Fallen Founder

by Nancy Isenberg

  Rebuffed, Burr modified his plans, and sometime in the winter of 1805–06, he began to make arrangements to purchase a portion of a large tract of land known as the Bastrop property, which was located near the Ouachita River, in northwestern Louisiana. If an invasion of Mexico was impossible at this moment, he would at least establish a settlement in the region, and bide his time until a filibuster made sense. Burr made a point of writing to Albert Gallatin about his purchase, in effect letting the administration know of his commitment to establishing a presence in the West.86

  Meanwhile, he attempted (from the East) to foil the Spanish minister to the United States, the marqués de Yrujo, who threatened his still hazy project. Burr sent Jonathan Dayton on a delicate mission to keep Yrujo at arm’s length. Dayton pretended to be a double agent, after Wilkinson’s example, which makes it quite possible that Wilkinson had suggested the ploy to Burr. Dayton approached the minister with secret information to sell—that Burr intended to lead a western rebellion, and invade the Floridas and Mexico, but had now abandoned that plan. This would not have been news to Yrujo, who had been watching Burr’s movements and thought Burr’s Mexican plan “ridiculous.” But he was not ready for Dayton’s further confession when they met a second time. That is when Burr’s supposedly two-timing envoy (who now dropped that pose and said Burr had sent him) “divulged” that his employer planned a coup d’état against Jefferson, that Burr would infiltrate Washington with his army of adventurers and depose the president, and then seize the public money in the Washington banks; and if he failed to win popular support, he would destroy all the federal ships in the nearby harbor, and flee to New Orleans. There, Burr would declare the independence of Louisiana and the western states from the union.87

  Why did Dayton offer up such a far-fetched scenario? Because he knew that Yrujo would fall for it. For his “valuable information,” Dayton tried to extort $40,000, and in the end netted only $2,500. This was not a ruse to sell false information for personal profit, though some have suspected it was a daring ploy to get the Spanish to unwittingly fund Burr’s filibuster. It was nevertheless a calculated effort to knock the Spaniard off balance. It made Yrujo less certain about his original suspicions, and thus more vulnerable to Burr’s real agenda: a surprise attack against Mexico, when the time was right.88

  THE “INQUISITIONS OF EUROPE”

  In the spring of 1806, Burr carried on with his plans for a second excursion west. He busied himself recruiting an assortment of new followers, among them New Yorkers, sons of army generals, and foreign adventurers. Dr. Justus Erich Bollmann is an interesting specimen taken from this motley group. A German-born medical doctor, now thirty-seven, he had settled in the United States in 1796, and tried his hand at several business schemes, all of which failed. His romantic, revolutionary tendencies preceded his acquaintance with Burr and his voyage to America: during the French Revolution, he attempted a valiant, if unsuccessful, rescue of the marquis de Lafayette, who was then being held in an Austrian prison. Fluent in English, French, and German, Bollmann was highly educated—just the sort of man we could expect to come to Burr’s attention.89

  Burr left Philadelphia at the beginning of August, proceeding on horseback to Pittsburgh. He sent Bollmann ahead to New Orleans, bearing letters for Edward Livingston and General Wilkinson. Meanwhile, Burr rested at the home of an old acquaintance, Colonel George Morgan. The colonel had been an early speculator in western lands and an avid promoter of western migration. In 1789, the year that the federal Constitution went into effect, he had attempted to found “New Madrid,” an American colony sponsored by the Spanish, within Spanish territory. In 1806, Morgan was living at Morganza, his manorial estate south of Pittsburgh. He had two sons: John, thirty-six, was a general in the New Jersey militia; Thomas, twenty-two, was at an age, and of a mind, to find Burr’s expeditionary force an attractive prospect.90

  But Burr misjudged the old colonel. When their dinner conversation turned to the question of the West’s future—and the possibility that the eastern states would be unable to stop western secession, if it came to that—Morgan objected to any such suggestion. What happened next is a matter of debate, but Burr said something about the weakness of Jefferson’s administration that only made matters worse. Morgan, his sons in tow, expressed irritation, and after his guest had gone dispatched a letter to Jefferson, accusing Burr.91

