Fallen Founder

by Nancy Isenberg

  32. See Emmanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment (1781; Oxford, 1952), 112–13. Hugh Blair’s Lectures on Rhetoric and Belle Lettres was originally published in 1783; for quotations, see Hugh Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (Philadelphia, 1852), 263–64.

  33. General Orders, George Washington, July 2, 1776, in John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of Washington, 29 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1931–44), 5: 211; Royster, A Revolutionary People at War, 11, 25–26, 216, 219, 228; Holly A. Mayer, Belonging to the Army: Camp Followers and Community During the American Revolution (Columbia, S.C., 1996), 3; Lawrence Delbert Cress, “An Armed Community: The Origins and Meaning of the Right to Bear Arms,” Journal of American History 71 (June 1984): 22–42.

  34. Charles Robert Kemble, The Image of the Officer in America (Westport, Conn., 1973), 20; George D. Massey, John Laurens and the American Revolution (Columbia, S.C., 2000), 82; and Royster, A Revolutionary People at War, 91, 289, 123–25. Officers attacked their rivals with class and sexual slurs, as Henry Beekman Livingston did when he published a nasty handbill mocking General Alexander McDougall. See Roger J. Champagne, Alexander McDougall and the American Revolution in New York (Schenectady, N.Y., 1975), 124–25.

  35. For an account of his daring navigation of the Kennebec River and Dead River, see AB to Timothy Edwards, Nov. 22, 1775; and for his stay at Fort Weston, see AB to Sally Burr Reeve, Sept. 24, 1775, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1.

  36. AB to Sally Burr Reeve, Sept. 24, 1775, and AB to Sally and Tapping Reeve, Feb. 1776, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1.

  37. AB to Sally Burr Reeve, Feb. 1776, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1.

  38. Matthias Ogden to AB, Mar. 20, June 5, 1776, and AB to Matthias Ogden, June 18, 1776, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, I: 77–78, 81–82; and Benedict Arnold to the Honorable Continental Congress, Jan. 24, 1776, in Roberts, ed., March to Quebec, 118.

  39. AB to Matthias Ogden, Mar. 7, 1777, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, I: 109.

  40. Ibid.

  41. Judith L.Van Buskirk, Generous Enemies: Patriots and Loyalists in Revolutionary New York (Philadelphia, 2002), 15–16; Champagne, Alexander McDougall, 109, 114; Ferling, First of Men, 150, 152; Lomask, Aaron Burr: The Years from Princeton to Vice President, 43.

  42. Ferling, First of Men, 153, 160; Van Buskirk, Generous Enemies, 18.

  43. Ferling, First of Men, 165, 167; John Niven, Connecticut Hero: Israel Putnam (Hartford, Conn., 1977), 72.

  44. Matthias Ogden to AB, June 5, 1776, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, I: 80–81.

  45. Burr’s nineteenth-century biographer James Parton depicted their meeting as a clash of irreconcilable personalities, but there is no evidence to substantiate this view—see Parton, Life and Times of Aaron Burr, I: 84–84.

  46. Niven, Connecticut Hero, 7–8.

  47. Ferling, First of Men, 168–69.

  48. Ibid., 169–71; Niven, Connecticut Hero, 73–74.

  49. Niven, Connecticut Hero, 73–74; Ferling, First of Men, 171; and for the location of the redoubt, see Henry P. Johnson, The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn (Brooklyn, N.Y., 1878), 88.

  50. See letter from Benjamin D. Silliman to Edward F. De Lancy, Jan. 22, 1876, in Thomas Jones, History of New York during the Revolutionary War, and of the Leading Events in the Other Colonies at that Period (New York, 1879), I: 608–09; and Katharine Hewitt Cummin, Connecticut Militia General: Gold Selleck Silliman (Hartford, Conn., 1979), 44. For the qualities expected of officers, see one of the most popular military guides published during the American Revolution, Thomas Simes, The Military Guide for Young Officers (Philadelphia, 1776), 6–7, 175, 192. However, there was another account, in which Burr was portrayed as far more aggressive and arrogant who won over the troops with his forceful resolve. This report was given by two former soldiers in 1814 who admired Burr’s brashness in outmaneuvering a superior officer. See “Certificate from Isaac Jennings and Andrew Wakeman,” in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, I: 103–04.

  51. Ferling, First of Men, 172–73, 175; Niven, Connecticut Hero, 75; and Adrian C. Leiby, The Revolutionary War in the Hackensack Valley: The Jersey Dutch and the Neutral Ground, 1775–1783 (New Brunswick, N.J., 1962), 59–60.

  52. Ferling, First of Men, 175–77; Niven, Connecticut Hero, 75.

  53. AB to Mrs. Edwards, Sept. 26, 1776, and AB to Timothy Edwards, Aug. 10, 1776, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, I: 97, 106–08.

