142 The Robert Newman affair was almost certainly contrived by Wayne to destroy JW’s connections to the British in Canada, which he believed had led to the sabotage of the Legion’s supplies. JW’s outrage, after Nolan tracked down Newman and got an inkling of what had happened, crystallized his hatred of Wayne.
143 Wilkinson’s claim for financial reward for defeating Clark: JW to Carondelet, April 30, 1794, Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid, estado legajo 3898.
143 “Do not believe me avaricious”: JW to Carondelet, undated, Papeles de Cuba, legajo 2374.
144 The story of Owens, the silver dollars, and the arrest of his murderers was extensively covered in Clark’s Proofs, 17–19, and in the attached affidavit of Thomas Power, Proofs, 115.
147 The political campaign and Sedam’s remark “by many Genl. Wayne has been Sensured”: Nelson, Anthony Wayne, 277.
CHAPTER 15: DEATH OF A RIVAL
In addition to the military sources already cited, the diplomatic background is detailed in Kukla’s A Wilderness So Immense, and JW’s double triumph in securing command of the army and silver from Carondelet is also sourced in War Department documents and Spanish archives.
148 “vile assassin”: Wayne to Knox, January 29, 1795, quoted in Jacobs, Tarnished Warrior.
149 JW’s replies to Knox’s private and public letters: JW to Knox, January 1 and January 2, 1795, WDP.
149 Of Timothy Pickering, David McCullough wrote in John Adams (Simon & Schuster, 2001), “In many ways, Pickering might have served as the model New Englander for those who disliked the type. Tall, lean, and severe looking with a lantern jaw and hard blue eyes, he was Salem-born and bred, a Harvard graduate, proud, opinionated, self- righteous, and utterly humorless,” 472.
150 “If my very damned and unparalleled crosses”: JW to John Adair, August 7, 1795, Clark, Proofs, notes 32. Polishing his frank, open guise, JW described himself as “a man of Mercury, whose heart and tongue are in unison.”
150 For the background to the San Lorenzo treaty, see Kukla, A Wilderness So Immense. 151 In April 1790, JW specifically advised Miró to add a garrison of two hundred to the fort at New Madrid, and fifty oarsmen for the galleys. To the total of his treacherous assistance should be added his betrayal of a reconnaissance party under Major Doughty exploring a route from Kentucky to New Orleans in 1790. After JW warned Miró of their movements and suggested an armed response, Miró sent Creek warriors to attack them, and several in the party were killed. Cox, in “Louisiana-Texas Frontier III,” suggests JW also briefed the Spanish on the proper border to defend during the 1805 negotiations with Monroe and Pinckney.
151 Harry Innes’s correspondence with Gayoso, and his involvement in the Spanish Conspiracy, are covered in detail in Whitaker, “Harry Innes and the Spanish Intrigue: 1794–1795.”
152 Joseph de Pontalba’s memorandum and career in New Orleans, where he lived for eighteen years, are described in Gayarré, History of Louisiana. But his subsequent imprisonment and emotional torture of his wealthy daughter-in- law, ending in her murder and his suicide, is an operatic tragedy that falls outside Gayarré’s canvas.
152 “And G.W. can aspire to the same dignity”: Carondelet to JW, July 16, 1795, legajo 2374.
152 Clark’s Proofs and Power’s affidavit are the primary sources for Carondelet and Gayoso’s contacts with JW, but JW provides his own defensive gloss in Memoirs, volume 2, repeatedly between pages 37 and 219.
154 “This accomplished, you will most probably have me for a neighbour”: JW to Innes, September 4, 1796, Harry Innes Papers, vol. 23.
154 “determination to inculcate”: JW’s general order, December 13, 1795.
155 Power’s second visit to JW was again the subject of Clark’s Proofs and his own testimony and was again rebutted by JW’s Memoirs, vol. 2.
156 The military consequences of the three treaties, Jay, Greeneville, and San Lorenzo, are detailed in Kohn, Eagle and Sword, 183, and Cress, Citizens in Arms, 133.
157 “to get rid of Genl Wayne”: Quoted in Nelson, Anthony Wayne, 291.
157 The drama of smuggling $9,640 past Fort Massac to JW’s bank account was described by Thomas Power in note 36 in Clark, Proofs.
