Andro Linklater - An Artist in Treason - The Extraordinary Double Life of General James Wilkinson

277 “I [was] a secret agent of the Spanish government”: January 7, 1808, Annals of Congress , 10th Cong., 1st sess.

279 Jefferson’s assertion that Clark’s evidence “is the first direct testimony ever made known to me” was contradicted not just by Ellicott, but by the contents of Gallatin’s note in 1806.

279 “the present administration has been minutely informed”: Ellicott to Clark, January 10, 1808, Clark, Proofs .

280 “If I could believe that there was the least danger to the liberties”: Taylor, February 1808, quoted in Crackel, Mr. Jefferson’s Army .

281 “The armed resistance to the embargo laws on the Canada line”: Jefferson to JW, August 13, 1808, PTJ.

282 “it multiplies our wants, depresses our tastes”: JW to Jefferson, October 6, 1808, PTJ. For Jefferson’s decision to send JW to Cuba, see Cox, “The Pan- American Policy of Jefferson and Wilkinson.”

282 “Many of the appointments were positively bad”: Winfield Scott, Memoirs of Lieutenant- General Scott , quoted in Crackel, Mr. Jefferson’s Army .

283 “as large a proportion of our regular troops at New Orleans”: Dearborn to JW, December 2, 1808.

283 “His Majesty had some relations [with] No. 13”: quoted in Szaszdi, “Governor Folch and the Burr Conspiracy.”

284 “Sweet was the song sung on Monday evening”: Pensioner’s Mirror (New Orleans), April 20, 1809, quoted in Jacobs, Tarnished Warrior .

285 The melancholy narrative of Terre aux Boeufs is based largely on the “Report of the Committee appointed to inquire into the great Mortality in the Troops at New Orleans,” Annals of Congress , April 1810, and JW’s defense in Memoirs , vol. 2.

CHAPTER 28: MADISON’S ACCUSATIONS

The remorseless accumulation of documents by JW in his defense to an avalanche of accusations makes Memoirs , vol. 2, a prime source. Theodore Crackel’s Mr. Jefferson’s Army and William Skelton’s An American Profession of Arms provide essential ballast. For the diplomatic and political lead-up to the war of 1812, see Stagg, Mr. Madison’s War .

289 “I confess, the strength of my mind was shaken”: Memoirs 2:22.

290 “Mr. Eustis received me with great cordiality”: Ibid., 2:25.

292 “the untarnished companion of my thigh for forty years”: Hay, Admirable Trumpeter , 306.

292 The story of the court- martial proceeding is primarily drawn from Memoirs , 2:3–577. The faked Nolan account that explained his Spanish payments appeared on page 119, as follows:

General Wilkinson in Account with Don E. M[iró].

Dr[awn].

1790 June 2,

To Cash paid Philip Nolan—

$1800

1792 Aug. 4, To do. remitted by Lacassang—

4000

1794 July 29, To do. remitted by Owen—

6000

To do. paid insurance 121/2 percent

750

To do. remitted by J. E. Collins

6350

1796 Jan. 4, To do. paid Philip Nolan per receipt

9000

To balance due J. W.

2095

29,995

Cr[edit].

By net proceeds of 235 hogshead of Tobacco condemned

in the year 1790 by Arietta, and passed in the year 1791 by Brion—

17874

By so much recovered for loss sustained on the cargo

of the boat Speedwell—

6121

By so much sent by H. Owen, insured—

6000

29,995

Balance due James Wilkinson

$2095

New Orleans, January 4, 1796.

(Errors excepted) for Don E. M.

Gilbert Leonard.

This should be compared to the real account kept by his Spanish handlers: see Appendix 1.

295 “to vary or expunge any rank Epithet”: Jacobs, Tarnished Warrior , 251.

296 “to take care of the interests of the North:” Samuel Perkins, History of the Political and Military Events of the Late War between the United States and Great Britain .

297 “I therefore feel anxious not only to add the Floridas to the South”: Grundy, December 9, 1811, Annals of Congress .

298 “It has been hinted to me that I may be recalled”: Hay, Admirable Trumpeter , 313.

299 The capture of Mobile: Memoirs , 3:339-41.

300 “Why should you remain in your land of cypress ”: John Armstrong to JW, March 12, 1813, ibid., 3:342.

CHAPTER 29: THE LAST BATTLE

JW’s role in the Canadian campaign is reflected darkly through Memoirs , vol. 3, written around the defense he presented in his last trial. The military background comes primarily from Quimby, The U.S. Army in the War of 1812: An Operational and Command Study ; Skelton, An American Profession of Arms ; Stagg, Mr. Madison’s War ; and as always Henry Adams provided the broader view.

302 “a general officer does not expose his person”: JW’s comment represents the shift from the front-led collisions of eighteenth-century warfare, to the distantly generaled battles of maneuver that Napoléon bequeathed to the nineteenth century. It was unfortunate for JW, and the entire army, that Armstrong remained mired in the earlier era.

302 “struck at the very foundation of military character”: Memoirs , 3:345.

305 “Two heads on the same shoulder”: JW to Armstrong, August 24, 1813, American State Papers, Military Affairs.

306 “I have escaped my pallet and with a giddy head”: September 16, 1813, ibid.

306 “General Wilkinson arrived this day in Sackett’s Harbor”: Armstrong’s entry quoted in Memoirs , 3:69.

307 “in my feeble condition”: Ibid., 3:71.

307 The story of the St. Lawrence campaign comes from Adams, History of the United States , 7:193–98; the testimony of General Lewis in Memoirs , 3:128–29; and JW’s reports in American State Papers, Military Affairs, 1: 462–79.

308 JW’s poor health was apparent in a flood of references: October 28 he was “very ill”; on November 2 “very feeble”; on November 30 “sick”; and on December 7 “seriously indisposed.” Colonel Joseph Swift thought that between the two commanders, “Wilkinson and Lewis had not a day of sound health.” November 21, 1813, Swift, Memoirs , 122.

310 “The mortality spread so deep a gloom over our camps”: Memoirs , vol. 3, appendix 9.

310 “on which a box is placed to receive my bed”: Hay, Admirable Trumpeter , 323.

310 “He threatens to make a dash soon”: Daniel Tompkins to Armstrong, ibid., 324.

310 “blasted all my hopes”: Memoirs , vol. 3, appendix 53.

310 La Colle Mill skirmish: Ibid., 3:102.

CHAPTER 30: THE CHANGING OF THE GUARD

The proceedings of JW’s court-martial form the core of Memoirs , vol. 3. The final stages of his life are covered by his letters, the autobiographical torrent finally running dry with the publication of Memoirs , vol. 2, in 1816. