Looking back on Burr’s early life, Rush’s comment is nonetheless a telling reminder of how memory clouds a clear understanding of childhood. Looking for the man in the child, as Jean-Jacques Rousseau put it, Rush forgot the young man he once knew. He failed to remember Aaron Burr as a boy of sixteen, plainly marked for success.
John Trumbull’s The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec, December 31, 1775 (1786)
Chapter Two
TO CONCERT WITH MY BROTHER OFFICERS
All things are mortal, but the warriors fame;
This lives eternal, in the mouths of men.
—Hugh Henry Brackenridge, “The Death of General Montgomery” (1777)
There remains a special reverence for the soldier. . . . War itself . . . has something sublime about it.
—Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment (1790)
John Trumbull’s Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec, December 31, 1775 (1786), is certainly one of the most famous of the Revolutionary War paintings. General Richard Montgomery, Burr’s commander, falls languidly into the arms of a devoted aide. Before him lie the bodies of two of his officers, one of whom is still clutching his sword as he stretches across the lifeless remains of his brother officer. Darkening clouds hover above the fallen, and dramatically announce their glorious deaths. For some reason, Trumbull decided to paint Burr’s close friend Matthias Ogden into the scene, where Burr should have been. Ogden, earlier wounded, was not there as Montgomery fell. But Burr was.1
Now the story gets even more intriguing. Nine years before Trumbull’s painting, and less than two years after Montgomery’s death, Princetonian Hugh Henry Brackenridge had praised his classmate Aaron Burr as the hero of the scene. In Brackenridge’s well-known poem, “The Death of General Montgomery, in the Storming of the City of Quebec,” it is Burr who, after the initial attack, discovers what remains of the commander. He falls upon Montgomery’s body, embraces and kisses the corpse. And it is Burr who hoists the martyred general’s onto his shoulders, to bring the body back for burial.2
In his poem, Brackenridge expresses the passion that surrounded the general’s death. He has Burr espy John MacPherson and Jacob Cheesman (the two officers slain, along with Montgomery, in Trumbull’s painting). Gazing down at the once graceful MacPherson, Burr is made to lament the loss of this man’s “comely beauty, ravishing the heart.” Brackenridge wished to recover the intensity of fraternal feeling that was commonly evoked by his college peers. It was the same MacPherson who had once captured the hearts of students William Paterson and Luther Martin.3
Montgomery marched into history after leading the 1775 invasion of Canada, but it was in death that he became the foremost hero and martyr of the American Revolution. In the process, Burr, too, achieved “warrior’s fame” (to use Brackenridge’s term) as news spread of his role in the siege of Quebec. The Continental Congress commended the young captain when it appropriated funds to commission a monument to General Montgomery. In fact, for a while, the clamor over Burr the survivor nearly rivaled the strains of mourning over Montgomery. General David Wooster, another member of the Canada expedition, sent an emissary to Congress, who spread the news of Burr’s bravery. Princeton classmate and member of Congress William Bradford, Jr., wrote to Burr of his battlefield performance: “’Tis said you behaved well—you behaved gallantly. I never doubted but you would distinguish yourself, and your praise is now in every man’s mouth.”4
That Burr’s accomplishment was lost to public memory in less than a decade, when Trumbull’s painting was first exhibited, tells us something important about Burr’s military career. A “warrior’s fame” was not “immortal,” as the poet preferred to tell it; it was, in fact, highly politicized. Though Bradford had told Burr that he would soon receive a promotion for his action, he was wrong. Two years passed before Burr was promoted.
During those two years, the war changed. At first, volunteers like Burr rushed to fight, inspired by what the French called a rage militaire—a “passion for arms.” Zealous devotion to the patriots’ cause reached its peak in the early stages of the war. As the conflict progressed, Commander in Chief George Washington saw generals come and go, and he found himself defending his military reputation as often as he was defending his country. In this new political environment, factions formed around competing generals, and the young men who were tied to these generals advanced their careers by fighting duels, spreading gossip, and riding on the coattails of their commanding officer. Burr soon realized that his college ideal of “Christian heroism” was no more than a fantasy, and that backbiting and malicious public attacks could ruin an officer’s reputation.5
Often pictured as a courtier, Burr in fact was quite the opposite. He cultivated an independent style of leadership, determined to find solutions, without being beholden to others. He believed that audacity could be a virtue, as it was for General Montgomery; but at the same time, he was critical of the overblown demonstrations of ego he saw others use to advance themselves. And, probably because he tasted war—and received accolades—earlier than many of his glory-seeking peers, he understood sooner than most how quickly military valor could disappear into the morass of political infighting.
FORTUNE FAVORS THE AUDACIOUS
When Burr graduated from Princeton, he was uncertain about a career. In 1772, his good friend and fellow Clio Samuel Spring urged him to answer the “prayer” of his parents and enter the ministry. Spring was intent on becoming a clergyman, as were many of their classmates. Tarrying in Princeton one more year, in the fall of 1773, Burr did what was expected of him: he headed to Bethlehem, Connecticut, to train with the Reverend Joseph Bellamy, a fire-and-brimstone preacher like Burr’s grandfather, the Reverend Jonathan Edwards. As he had at Princeton, he again adopted an intensive course of study. But after six months, he changed his mind, writing to his uncle Timothy that he now wished to pursue a legal career. His sister Sally had married their former tutor, Tapping Reeve, who would become a leading legal scholar. Burr now agreed to read law with his new brother-in-law, and make his home with the couple in Litchfield.6
He was restless. News of the colonial protests in Boston reached him in Litchfield, along with reports on the recently convened Continental Congress. Upon learning of the battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, he excitedly wrote to his friend Matthias Ogden in Elizabethtown. He was ready to join the army, he said, and he pleaded with Ogden to pack his belongings and accompany him to New England. Yet several more months passed until the two young men abandoned their studies for the life of a soldier. That August, they arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, along with 16,000 other untested volunteers. It was there that Burr learned of the expedition to Canada.7
Benedict Arnold urged an invasion of Canada through Maine—the infamous traitor was as yet a patriotic hero. In spring 1775, the Connecticut colonel had carried out a raid on a British fort in St. Johns, Quebec, which suddenly created the possibility that Americans would engage in an offensive war. At first, the Continental Congress hesitated to back such a daring plan, but it soon agreed to support a full-scale preemptive strike against the British in Canada. That summer, Arnold began gathering recruits in New England for a long trek through Maine to Quebec. Meanwhile, General Richard Montgomery, that same autumn, initiated the invasion of the sparsely populated Canadian province, securing the Continental Army its first major victories. After capturing two British forts, and forcing Montreal to surrender, Montgomery headed for the last crucial outpost in Canada: Quebec, where he planned to join forces with Arnold and his men.8
Arnold’s expedition to Quebec began with much fanfare. One thousand volunteers arrived in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and set sail on September 19 for the Kennebec River, in Maine, where they would begin their march northward. Burr and Ogden were there. On the Sabbath before their departure, Burr’s pal Samuel Spring gave a rousing sermon in the First Presbyterian Church in Newburypor
t. Displaying their flying colors, soldiers paraded into the vestibule and formed two lines; then, the six-foot-tall chaplain passed the rows of gallant men, as they presented their arms and drums rolled in a solemn but jubilant procession. Burr had written of something similar in one of his college essays, and now his earlier fantasy materialized before his eyes: he felt the rapturous sensations of martial music and religious devotion animate men with the glow of honor and an ardor for daring enterprise.9
Following the service, Spring, Arnold, and several of the officers, most likely including Burr, asked to visit the tomb of the British evangelist George Whitefield. Burr’s father had been a friend and supporter of Whitefield when he preached in the colonies. The minister’s son surely understood how the dead could inspire the living. Requesting that the sexton remove the lid of the coffin, the men discovered that little remained of the great itinerate preacher; there was only dust, and remnants of clothing. Taking up Whitefield’s collar and wristbands, they cut the fabric into pieces and divided it among themselves. Possessing this religious relic, the officers turned the expedition into a quasi-religious crusade.10
Burr and Ogden were just two of countless young volunteers taking part in Arnold’s expedition. Beginning what contemporaries likened to Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps, Arnold and his men embarked on a 350-mile trek through the Maine wilderness. When they finally came within reach of Quebec in November 1775, over one third of Arnold’s men were gone: an entire battalion had turned back, due mostly to illness and food shortages, and the survivors, after a harrowing six-week march, verged on starvation.11
Better built than his slight and fragile friend, Ogden worried that Burr might not withstand the hardships of the journey. Family and friends had sent him letters before he left that were filled with similar warnings, pleading with him to forego the trip. He could be excused from the expedition, as one friend advised, “without any risk of being reported timid.” After his thirty-five-mile march to Newburyport, Burr wrote to his sister, and assured her that he was none the worse for wear; he wanted to convince her and his family that he “was equal to the undertaking.” He had no intention of embarrassing himself, and probably, at that moment, relished the challenge ahead.12
Concerns for his “delicate” constitution proved unwarranted. Burr’s intense determination served him well as he trudged through the forbidding terrain of lakes, swamps, rivers, and dense woodlands. Ogden kept a journal, noting that they traveled on “bad roads” and “sometimes climb[ed] on all fours,” being “scarcely able to see for the thickness of the bramble and small fir shrubs.” Ogden’s boots were so worn that he made a cover for them from a bag of flour. Burr and Ogden watched starving men greedily devour dog meat.13
It was Burr’s family name as much as his fortitude that caught the attention of Colonel Arnold. In fact, Arnold went out of his way to show favor to Burr, and he was even more solicitous of Ogden. Apparently Ogden was quite adept at making a good impression on his superior, and secured a promotion to captain before Burr. Yet Burr wasted little time in trying to set himself apart from the other volunteers. On November 30, Arnold sent him as a messenger to General Montgomery, who was a day’s march away. In his brief letter, Arnold introduced Burr as “a volunteer in the army and son to the former president of the college of New Jersey”; he then recommended Burr as “a young man of much life and activity [who] has acted with great spirit and resolution on our fatiguing march.” Immediately pleased with the young man, Montgomery attached Burr to his staff, making the cadet a captain and one of his aides-de-camp.14
Richard Montgomery was a tall, slender man. He was considered handsome, despite a pockmarked face. Like Horatio Gates and Charles Lee, two other generals in the Continental Army, Montgomery had been a career British officer. Unable to secure the promotion he felt he deserved in the British army, he sold his commission, retired, and sailed for the colonies in 1772. Taking up the life of a gentleman farmer in New York, he married Janet Livingston, and so aligned himself with one of the wealthiest and most influential families in the Hudson Valley. Family connections quickly secured his election to New York’s provincial congress, and when war commenced in the spring of 1775, congress appointed him brigadier general.15
With fifteen years of military service behind him, Montgomery had no problem displaying the expertise of a professional officer or the personal style of a gentleman. Much later, Washington Irving (who also admired Burr’s dashing demeanor) claimed that Montgomery was “the beau idéal of the soldier.” Montgomery seemed to embody what young and inexperienced volunteers like Burr expected from a genuine leader. The general was “beloved,” a fellow soldier of Burr’s wrote, because of “his manliness of soul, heroic bravery, and suavity of manners.”16