  But if the Morgan boys were not attracted to Burr’s project, others were. From Pittsburgh, the son of General Presley Neville enlisted, as did the son of Colonel Thomas Butler, a close friend of Andrew Jackson. It was reported later that a “considerable number of single men of conspicuous parentage” had joined Burr from western Pennsylvania.92

  In New York State, Comfort Tyler served as one of Burr’s visible “subalterns.” Tyler was one of the earliest settlers in Onondaga County, and a zealous promoter of land development in western New York. In the 1790s, while serving in the state legislature, he had become Burr’s political ally. Now, in the summer of 1806, the forty-two-year-old Tyler was calling attention to himself. He suddenly had an “abundance of money,” being engaged in some “secret business” for Burr. As he traveled though Pittsburgh and Ohio, he attracted further notice by purchasing provisions and boats, and enlisting “young men of talents & address.” Why so much chatter about a wandering New Yorker? Tyler was Burr’s Pied Piper, leading a contingent of young men west. He was, in the most literal sense, a Burrite adventurer, a devoted lieutenant in the ex-vice president’s expeditionary army.93

  Burr, after his disappointing encounter with the Morgans, made his way to Blennerhassett Island. Though he stopped here only briefly, the island buzzed with activity. He made contracts with local merchants for supplies, and arranged for the construction of fifteen boats to form a flotilla; the average vessel capable of carrying up to fifty men. In Cincinnati, he met up with Senator John Smith, whose two sons were to join Burr on his expedition. Wasting little time, he went on to see John Brown in Frankfort. By September 24, he was back in Nashville, urging General Jackson to ready the Tennessee militia, and arranging for more boats to be built, and more young men to be recruited. Rachel Jackson’s favorite nephew was one of the seventy-five Tennesseans who eagerly signed on to Burr’s adventure.94

  By this time, however, military conditions on the Louisiana-Texas border had changed again. A thousand Spanish troops had crossed the Sabine River at the end of July, and were within ten miles of the U.S. outpost at Natchitoches. This was a taunting gesture, demanding a response. Yet no one acted until General Wilkinson arrived on the scene. Secretary of War Henry Dearborn had ordered Wilkinson, months earlier, to lead reinforcements to New Orleans. But with his typical errant defiance, the general had tarried in St. Louis until August, and did not reach the trouble spot until September 7.95

  Wilkinson was still pretending to be all things to all people. He dispatched a letter to Dearborn, promising to “drain the cup of conciliation to maintain the peace,” adding in the same breath that if “forced to appeal to arms,” he would gladly charge ahead, to “soon plant our standards on the left bank of the [Rio] Grand[e] River.” But his letters to John Adair and John Smith showed no hesitation whatsoever. He bragged to Adair that at this crucial juncture, there was a fair chance of “subverting the Spanish government in Mexico.” And this was only a start, he tempted Smith: for “our conquests” might extend as far west as California.96

  The new tensions along the border fit into Burr’s plans. War fever created exactly the situation he wanted. “All reflecting men consider war with Spain to be inevitable,” he wrote Governor William Henry Harrison. He met Theodosia and his son-in-law in Lexington, after the South Carolina couple had enjoyed a pleasant excursion to Blennerhassett Island. Meanwhile, Burr finalized the purchase of the Bastrop property, acquiring 350,000 acres near the Texas border—all prime real estate. There is every indication that Burr planned to settle this tract; he wrote to Benjamin Latrobe, whom he
had hoped would design the Indiana canal, asking the architect to join him. Burr took up such subjects as the quality of the soil, his plans for building cabins, but he especially needed Latrobe’s engineering skills to construct one road from the Mississippi River to his settlement, and another to the border town of Natchitoches. He offered Latrobe 10,000 acres for his services, insisting that success depended on the architect’s sound guidance. “I want your society, I want your advice in the establishments to be made,” Burr appealed at the end of October. “In short you have become necessary to my settlement.”97

  Despite his eager efforts, Burr’s project began to unravel that autumn. As his activities gained increasing attention, the cry of conspiracy provided a convenient means of going after Burr’s allies. A group suspicious of Blennerhassett organized meetings in nearby Wood County, Virginia (today’s West Virginia), accusing the Irish manor lord of mounting an illegal, and possibly treasonous, expedition from his private island. As far away as Michigan Territory, where Burr had never set foot, rumors arose; a newly established bank in Detroit, whose major sponsor was a “perfect quid,” was alleged to have been opened solely to channel secret funds to Burr.98

