico could soon be ours.”

  Since Jefferson’s policy was to avoid the expense of fighting, no leave was given for attack. In the absence of war, Wilkinson would not move. As a result, Aaron Burr and his chief of staff, Jonathan Dayton, were forced to resort to blackmail.

  DESPITE FAILING TO GET any encouragement for his plans from Governor Harrison, Burr immediately set about fund-raising on his return to Philadelphia. During the winter he was promised more than fifty thousand dollars, ostensibly to buy land west of the Mississippi on the Ouachita River. Burr’s son- in-law, Joseph Alston, governor of South Carolina, provided substantial financial guarantees, but the most generous supporter was Jonathan Dayton, who personally lent twenty thousand dollars. He did so on the specific understanding that the commanding general would be an active participant. Dayton had known Wilkinson since 1794 and was well-informed about his connection to the Spanish Conspiracy. But he had not been in contact with the general since their meeting at Cincinnati in June 1805.

  Apart from a note sent shortly after Burr left St. Louis, Wilkinson had in fact ceased to communicate with the leaders of the conspiracy. “Nothing has been heard from the Brigadier since October,” Burr wrote in exasperation in April 1806. By contrast Burr had written several times to Wilkinson to keep him in touch with the conspiracy’s development. “On the subject of a certain speculation, it is not deemed material to write till the whole can be communicated,” Burr told him guardedly in December. An
d in April 1806 when it appeared that not enough funds were available, he announced, “The execution of our project is postponed till December: want of water in Ohio [i.e., money] rendered movement impracticable other reasons rendered delay expedient. The association is enlarged, and comprises all that Wilkinson could wish.”

  The general’s silence clearly alarmed Burr and Dayton. They needed war with Spain, and when it failed to materialize, they realized that he would have to be forced to cooperate. As early as December 1805, Burr wrote suggesting that had war broken out earlier in the year, “[General] Lee would have been commander in chief: truth I assure you.” A month later in another letter, he retailed the gossip of Washington insiders that a road that Wilkinson claimed to have built through Tennessee had never really existed—“One, professing to be your friend, whispered to me soon afterwards that this conversation was calculated to do you injury”— but, Burr added innocently, Jefferson knew all about the allegation, “and I could not perceive that any inference unfriendly to you was drawn from the fact.”

  The direction of the hints was always the same— Wilkinson could no longer depend on Jefferson’s support. When the letters drew no response, Dayton took more drastic action. In the summer of 1806, he financed a Kentucky newspaper, Western World, and supplied it with a series of stories exposing Wilkinson as “a Spanish pensioner.” In great detail, and with much imagination, it described how he had been commissioned into the Spanish army, how his money arrived in leather bags, and how he repeatedly tried to get Kentucky to secede from the Union. The motive was clear, to make him unemployable by the federal government and thus force him to fall in with Burr’s plans.

  Not entirely by coincidence, the governor’s enemies in St. Louis began to step up their attacks. During the winter of 1805–6, Bruff and Hammond had sent repeated complaints about his behavior to Congress and petitioned for his removal. Once the allegations of the Western World began to be published, they openly predicted that he would be replaced before the end of the year. In the summer of 1806, one critic, Seth Hunt, even specified the month, September, and the identity of his successor, Samuel Hammond.

  WILKINSON WAS NOWHERE MORE VULNERABLE than in his concern about Jefferson’s commitment to him. The most consistent feature of his time as governor of Louisiana was neither his friendship with the Creoles nor his vendetta with the settlers, but his unstinted efforts to cement his personal relationship with the man who’d appointed him. His behavior suggested something akin to the emotional seduction that he once displayed toward his generals.

  Early in September 1805, just before Burr’s arrival, Wilkinson sent east a stunning array of gifts designed to appeal to the president. Packed into a wooden trunk were twenty-seven mineral samples—iron ore from the Platte and Osage rivers, lead and galena from the upper Missouri, pumice stone from the Yellowstone, crystallized gypsum and salt rock from the Arkansas— evidence of enough wealth beneath the earth, he explained, “to employ Thousands of Hands, and to produce Millions of Dollars.” With the help of a Ricara or Pawnee chief, named Ankedoucharo, who spoke seven languages including the lingua franca of the Plains Indians, sign language, the governor also assembled for the president a rough census of the eight thousand Plains Indians living southwest of the Missouri. Finally and most enticingly of all, he sent Jefferson a Native American map drawn on buffalo hide showing the courses of the Platte and Yellowstone rivers and what might have been a geyser in the area of what is now the Yellowstone National Park, thirteen hundred miles to the west.

  Nothing was better calculated to earn Jefferson’s gratitude than a gift of Indian lore. But Wilkinson’s sumptuous offering also had an official justification. In addition to making him governor of Louisiana Territory, the president had appointed Wilkinson to be commissioner for Indian affairs, and therefore responsible for putting into practice Jefferson’s policy of relocating Native Americans away from land wanted by settlers. In a report sent with the specimens, Wilkinson suggested that northern Louisiana could be made a repository for Native Americans living in the more desirable south, although this would be “opposed by busy and short- sighted politicians” in the Louisiana Territory. Because it was important to keep white settlers out of land intended for Indians, he urged the president to prevent “Aliens and Suspicious Characters mingling with the Natives, and to suspend all Commerce with them at your discretion.”