What is clear is that Montgomery knew how to carry himself. In his years as a British officer, he had learned that a certain style was necessary to win over the troops, to ensure both their loyalty and their deference. To his men, he had to appear fearless. He had nearly been killed three times during the invasion of Canada. In the siege of St. Johns, while he was examining an artillery battery, a cannonball ripped through his coattail, threw him from the breastwork, and yet he landed on his feet, to the utter amazement of his men. He had two other close encounters in Quebec. His sled was destroyed by a cannonball just after he left it; seven days later, a shell barely missed him as he inspected another battery. Montgomery’s calm under fire enhanced his reputation.17
A later letter to Burr from Montgomery’s widow hints at what his opinion of her husband might have been. Acknowledging the praises he bestowed on her dead husband, she recited what were probably Burr’s original words: “He was, indeed, an angel sent us for a moment.” If her husband had lived, she observed, “his friends [would be] in stations more equal to their merit.” It was her opinion that Burr would well have risen faster and further serving under Montgomery, a general who possessed flair to rival Washington.18
While gentility and decorum were important to Montgomery, he still faced trying times attempting to maintain discipline among his troops. He complained in October 1775 about the “wretches” he had as officers, histrionically regretting he had ever accepted his commission. He believed that his reputation was at stake, because the men were nothing more than “ragamuffins,” prone to “beastly” drunkenness, cowardice, blunders, and arrogance. He told his father-in-law that “the privates are all generals but not soldiers.” He added ominously: “Honor, the very soul of the soldier, has no existence among us.” A month later, he continued to voice disappointment in his officers and in the general lack of discipline, writing to General Philip Schuyler that he wished “some method could be fallen upon of engaging Gentlemen to serve—a point of honour and more knowledge of the world to be found in that Class of men would greatly reform discipline and render the troops much more tractable.”19
When Montgomery finally joined up with Arnold’s troops, he liked what he saw. He remarked that there was “a style of discipline among them, much superior to what I have been used to” in this campaign.20 Obviously, he sought “gentlemen.” Burr was only nineteen at the time, but his Princeton training and family background had imparted to him the manner of a gentleman. A fellow soldier, John Henry, upon meeting the “amiable youth” Aaron Burr on the march northward, found him to be a model soldier.21
The one close aide to Montgomery who probably set the standard for a subaltern was John MacPherson. He was the eldest son of Captain John MacPherson, a former British officer, and his family was one of the most prominent and wealthy in Philadelphia. After graduating from Princeton in 1766, he traveled in Europe, polishing his manners and acquiring, in Montgomery’s words, “more knowledge of the world.” Burr must have met expectations, too, because, in the general’s eyes, he resembled MacPherson with his polish and learning. Indeed, as a close friend of William Paterson, Burr’s former college mentor, it was probably MacPherson who recommended Burr to the gen
eral’s attention.22
Montgomery may have been inspired by the sight of Arnold’s troops, but he faced enormous pressures at Quebec. After his appeals for surrender were ignored, he realized that an assault was his only option. He had little time to waste; the terms of enlistment for Arnold’s men expired on January 1, 1776, and this forced him to take action before the new year. Three companies in Arnold’s battalion vocally opposed the assault; dissensions threatened to weaken the army. Just before Christmas, in an attempt to quell growing dissent, the commander gave a rousing speech, calling for the men to pursue “immortal honor.” Four days later, he had to abort the first night attack, when the weather changed and it was no longer dark enough to conceal the army’s approach. Montgomery then learned that an informer had divulged his plan to the British, forcing him to abandon it. This last-minute change of strategy worried the men. Aide Jacob Cheesman had a premonition of his own death. In the Memoirs, Matthew Livingston Davis claims that Burr, too, “entertained strong apprehensions of the result.”23
The actual siege, of course, bore little resemblance to Trumbull’s glorified interpretation on canvas. In the early hours of December 31, 1775, Montgomery and his troops approached the city along a narrow riverside path. After cutting through two stockades, and meeting no resistance, they discovered a blockhouse that appeared empty. Leading the charge, Montgomery ordered his men to advance. But Canadian militiamen, hiding in the blockhouse, opened fire when the Continentals came within forty yards of the building. At such close range, the entire head of the column was “mowed down like grass,” killing the general, MacPherson, Cheesman, and at least ten others.24
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