159 “My views at Philadelphia”: JW to Carondelet, September 22, 1796, legajo 2375.
159 JW’s encounter with Andrew Ellicott was described in The Journal of Andrew Ellicott.
160 “I am proud of my little Sons”: Hay, “Letters of Mrs. Ann Biddle Wilkinson.”
160 “The fact is my presence with the army”: Wayne to James McHenry, July 28, 1796, quoted in Nelson, Anthony Wayne, 296.
161 “It is generally agreed that some cavalry”: Washington to the House of Representatives, February 28, 1797, PGW.
CHAPTER 16: THE NEW COMMANDER IN CHIEF
Despite its mendacity, JW’s Memoirs becomes the crucial text during the brief period when his public life as commanding general came close to coinciding with his private interests.
164 “You will endeavour to discover, with your natural penetration”: Carondelet to Power, May 26, 1797, Clark, Proofs, note 38.
164 “General Wilkinson received me very coolly”: Power to Carondelet and Gayoso, undated, Clark, Proofs, note 43.
166 James McHenry’s directive to General James Wilkinson: McHenry to JW, March 12, 1797, WDP.
166 “There is strict discipline observed”: Power to Carondelet and Gayoso, Clark, Proofs, note 43.
166 “In fact the American peasant”: Murray, Travels in North America, 1834, 1835 & 1836 (New York: Harper, 1839), 2: 67–68, quoted in Prucha, “The United States Army as Viewed by British Travelers, 1825–1860.”
167 The challenge of peacetime soldiering in the period is detailed in Ricardo A. Herrera, “Self-Governance and the American Citizen as Soldier, 1775–1861.”
168 The fort “presents a frightful picture to the scientific soldier”: JW to Captain James Bruff, June 1797, quoted in Hay, Admirable Trumpeter, 163.
168 For JW’s disciplinary methods, see general orders issued from Fort Washington, May 22, 1797, and from Detroit, July 4, 20, and November 3, 10, 1797, cited in Hay, Admirable Trumpeter, 148.
169 Carondelet “ought not to be apprehensive”: Power to Carondelet and Gayoso, Clark, Proofs, note 43.
169 For Gayoso’s delaying tactics, see Ellicott, Journal of Andrew Ellicott, and Linklater, Fabric of America.
170 “that there is too much ground to think”: Pickering to Winthrop Sargent, August 1797, quoted in Hay, Admirable Trumpeter, 171.
170 “was strongly attached to the interest and welfare of our country”: Ellicott, Journal of Andrew Ellicott.
170 “a child of my own raising”: JW to Gayoso, February 6, 1797, Clark, Proofs, 42.
171 “You have a warm place in my affections”: JW to Ellicott, September 13, 1797, quoted in Ellicott, Journal of Andrew Ellicott.
171 “the chain of dependence”: JW to McHenry, August 1797. The argument continued through the end of the year, when McHenry proposed new regulations for the army. JW replied January 8, 1798, that they would result in “the destruction of subordination and Discipline.” McHenry then backed off, letting it be known that they were proposals only. WDP.
172 Ellicott’s dispatch to Pickering: Ellicott to Pickering, November 14, 1797, quoted in Catherine van C. Mathews, Andrew Ellicott: His Life and Letters (New York: Grafton Press, 1908), 161–63.
172 The Little Turtle saga, “Could I be made instrumental”: JW to John Adams, December 26, 1797, quoted in James Wilkinson (grandson), “Paper Prepared and Read,” and John Adams’s reply, Adams to JW, February 4, 1798, The Works of John Adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown, 1856).
173 “I most sincerely wish an inquiry”: Wilkinson, “Paper Prepared and Read.”
173 “I esteem your talents”: Adams, Works.
174 “How is the subordination of the military to the civil power to be supported?”: “Review of the Propositions of Mr. Hillhouse,” 1808, ibid., vol 5.
174 “that provisions will always be made at Headquarters”: JW to Samuel Hodgdon, July 7, 1797, WDP.
175 “My Ann unusually hearty”: JW to Owen Biddle, December 24, 1797, quoted in Hay, Admirable Trumpeter, 169.
175 Ellicott report on Captain Guion’s behavior: Ellicott to Pickering, February 10, 1798, Ellicott Papers, LoC.
175 “Observed everywhere, I dare not communicate”: JW to Gayoso, March 5, 1798, legajo 2374.
