by Gore Vidal
I was in the Golden Eagle parlour when Jamie made his entrance. He was ablaze with gold lace, epaulets, and whiskey. He moved like a turkey, wattles a-quiver, sway-backed, stomach thrust forward as though if he walked normally the centre of his gravity would so shift to the paunch that he would fall flat. He was accompanied by a host of aides and “witnesses” from the west.
When Jamie saw me surrounded by my Little Band, he made a curious, almost placating gesture with his right arm and hand, the palm upward; and I caught a glint of what looked to be pleading in his eyes. Then he was led to another room.
Sam Swartwout was all for challenging him to a duel. “Not the happiest solution to our problem,” I said.
“But the bastard put me in chains for two months, and stole my gold watch!”
“Challenge him!” Andrew Jackson was now entirely my partisan, and recklessly outspoken. But then he could afford to be; his letters to Governor Claiborne and to Jefferson had so cleverly established his loyalty to the union that the prosecution had originally wanted him to testify against me but as Jackson stormed about Richmond, proclaiming my innocence, the government came to regard him as a perfect nuisance, and dangerous to their weak case.
Luther Martin was mellow. “My boy, you’re not to touch the whoreson until I have had my fun with him in court.”
But the next morning, a Sunday, as Wilkinson was taking the air in front of the tavern, Sam Swartwout marched up to him and with one strong shoulder, shoved the commanding general off the side-walk and into the gutter. Aides drew swords. Distraught admirers helped the Washington of the West to his feet.
“Your seconds will find me at the Golden Eagle,” said Sam. “Be honoured that I treat you like the gentleman you are not.”
Face scarlet, Wilkinson made no answer. Sam returned to the tavern from whose window, I am sorry to say, General Jackson and I had observed the scene with some delight on the ground that what we could not prevent, we ought at least to enjoy.
“My God, I feel better for that!” Young Sam was exhilarated.
So was Jackson. “I’ll be your second, boy. But first we’ll do some practising with the pistol. Always a good thing before a duel, don’t you agree, Colonel? Even when you’re up against a sack of guts which, I swear by the Eternal, must be the largest target this side of the Alleghenies.”
“Jamie will never meet you,” I said to Swartwout, drawing on my superior knowledge of the double—no, triple agent; and I was right. Even when Swartwout published a broadsheet denouncing Wilkinson as a coward, the brigadier made no response. Unlike most villains I have known, Jamie was a physical coward.
The commanding general arrived in court on Monday like a conqueror. After all, was he not the President’s creature? Come to the heart of the President’s own state?
Comically, Jamie bowed this way and that as he made his way to the witness-stand, spurs clattering, leather harness creaking like a superannuated farm horse.
I ignored Jamie until his name was called. Then I turned and glanced at him briefly. So much for our confrontation.
The principal evidence of the prosecution was my cipher-letter to Wilkinson. Luther Martin questioned him about it. Why had the General made alterations in the text? Why had he tried to erase the first sentence which made it clear that Colonel Burr’s letter was in answer to one of his own? And why had he said that his ciphered correspondence with Colonel Burr had begun in 1804 when evidence showed that the correspondence in question had actually started as early as 1794? Wilkinson stammered, contradicted himself, committed a number of perjuries.
It was then that John Randolph decided that the General was “a villain from bark to core,” a sentiment he expressed that same evening to the crowded tap-room of the Golden Eagle, within hearing distance of the villain himself.
As jury foreman, Randolph began to harp on the ciphered letter. Why had Wilkinson made changes? Was it to avoid implication in Colonel Burr’s plot? To mislead the President? To disguise the fact that the General had been a prime mover in the Spanish Conspiracy fifteen years earlier? Abruptly, John Randolph turned to the Chief Justice and demanded that General James Wilkinson be forthwith indicted for treason.
The prosecution was demoralized. Wilkinson was incoherent. The grand jury then retired to determine whether or not to indict the government’s chief witness. One can only imagine Jefferson’s response when he learned that seven members of the grand jury favoured indicting his general, with nine opposed. An ominously close vote.