  Kentucky produced the loudest uproar, primarily because two hack journalists began publishing a scandal sheet—the Western World—in the summer of 1806. John Wood, the same writer whose defamatory History of the Administration of John Adams had caused Burr so much trouble in New York in 1802, now resided in Frankfort. Along with his fiery coeditor Joseph Monfort Street, Wood used the new paper to fan the flames of an imaginary conspiracy with Burr as ringleader.99

  Burr’s friends and associates came under attacks no less shrill and no less severe. One target was former Kentucky senator John Brown. Dr. Preston Brown, the politician’s brother and himself a friend of Burr’s, burst into the editor’s office, demanding a retraction of the charges. When Street refused, the doctor threatened to “make a Negro lash him.” This was no isolated incident: Street was known as the “fighting editor” because a good number of his victims presented themselves and demanded satisfaction. John Brown sent Jefferson an impassioned letter, denying the lies printed in the Western World.100

  Despite its lack of credible evidence, and the abusive and sensational style of the Western World, the paper became wildly popular, and other newspapers quickly reprinted its stories. One backer of the scandalous paper (at least, it was so conjectured) was U.S. District Attorney for Kentucky Joseph Hamilton Daveiss, who was on a personal crusade to expose what he believed were Burr’s conspiratorial activities. After his first warning back in January, Daveiss continued to barrage Jefferson with letters, offering his services to the president. He wrote Secretary of State Madison as well, urging him to pay attention to reports contained in the Western World. By early November 1806, he felt confident enough to drag Burr before a Kentucky grand jury.101

  The rumors were clearly having an effect. A mounting pile of letters sat by President Jefferson, but it was, purportedly, one from his postmaster general, Gideon Granger of Connecticut, which ultimately prompted him to take action. On October 16, 1806, Granger repeated a story told to him by General William Eaton, centering on Burr’s grand design of conquering the West and toppling the administration. The general had made a reputation for himself in the Tripolitan Campaign of 1804. He had crossed the Libyan Desert, captured the city of Derna (Darnah), and was on his way to victory at Tripoli, when a peace treaty ended the conflict in North Africa. He had then proceeded to Washington to collect $10,000 he felt the government owed him for his valiant services. In December 1805, he now claimed, Burr had tried to recruit him.102

  Burr was, of course, preparing for a filibuster, but he was not conspiring to topple the administration. Eaton’s word was entirely unreliable. He was given to bouts of drunken excess—one of Burr’s biographers has questioned whether he ever met with Burr at all, perhaps having confused a conversation he had with Dayton. Nevertheless, Granger’s warning, based on Eaton’s account, carried weight. And Granger’s motives? He appeared inspired by patriotism, but that is not the whole story; his name had been associated with Burr’s conspiracy, thus making his warning to Jefferson more a desperate plea to save his own skin than an accurate assessment of his fear of Burr’s intent. And Granger was not alone. In a very short time, John Brown, John Smith, John Adair, and Andrew Jackson would all find themselves scrambling to discredit rumors about their connections to Burr, and to clear their own names.103

  Jefferson had been slow to react, but now he abruptly called the cabinet together, on October 22, 1806, to discuss Burr. Though he was relying on hearsay, he mentioned that Burr had “opened himself confidentially to some persons,” and revealed his “scheme of separating the Western from the Atlantic States, and erecting the former into an independent confederacy.” He undercut his supposedly objective assessment by mentioning that Burr had aroused “suspicions, as every motion does of such a Catalinarian [sic] character.”104

  A Catalinian character? Several months earlier, during their last private conference, Jefferson told Burr that he had lost the public’s confidence, which was the reason he gave for not appointing his former vice president to a federal office. In response, an incredulous Burr observed “that if we believe a few newspapers, it might be supposed he had lost the public confidence”; but he added, it was “easy to engage newspapers in anything.” Jefferson then claimed he did not rely on the newspapers. But clearly he did, for “Cataline” was Cheetham’s favorite slur against Burr.105