CHAPTER 17: ELLICOTT’S DISCOVERY
My admiration and affection for Andrew Ellicott led me to include a study of him in The Fabric of America, and together with his Journal and the Andrew Ellicott Papers in the Library of Congress, this provides much of the background to this chapter.
177 “My Love,—I have at length worried the Spaniards out”: Ellicott to Sarah Ellicott, quoted in Mathews, Andrew Ellicott, 128.
177 JW’s visit to Ellicott’s camp followed by Clark’s to Loftus Heights were explored in Clark, Proofs, 62, 64, 79–80, and in Memoirs, 2:37, 133, 183.
178 “My friend, you are warranted”: Quoted in Linklater, Fabric of America.
180 Ellicott’s report: Ellicott to Pickering, November 8, 1798, quoted in Memoirs, 2:171. The original letter from Gayoso to Power was dated October 23, 1798.
180 “I have seen a letter of Mr. Power’s”: Ellicott to JW, December 16, 1798, quoted in Memoirs, 2:172.
180 “a beastly, criminal, and disgraceful intercourse”: Testimony of Thomas Freeman, April 10, 1811, at the court- martial of JW.
CHAPTER 18: THE FEDERALIST FAVORITE
The short-lived expansion of the army in the wake of the XYZ affair receives detailed attention from military historians cited earlier; it forms part of Theodore Crackel’s Mr. Jefferson’s Army and is the particular focus of Murphy, “John Adams: The Politics of the Additional Army, 1798–1800.”
182 “Four times from 1786 to 1792”: Pontalba’s memorandum, Gayarré, History of Louisiana, 410.
183 JW’s mutually admiring relationship with Hamilton was reported in Memoirs, 1:442–51, and as JW admitted, the latter’s friendly attitude “excited my admiration and gladdened my self love.”
183 “I am aware that some doubts have been entertained of him”: Hamilton to Washington, June 15, 1799; Washington to Hamilton, June 25, 1799, PGW.
184 “The anxiety of my wife at the idea of our separation”: JW to Gayoso, May 14, 1799, legajo 2375.
184 “a few cranberries”: JW to Gayoso, May 15, 1799, ibid.
184 “Would you take the trouble”: JW to Gayoso, Arpil 20, 1799, ibid.
184 “I left Mrs. Wilkinson”: JW to Ellicott, June 12, 1799, Ellicott Papers, LoC.
185 The ban on wearers of the “French cockade”: Reported in Centinel, quoted in Crackel, Mr. Jefferson’s Army.
185 “when a clever force has been collected”: Hamilton to Sedgwick, February 2, 1799, The Works of Alexander Hamilton, federal ed., ed. Henry Cabot Lodge (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904), vol. 10.
185 “whenever the Government appears in arms”: Hamilton to McHenry, March 18, 1799, ibid.
186 “brave, enterprising, active and diligent”: Hamilton to Adams, September 7, 1799, quoted in Memoirs, 2:157.
186 Washington’s last strategic advice: Washington to Hamilton, September 15, 1799, PGW.
186 “I cannot more safely consign my own Interest”: quoted in Hay, Admirable Trumpeter, 184.
CHAPTER 19: JEFFERSON’S GENERAL
The constitutional importance of JW’s relationship with Jefferson makes the military studies of this period exceptionally useful, especially Crackel’s distinguished Mr. Jefferson’s Army, Skelton’s counterbalancing An American Profession of Arms, and Jackson’s “Jefferson, Meriwether Lewis, and the Reduction of the United States Army.”
188 “Blooming still as Hebe”: JW to Hamilton, March 24, 1800, Lodge, Works of Alexander Hamilton.
188 “I defy the most prized of mortal”: JW to Hamilton, June 27, 1800, ibid.
189 “Through all parts of the Country”: Adams to McHenry, May 8, 1800, Adams, Works of John Adams.
189 Absolutely no evidence suggests that JW was responsible for the War Department fire—except for the answer to the age-old question asked of any unsolved crime: Cuibono? Who benefited from the fire?
191 “It is understood on all sides”: Thomas Cushing to JW, February 26, 1800, quoted in Crackel, Mr. Jefferson’s Army.
191 “The Army is undergoing a chaste reformation”: Jefferson to Nathanael Macon, May 14, 1801, ibid.