On June 24, the grand jury indicted Blennerhassett (in absentia) and me for the misdemeanour of launching an expedition against a Spanish colony and for treason against the United States. I was not surprised. After all, the grand jury was made up almost entirely of Jefferson’s partisans. Nevertheless, as I was taken under guard to the Richmond Municipal Jail, I could at least congratulate myself upon the fact that the only important witness Jefferson was able to produce against me had himself narrowly escaped being lodged with me at the public’s expense.
Six
SAM SWARTWOUT ASKED ME to meet him this evening in the bar of the City Hotel. I must say I find it hard to associate this portly red-faced man with the fiery boy who once challenged the commanding general of the American army to a duel, with Andrew Jackson himself as second.
“That challenge was the beginning of my glory, Charlie!” Swartwout was drinking hot rum and cloves. “Because then and there General Jackson decided that if he had had a son it would have been a crazy young hot-head like me, and that’s the way he still thinks of me, thank God!”
“Did Colonel Burr ever seriously discuss the separation of the western states?”
“Of course he did. We all did. Why, in Richmond, during the trial, I listened to John Marshall and John Randolph talk about separation. We were in the bar-room late one night—Colonel Burr was in jail at the time—and a group of us, maybe a dozen, all clever lawyers except old Sam here, started in on the subject and John Randolph said, ‘If I did not think Virginia could leave the union whenever she chose, I would leave these states and find myself a home in the farthest antipodes.’
“And John Marshall laughed at him and said, ‘Better find yourself a boat, Cousin John, because no state will ever have that right.’
“ ‘No matter what the Constitution says, Cousin John?’
“ ‘No matter what it says and, more to the point,’ said the Chief Justice, ‘what it don’t say!’
“ ‘Why, Cousin John, you are a bloody monarchist!’
“ ‘And you, Cousin John, are a bloody Jacobin, and a perfect democrat.’
“ ‘No, Cousin John,’ says John Randolph, ‘not perfect. I love liberty but, by Heaven, I do despise equality!’ Oh, they were a precious pair, those cousins.”
Swartwout put down his rum. “Now, Charlie, you are going to meet the man with his publisher who is going to buy this thing you’ve written.”
“For how much?”
Swartwout blinked. “How much you getting from the other people?”
“Two thousand to start with, two thousand when I finish.” I was pleased that I could bargain so well.
Swartwout grunted with surprise—respect? “So you got two thousand already?”
“Which I’ll have to pay back.”
“Then ask for five thousand, settle for four.”
“I’ll ask for seven and settle for five.” My head spun at such extraordinary sums: in Europe, Helen and I and our child can live comfortably for more than five years on that amount.
At the end of a long dusty corridor on the second floor, we stopped in front of a door. Swartwout rapped loudly. The door opened. A small worried head looked out. “Come in. Come in,” the head whispered. “You’re late. He’s almost gone. We’ll have to be quick.”
We stepped inside. A man in shirt-sleeves lay wrong way round in the bed, stocking feet up on the brass head-board. In his right arm he cradled a demijohn of whiskey. Opposite him, on a spindly wicker chair, a second small
worried-looking man sat. He rose as we entered.
“This is the publisher.” Swartwout indicated the first of the worried pair. “Mr. Robert Wright of Philadelphia.” We shook hands.
“And this gentleman will be actually writing the book.” Mr. Wright indicated the other worried-looking man. “In fact, he has already written most of it for our friend.” Mr. Wright glanced nervously at the figure on the bed who was humming softly to himself. The eyes of “our friend” appeared to be shut beneath a mat of wild graying hair.
“I look forward,” said the gentleman who would be writing the book, “to your assistance.”
“Of course.” I was at sea.
Suddenly a voice thundered from the bed: “Damn you all for a passel of Mexican cornholers!”
“Cornholer? Sam Swartwout’s no cornholer!” And Swartwout leapt upon the recumbent figure. Drunkenly they embraced. Then the wild man brushed the hair out of his small red eyes; and glared at the rest of us.