  At the October 22 cabinet meeting, the president listed some of the informants who had written to him or to Madison, and referred directly to information they had received through “other channels and the newspapers.” With nothing concrete, he persuaded the cabinet that the administration must take drastic action: it must send letters to all the western governors and district attorneys, order them to watch Burr’s every move, and “on his committing any overt act unequivocally, to have him arrested and tried for treason, misdemeanor, or whatever other offence the act may amount to.” Gunboats would be sent to the fort near New Orleans. And what about Wilkinson? According to Eaton, that devious general was intimately involved as Burr’s second-in-command; rumors of his complicity were just as widespread as those against Burr. Jefferson acknowledged that “suspicions of infidelity in Wilkinson” were “very general,” and that he had disobeyed Dearborn’s orders by failing to head to New Orleans with dispatch.106

  The cabinet met again on the 24th. Two captains were to be sent with “great discretionary powers” toward arresting Burr. Burr’s brother-in-law was to be removed from his post, and John Graham, previously secretary of the Orleans Territory, was to replace Wilkinson as governor of Louisiana. How to deal with Wilkinson was still uncertain.107

  Jefferson’s flurry of activity suddenly came to a halt. On October 25, the cabinet reversed itself. Nothing was to be done, except to send Graham west to spy on Burr, put the governments on guard, and to “arrest him if necessary.” This change of plans is inexplicable. The only reason Jefferson gave was that mail had arrived from the West and “not one word is heard from that quarter of any movements of Colonel Burr.” That “total silence” somehow “proves he is committing no overt act against the law.”108

  Of course, Jefferson had had no evidence of an “overt act” three days earlier, but it had not stopped him from accusing Burr of treason and a host of other potential crimes. The best explanation for this about-face is that Jefferson’s cabinet had persuaded him to slow down. Gallatin was there, and he would not have been eager to jump on the bandwagon and accuse Burr of treason. Jefferson was angry enough to imagine Burr as a “Catalinian character.” Maybe it was Eaton’s claim that Burr intended to get “rid of the president” that sparked his fury. Still, cooler heads prevailed, and the administration decided to wait until it had real evidence of treason.

  Cooler heads did not prevail in Kentucky. District Attorney Daveis
s aimed to ruin Burr. On November 5, he presented an affidavit before Judge Henry Innes, charging Burr with having prepared an invasion of Mexico, and demanded that the court issue a warrant for Burr’s arrest. He claimed that he had sufficient evidence to prove that Burr intended to separate the western states from the union; even so, there was no law on the books that made such a plot criminal. Daveiss was clearly using the courtroom to shape public opinion. He headed to court, but soon discovered that even in the freewheeling West, innuendo was not enough to sustain a case. It quickly became apparent that he did not have any evidence at all. His legal talents, moreover, were no match for those of Burr and his counsel, Henry Clay.109

  Clay, twenty-nine, was a rising star in Kentucky. He had just been chosen to succeed John Adair in the U.S. Senate. Burr understood the value of having a respected member of Kentucky’s elite at his side. The district attorney was inventing law: he wanted Burr held under bond while he called witnesses and collected evidence. The judge refused this unusual request. Rebuffed, Daveiss returned to normal procedure and requested a grand jury, which the judge granted. Yet Daveiss still brought on no witnesses. Court was dismissed, reconvening on November 12, when, once again, Daveiss came up empty-handed. His so-called key witness was out of town. The jury was dismissed, and Burr went free, for the moment. Two weeks later, the district attorney requested a second grand jury, to convene in early December.110

  Though Burr had gained the upper hand in the courtroom, the mere act of having charges raised lent legitimacy to the rumors in circulation. He already had received an anxious letter from Senator John Smith, warning him of the “various reports prejudicial to your character.” Throughout the month, Burr denied all accusations that he was seeking to dismember the union. After learning that Daveiss had requested a warrant for his arrest, he had written Harman Blennerhassett that the charges were “absurd.” He reassured a suspicious Andrew Jackson of his patriotism, and appealed as well to William Henry Harrison and Henry Clay, the latter worrying that his new duties as senator might make it improper for him to further serve as Burr’s counsel.111