191 “possessing a knoledge”: Jefferson to JW, February 23, 1800, PTJ.
192 Opinions differ about the effectiveness of Jefferson’s policy of political cleansing (JW was ultimately the chief beneficiary), but no one could doubt the result he intended. 193 “What do you think of the surveyor-general’s office”: JW to Ellicott, March 1801, Ellicott Papers.
193 “I now find that I am inevitably ruined”: Quoted in Linklater, Fabric of America.
193 Ellicott wrote Jefferson: Ellicott testified on January 30, 1808, that he had sent this letter to Jefferson in “the month of June 1801,” Clark, Proofs, 148.
194 “I was determined not to [cut my hair]”: Bissell to D. Bissell, July 9, 1802, quoted in Jacobs, Beginning of the U.S. Army, 1783–1812.
194 In the battle of Butler’s queue, what must have most hurt Wilkinson’s vanity was the ridicule directed at him in Washington Irving’s satire Diedrich Knickerbocker’s History of New York, published in 1809. Irving caricatured JW as the bombastic General Jacobus Van Poffenburgh, with “large, glassy blinking eyes which protruded like those of a lobster.” The best line in the book went to Butler, who told his friends on his deathbed, “Bore a hole in the bottom of my coffin right under my head, and let my queue hang through it, that the d—d old rascal may see that, even when dead, I refuse to obey his order.”
195 “placed under the protection of faithful officers”: Elbridge Gerry to Jefferson, May 4, 1801, PTJ.
196 “ ‘To which of the political creeds do you adhere?’ ”: Quoted in Crackel, Mr. Jefferson’s Army.
196 On October 7, 1802, the result of JW’s boundary-making was a treaty with the Choctaws signed at Fort Confederation, containing the following clause: “The said Choctaw Nation, for, and in consideration of one dollar, to them in hand paid, by the said United States, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, do hereby release to the said United States, and quit claim forever, to all that tract of land [in southern Alabama measuring about a million and a half acres].”
197 JW’s application for the surveyor general’s post was made on May 30, 1802.
197 “In the first case . . . my intimacy with the inhabitants”: Quoted in Hay, Admirable Trumpeter, 195.
198 “If Mr Monroe succeeds all will be well”: JW to Jacob Kingsbury, February 27, 1803, quoted in Crackel, Mr. Jefferson’s Army.
198 “If anything professional is to be done”: JW to Dearborn, ibid.
198 “I have extended my capacities for utility”: JW to Hamilton, undated, quoted in Hay, Admirable Trumpeter, 199.
199 “to act towards him so as to convince”: Hamilton to Adams, September 4, 1799, quoted in Memoirs, 2:157.
200 For the reception of JW and Claiborne in New Orleans, see Hay, Admirable Trumpeter, 204–6.
CHAPTER 20: AGENT 13 REBORN
The meticulous researches of Isaac J. Cox and Arthur P. Whitaker in the first half of the twentieth century underpin the narrative of JW’s later connections with the Spanish.
202 “It was hardly possible”: Pierre- Clement de Laussat, Memoirs of My Life, quoted in Hay, Admirable Trumpeter, 210.
203 The battle of the ballroom is taken from Hay, Admirable Trumpeter, 205–6.
204 “I apprehend no Danger”: JW to Dearborn, January 6, 1804, American State Papers, Military Affairs, L.C.
204 Nolan’s cinematic life is described in Cox, “Louisiana-Texas Frontier I.”
206 JW’s intricate maneuverings with Folch and
Casa Calvo are the subject of Cox, “General Wilkinson and His Later Intrigues with the Spaniards.”
207 The importance attached to “Reflections” is best gauged by the readiness of Casa Calvo to pay the massive sum of twelve thousand dollars in one installment. It clearly played a significant role in forming and reinforcing Spanish border policy.
209 “You have taken no notice of any of my letters”: Dearborn to JW, February 1804, quoted in Crackel, Mr. Jefferson’s Army.
209 “It is so important that Wilkenson’s [sic] maneuvers”: Jefferson to Dearborn, February 17, 1804, PTJ.
209 Twenty-two-page strategy document: Sent to Dearborn, July 13, 1804.
An Artist in Treason: The Extraordinary Double Life of General James Wilkinson Page 46