“I spoke a mite too soon, Sam. But jest you look at them three. Now there is three Mexican cornholers and don’t dispute my word because I got a keen nose for their likes.” I do my best to reproduce the speech of the professional frontiersman.
“Come on.” Swartwout was brisk. “Sit up. I want you to meet a friend of mine, Charlie Schuyler …”
“Cornholer—Mexican cornholer,” muttered the wild-eyed man, taking a long swallow of whiskey and refusing my out-stretched hand.
“Charlie, this is Colonel Davy Crockett.” So it was that I met the famous ‘coon-skin’ congressman from Tennessee. He is considered a delightful figure. I can’t think why. Last year he published the so-called story of his life which I have no intention of reading. It is supposed to be very funny, in the western style, and sold a good many copies. Currently he is a star of the Whig party, and an enemy of Jackson and Van Buren.
“And now”—Mr. Wright glanced apprehensively at his sodden “author”—“we are writing a second book. A very secret sort of book, you might say. But not a secret to you, Mr. Schuyler, since, I gather, you know the subject …”
“Me, I know the title. That’s something, ain’t it, Sam?” Colonel Crockett pulled himself up on the pillow. “My book is going to be called The Life of Martin Van Buren, Heir Apparent to the Government and the Appointed Successor of General Andrew Jackson … a Mexican cornholer of the first water.”
“That’s not part of the title,” said the actual author. I never did learn his name.
“And I won’t hear a word against Old Hickory!” Swartwout took the jug from Crockett and drank deeply. They are a good deal alike, these two aged roaring boys. Crockett must be at least fifty years old.
“Old Hickory’s cornholed every last Indian in the west. Cornholed my friends the Creeks, the Cherokees, best people in this damned country—so what does he do? goes and breaks our treaty with ’em and why? because he wants to steal their land for hisself … Oh, he’s a crooked man, Old Hickory, but to compare him, bad as he is, to Matty Van, is like comparing a diamond to shit.”
Mr. Wright tried to smile; and disagreeably failed. “Our book will concern Mr. Van Buren only—not the President …”
“The title!” shouted Colonel Crockett. “I didn’t finish givin’ my title. “The Appointed Successor of General Andrew Jackson. The Mexican …”
“Cornholer. We heard you, Davy.” Swartwout gave the Colonel back his bottle.
“Containing Every Authentic Particular by which his Character has been Formed, with Concise History …” Crockett’s chin suddenly dropped onto his chest. He appeared to sleep.
“I understand you have some interesting material for us.” The actual author was staring at the manuscript in my coat pocket.
“He certainly has!” Swartwout played the honest broker. “He has actually gone and proved that not only is Matty Van the son of Aaron Burr but that he is also the political creation, the amanuensis, you might say—no, worse, the homunculus of that very same traitor Aaron Burr!” Swartwout gave me a wink which the others did not see because their eyes were upon the manuscript that I now held in my hand.
“Proof?” asked Mr. Wright, reaching for the sheaf of papers.
“As conclusive as possible.” I was cool. “You see, I’m also the Colonel’s biographer.”
“I thought,” said Mr. Wright rather sharply, “that Matthew L. Davis was the biographer.”
“We both are. But Mr. Davis must wait until the Colonel’s death. I am not so bound.”
“Do you mind if we … well, look at a few pages?” Mr. Wright’s hand had a life of its own. Without waiting for me to give him the pages, he took them.
For nearly an hour actual author and publisher read to one another passages that I had written, occasionally checking with me or with Swartwout for further details, additional verification. “Not that we need be too meticulous,” Mr. Wright assured me. “The Davy Crockett style is so much that of the tall story that we can say nearly anything we please.”
“This is marvellous for us. Absolutely marvellous.” The actual author’s bright eyes revealed not only normal human greed but the unexpected zealotry of the true Whig.
“You think you can lick Matty Van with all of this?” Swartwout was curious.