  54. Niven, Connecticut Hero, 7, 69, 76–77. For Burr’s military duties under Putnam, and his intelligence work (drafting a detailed report of the Battle of New Brunswick), see Israel Putnam to John Neilson (all in Burr’s handwriting), Jan. 26, Feb. 13, Mar. 15, Mar. 30, 1777; AB to Colonel Samuel Forman, Apr. 1, 1777; and “Report: Enemy at Brunswick—signed by A. Burr,” in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1.

  55. AB to William Paterson, July 26, 1776, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, I: 85.

  56. AB to Mrs. Edwards, in ibid., I: 107.

  57. General Washington to AB, June 27, 1777, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1.

  58. Royster, A Revolutionary People at War, 200; Prince et al., eds., The Papers of William Livingston, V: 570–71.

  59. AB to General Washington, July 20, 1777, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1.

  60. Royster, A Revolutionary People at War, 199–200.

  61. Previous biographers have exaggerated the “imperious” and “icy” tone of this letter because they have failed to compare it to other complaints that Washington received from officers. See Schachner, Aaron Burr, 54; Lomask, Aaron Burr: The Years from Princeton to the Vice President, 52; and for a more balanced view, see Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: lxii–lxiii.

  62. Champagne, Alexander McDougall, 120.

  63. Ferling, First of Men, 204–05, 207–08, 210–12; Symonds, A Battlefield Atlas, 53.

  64. It is clear that the story of his successful sortie was making the rounds among officers. Another officer wrote to Burr, congratulating him on his “good fortune,” and commenting that he had heard “various accounts about the manner in which you executed the plan.” See T. Yates to AB, Sept. 20, 1777, and two later accounts, “Statement of George Gardner” (1813) and “Lieutenant Robert Hunter to Gabriel Furman, Esq., Member of Assembly,” (1814), all in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, I: 113–16, 117–18. See also “Eyewitness to Battle: Alexander Dow’s Account of a 1777 Skirmish and the 1778 Battle of Monmouth,” Brigade Dispatch 29 (Spring 1999): 15; Leiby, The Revolutionary War in Hackensack Valley, 137–38; and Jared Lobdell, “Paramus in the War of the Revolution,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society 78 (July 1960): 166.

  65. Champagne, Alexander McDougall, 120–21; Niven, Connecticut Hero, 77. For Malcolm’s reference to “militia intractables,” see William Malcolm to AB, Feb. 26, 1778, and AB to William Malcolm, Sept. 14, 1777, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1.

  66. Niven, Connecticut Hero, 78, 81–83; see also William Malcolm to AB, Feb. 26, 1778, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1.

  67. James Mitchell Varnum to AB, Oct. 1, 1777, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1; Symonds, A Battlefield Atlas, 59; Ferling, First of Men, 213, 217–20.

  68. For the reference to the “rascally inhabitants” and “villains who carry provisions to the enemy,” see Alexander Scammell to AB, Feb. 3, 1778, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1.

  69. Royster, A Revolutionary People at War, 75, 77, 80; Simes, The Military Guide for Young Officers, 2.

  70. See letter “From Robert Hunter to Gabriel Furman, Esq., Member of the Assembly” (1814), in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, I: 116, 120. The Gulph or Gulph Mills was 5.25 miles ESE of Valley Forge.

  71. Davis claims that Burr “nearly severed it from his body,” and the “arm of the mutineer was next day amputated”—Memoirs of Aaron Burr, I: 120–21. For officers hitting soldiers and soldiers’ undermining their authority, see Royster, A Revolut
ionary People at War, 79. A friend of Burr’s faced a similar situation. In 1776, Captain Joseph Bloomfield, a company commander in the Third New Jersey, when trying to apprehend a drunken soldier, severely beat the man with the flat of his sword. The very next day both men were subject to a court-martial. See Mark E. Lender and James Kirby Martin, eds., Citizen Soldier: The Revolutionary War Journal of Joseph Bloomfield (Newark, N.J., 1982), 13, 103.

  72. Wandell and Minnigerode, Aaron Burr, 69–70; Schachner, Aaron Burr, 57–58; Lomask, Aaron Burr: The Years from Princeton to Vice President, 56. The story from Davis is also repeated in William S. Baker, “The Camp by the Old Gulph Mill,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography XVII (1893): 426–27. For Corporal Haddock’s court-martial, see Feb. 29, 1778, Burr Orderly Book, Mar. 1778 (this book includes entries for February); for the two cases involving a soldier pointing a loaded musket at an officer and an officer abusing a captain while suppressing a riot, see General Court Martial, May 19, 1778, Burr Orderly Book, Apr. 20 to May 22, 1778; and for the men charged with “riotous and mutinous manner” for entering Colonel Craig’s house “with drawn swords,” see General Court Martial, June 18, 1778, Burr Orderly Book, June 17 to July 28, 1778. All in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 12.