  On the document Jefferson’s firm tick of approval can be seen beside the paragraph with Wilkinson’s proposals, indicating that president and commissioner were at one on the future of the Louisiana Territory. Recognizing that the policy would not be popular, Wilkinson promised to carry out his president’s instructions “without regard to personal consequences.”

  Although it was impossible to read Jefferson’s sphinxlike mind, he clearly valued what Wilkinson could offer. The general had kept the army loyal, shown a passion for western exploration, defied unpopularity to carry out the president’s Indian policies, justified the Red River expedition, and written the new Articles of War, which were about to receive congressional approval. The reward had been the decision to entrust him with almost unlimited power in the west. But Wilkinson’s anxiety to earn Jefferson’s good opinion only increased.

  To satisfy the president’s desire for knowledge about the west, he sent off a series of expeditions to explore the unknown country beyond him. Led by Lieutenant Zebulon Pike, the first departed northward a few weeks after the governor’s arrival in St. Louis with a mission to explore the headwaters of the Mississippi and clear any British fur traders from the area. Pike fought his way through the swamps and pine forests of northern Minnesota and spent a hard winter near Cass Lake, which he identified as the source of the river— Lake Itasca, the real source, is about thirty miles away—before returning in April 1806. While he was away, Wilkinson dispatched two other lieutenants to explore the country to the west: George Peter was sent up the Osage River, accompanied by the fur trader Pierre Chouteau; and Wilkinson’s son, James Biddle, was directed to the upper Missouri, an enterprise cut short after a soldier was killed in a skirmish with Kickapoo warriors.

  Like the maps that had first caught the president’s attention, all this activity was for Jefferson’s benefit. “My last breath, my last drop of blood shall be for Him,” Wilkinson assured Samuel Smith in March 1806, “would that I had more to give.” Yet, whatever he did, the evidence of his treachery was all around.

  While the Red River expedition was being planned on the basis of Wilkinson’s maps, Casa Calvo was advising the acting governor of Texas, in accordance with Wilkinson’s “Reflections,” that Spain should “drive back every illegal usurpation toward the region of Texas.” Consequently, when Wilkinson’s old associate Thomas Freeman led the expedition up the river in the spring of 1806, with Wilkinson’s latest protégé, Captain Richard Sparks, in command of the military detachment, Wilkinson’s advice also ensured that a troop of two hundred Mexican cavalry were being dispatched from Nacogdoches under Captain Francisco Viana to intercept them.

  The general’s anxieties were understandable. His adherence to Jefferson had begun as political calculation. But no one had entrusted him with more power, and Wilkinson had responded as he always did to those who flattered his vanity—with wholehearted devotion. That Jefferson might withdraw his trust created an almost intolerable anxiety.

  IN THE TWO YEARS since Wilkinson had written “Reflections,” General Salcedo, the commandant of the Internal Provinces, had moved more than seven hundred troops forward to beef up defenses on the Texas border, and Antonio Cordero, the energetic governor of Chihuahua, had been transferred to take over the forward province of Texas. This aggressive policy had been recommended by Agent 13 as a way of preventing the United States from expanding farther west. Rising tension reached a new pitch in October 1805 when Spanish forces occupied two fortified positions east of the Sabine River, the border with Texas as designated by the United States.

  On June 11, 1806, Wilkinson received
a letter from Henry Dearborn concerning the military situation in the south. Negotiations had failed to persuade the Spanish to withdraw. The presence of their forces on U.S. territory was effectively an invasion. “You will therefore with as little delay as possible repair to the Territory of New Orleans,” the war secretary ordered, “and take upon yourself command of the Troops in that quarter, together with such Militia or Volunteers as you may need for the defence of the country.”

  He was being given the chance of war, with overall command. It would enhance his position as commanding general and bring him “fame and honor,” as he acknowledged. At worst, the mere threat of attack might procure a Spanish bribe to keep the peace. At best, it would allow Burr to make his attack on Veracruz and might lead to the seizure of the Mexican silver mines. It should have been the culmination of all Wilkinson’s preparations.

  Instead, Dearborn’s letter threw Wilkinson into rage and despair. All he could see was that his enemies had won. This was what Burr had hinted at, and Hunt had predicted. Until that moment Wilkinson had dismissed their reports as groundless. That very month, his confidence had been reinforced by a letter from Samuel Smith passing on Jefferson’s opinion that he could not have made “a fitter appointment” as governor. Now, as Wilkinson told Dearborn, “your letter [has] corrected my delusions.”

  The order to leave St. Louis might be dressed up as a military deployment, but to Wilkinson’s eyes, the harsh reality was to force him out of Louisiana. “Bruff, Lucas &c say it is done to get me out of the way to make room for Hammond,” he told Smith. What made it “more afflicting” was the consequent need to move his now seriously ill wife. To Dearborn, he complained that Bruff’s attempt to stir up trouble between “a General in Chief and a Minister of War” and to “draw down unmerited suspicions upon men of purest honor” was tantamount to treason. But to Smith he raged about the worst betrayal of all: how could Jefferson have praised him one day and condoned his dismissal the next?