Mr. Wright nodded gravely. “After all, whatever Davy Crockett writes …”
“Never wrote a damned thing! Hate books. Spellin’, grammar’s all contrary to nature.” Davy Crockett’s eyes were still shut.
“Your material, Mr. Schuyler, couched in the Crockett style, will destroy Van Buren both as a politician and as a man.”
“Not a man,” from the bed, “why if it wasn’t for them perfumed whiskers you couldn’t tell if he was a woman or not, dressed up the way he is, in corsets, that ineffable, spotted Mexican …” The voice trailed off; he snored.
For an hour we haggled. At the end I got $5,400, and Mr. Wright got everything that I had written as well as certain documentation I agreed to supply (court records from Albany, etc.). Apparently the Crockett book is already written but the actual author says that it will be an easy matter to incorporate my work into the existing text. We shook hands all around.
I ran home through fast-falling snow. I kicked open our door and shouted to Helen, “We’re rich!” To which she answered, rather blandly, “We had better be rich, that’s all I can say!”
“As soon as the baby’s born we’ll leave New York. Go to Spain. To Granada. To the Alhambra!”
Helen smiled happily; not understanding a word.
To-night has been the most wondrous of my life. I am rich (although I must pay back the $500 I received from Gower). I can now marry Helen. And leave New York. Best of all, I have done no injury to Colonel Burr. Not only will he never associate me with Davy Crockett but if the Crockett style is what I think it is no one will take seriously a word that’s published in the name of that drunken fat-head. My troubles are at an end.
Seven
I WENT TO THE Reade Street office this morning for the first time in a month.
Mr. Craft has taken a new partner, and added a clerk (in my place); he received me with surprising warmth in what had been the Colonel’s office, now newly furnished and bright with vases of spring flowers. “My daughter has done this.” He apologized for the flowers. “She is to be married in June.”
I congratulated him; promptly told him, “I shall be married, too.” I can never not say what I mean; or rather what I’m thinking about.
“That is good news. Do we know the young lady?”
“No. She’s only recently come to New York from Connecticut to stay with her aunt—in Thomas Street.” Why must I always sail so close to the wind? if that is the proper nautical expression.
“I assume you have abandoned the law?” I had ceased to come to the office shortly after the New Year.
“For the present.”
“You ought really to take your examination before the bar.”
“There is always time for that. I’m writi
ng for the newspapers now.”
Mr. Craft nodded. “I know.” I am always delighted when people tell me that they have read what I have written. “I’ve seen many of your pieces in the Evening Post. You are Old Patroon, aren’t you?”
I confessed that I was. I did not tell him that in other newspapers and magazines I am Skeptic (who praises the Whigs) and Gallery Mouse who reviews plays and thinks Edwin Forrest the greatest actor of our time and said as much when he recently sailed for England (although Mouse was obliged to admit that he was not entirely happy with Forrest’s interpretation of The Broker of Bogota).
“Many literary men are also lawyers. Look at Mr. Verplanck. Look at …”
But I did not let him pursue the subject. I did the business for which I had come (collecting Colonel Burr’s private files), and departed.
I found the Colonel seated beneath the rear basement window. A watery April sun shone on his up-turned face: he seems to draw to himself light and heat, like some ancient sun flower unexpectedly rooted in a cellar.
I gave him the bundle of documents. He put them on the floor beside his chair.
“How was the theatre last night?”
“James Sheridan Knowles held a benefit for himself.” I reviewed for the Colonel the various scenes Knowles acted out from all the plays he has written, including The Hunchback, a noisy work the audience loves.
“I confess to missing the theatre.” This was the nearest the Colonel has yet come to a complaint. He turned from the light; no longer sun flower, more ancient mole returning to its burrow.
“On with the trial of the century!” Burr held up a large volume. “This is a précis of my trial. The actual record runs to some eleven hundred pages. If you are ever morbidly disposed, read it. But for the moment, I shall condense the issues, in a way entirely favourable to me!”