  73. Previous biographers have either ignored or failed to analyze in a systematic fashion Burr’s orderly books. The orderly book was the most basic document of the Continental Army, providing detailed accounts of court-martial cases. Better than any other source, his orderly books accurately record Burr’s approach to military discipline. For Malcolm’s absence from the regiment, see “From Lieutenant Robert Hunter to Gabriel Furman” (January 1814), in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, I: 112, 116; see also William Malcolm to AB, Oct. 17, 1777, Feb. 26, 1778, and a letter [dated 1778–79], all in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1. For the Michael Brannon court-martial on May 22, 1778, see Orderly Book, Apr.–May 1778. In the case of Corporal Robert Haddock, he was sentenced to 40 lashes for “m[alo]lent and threatening behavior to Lt. Col. Burr,” but given 100 lashes for neglect of duty. Burr approved the sentence—see Court Martial, Feb. 29, 1778, Burr Orderly Book, Mar. 1778 (also includes entries for February), Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 12.

  74. Brigade Court Martial, Mar. 2, Burr Orderly Book, Mar. 1778, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 12.

  75. Feb. 16, 1779, Burr Orderly Book, Jan. 15 to Feb. 28, 1779, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 12.

  76. See Burr’s orders for Feb. 11, 1779, in Orderly Book, Jan. 15–Feb. 28, 1779, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 12; and Samuel Young, “Aaron Burr as a Soldier. A Letter from Judge Young of Westchester County, New York,” Historical Magazine 9, 2nd ser. (June 1871): 887. For another example of Burr’s moralistic reasoning, see the court-martial sentences of David Burns and Henry Holmes. Both men were charged with desertion and enlisting in another regiment; but Burr, president of the proceeding, gave a harsher penalty of 100 lashes to Burns. The commander of the brigade fully approved of this sentence because “it appears the latter [Holmes] was made drunk and inticed away by a villain.” See Brigade Court Martial, June 15, 1778, Burr Orderly Book, May 23–June 16, 1778, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 12.

  77. Ferling, First of Men, 241–42, 244.

  78. Ibid., 244–45; Mark Edward Lender, “The Battle of Monmouth in the Military Context of the American Revolution,” in Mary R. Murrin and Richard Waldron, eds., Conflict at Monmouth Court House (Trenton, N.J., 1983), 14–15.

  79. Burr explained his physical problems in his letter to Washington requesting a furlough. In his letter of resignation, he again referred to his health as the reason for his decision to leave the army—see Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, I: 128, 136, 168. Lee’s first letter was incorrectly dated July 1, though in the published Lee Papers it is dated June 30—see Major General Charles Lee to General Washington, June 28, 1778, George Washington Papers, Library of Congress; see also The Lee Papers (4 vols.) in The Collections of the New-York Historical Society (New York, 1872–75), II: 435–36.

  80. General Lee to AB, Oct. 1778, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, I: 135; also in Lee Papers, III: 238–39; and see Orderly Book, Mar. 1778, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 12.

  81. Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, I: 135. Lee was less coy in his letter to political ally Benjamin Rush. He brusquely dismissed Washington’s account of the Battle of Monmouth Court House as “a most abominable damn’d lie,” and claimed his “Court Martial was a Court of inquisition”—see Lee to Benjamin Rush, Sept. 29, 1778, in The Lee Papers, III: 236–37.

  82. Ferling, First of Men, 228–30.

  83. Lee to General Washington, June 28, 1778, and Lender, “The Battle of Monmouth,” 19.

  84. AB to Tapping and Sally Burr Reeve, Mar. 1, 1779, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1; Massey, John Laurens, 124–26.

  85. Uday Hay to AB, Feb. 13, 1779, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1; and see Charles Lee to Miss Rebecca Franks, Dec. 20, 1778, in The Lee Papers, II: 287–81.

  86. See “To the Printer of the Virginia Gazette,” [1775], which was reprinted in the New Jersey Gazette on Dec. 31, 1778, as an attack on Lee, and Robert Troup to Chief Justice Jay, June 29, 1778, in The Lee Papers, II: 297–300, 429. Also see General Court Martial (held June 2, 1778) recorded for June 6, 1778, in Orderly Book, May 23–June 16, 1778, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 12.

  87. See AB to General Washington, Oct. 24, 1778, and Washington to AB, Oct. 26, 1778, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, I: 136–37; Colonel Robert Troup to Major General Gates, Jan. 3, 1779, in The Lee Papers, III: 290; and Champagne, Alexander McDougall, 124–25, 175–79. And for courts-martial, see Orderly Book, June 17–July 28, 1778. For “spirit of discord,” see Sept. 25, 1778, in Orderly Book, Aug. 2–Oct. 10, 1778, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 12.

  88. Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, I: 112, 115, 138.

  89. Sun Bok Kim, “The Limits of Politicization in the American Revolution: The Experience of Westchester County, New York,” Journal of American History, vol. 80, no. 3 (Dec. 1993): 877–87, 880; and “Petition of Inhabitants of Westchester County,” Dec. 23, 1776, in Calendar of Historical Manuscripts Relating to the War of the Revolution, in the Office of the Secretary of State, 2 vols. (Albany, 1868), I: 563.

  90. Kim, “The Limits of Politicization in the American Revolution,” 885; and see Feb. 16 or 17, 1779, in Orderly Book, Jan. 15–Feb. 28, 1779, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 12.

  91. AB to General McDougall, Jan. 13, 1779, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, I: 142–43.

  92. Ibid., 143.

  93. AB to General McDougall, Jan. 12, 13, 1779, in ibid., I: 141–43.

  94. See AB to General McDougall, Jan. 12, 1799, and AB to Lord Stirling [William Alexander], July 4, 1778, in ibid., I: 129, 142; and Lord Stirling to AB, June 3, 1778, and July 6, 1778, AB to John Leake, Jan. 17, 1779, AB to General McDougall, Jan. 22, 1779, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1. For the spy network, see Champagne, Alexander McDougall, 156.

  95. Samuel Young, “Aaron Burr as a Soldier,” 885; and AB to General Malcolm, Jan. 21, 1779, and General McDougall to AB, Feb. 6, 1779, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, I: 148, 151.

  96. Samuel Young, “Aaron Burr as a Soldier,” 885, 886.

  97. Richard Platt to AB, Jan. 20, 1779, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1.

  98. AB to Peter Colt, Jan. 21, 1779, and AB to Major John Bigelow, Jan. 21, 1779, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1.

  99. AB to General McDougall, Feb. 18, 1779, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1.

  100. AB to General Washington, Mar. 10, 1779, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1.

  101. AB to General McDougall, Feb. 18, 1779, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1.

  102. AB to Rufus Putnam, Feb. 17, 1779, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1.

  103. Ibid.

  104. AB to Sally Burr Reeve, Apr. 25, 1779, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1.

  CHAPTER THREE

  1. Wi
lliam Paterson to AB, Oct. 26, 1772, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1. Thaddeus Dod was not the only Princeton student forced to marry a woman because she was pregnant. Madison and Bradford also discussed Andrew Bryan, who found himself in a similar situation. See William Bradford to James Madison, Mar. 4, 1774, and James Madison to William Bradford, Apr. 1, 1774, in Thomas A. Manson and Robert Rutland, eds., The Papers of James Madison, 17 vols. (Chicago and Charlottesville, Va., 1962–1991), I: 109, 111–12; and Robert Stewart to Aaron Burr, Feb. 7, 1774, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1. See also “Thaddeus Dodd” and “Andrew Bryan,” in Richard A. Harrison, ed., Princetonians: A Biographical Dictionary, 1769–1775 (Princeton, N.J., 1980), II: 191, 283–85. For anti-matrimonial satire about mismatched couples (the old marrying the young), see Cornelia Dayton, “Satire and Sensationalism: The Emergence of Misogyny in Mid-Eighteenth-Century New England Papers and Almanacs,” Paper presented to the New England Seminar at the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass., Nov. 15, 1991, 16. And for anti-matrimonial and anti-clerical erotica, see Peter Wagner, Eros Revived: The Erotica of the Enlightenment in England and America (London, 1988), 144–46, 72–86. The novels of Laurence Sterne and Tobias Smollett also show the influence of anti-Catholic erotica, which might have shaped the Princeton students’ bawdy humor about the monk.

  2. Geissler, Jonathan Edwards to Aaron Burr, Jr., 111–13.

  3. AB to Sally Burr Reeve, Jan. 17, 1774, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1.

  4. AB to Sally Burr Reeve, Jan. 20, 1774, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 1.

  5. Geissler, Jonathan Edwards to Aaron Burr, 111–12. See Roy Porter, “Mixed Feelings: The Enlightenment and Sexuality in Eighteenth-Century Britain,” in Paul-Gabriel Boucé, ed., Sexuality in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Manchester, 1982), 5, 12, 14 (note 14); and Miriam Williford, “Bentham on the Rights of Women,” Journal of the History of Ideas 36 (Jan.–Mar. 1975): 172.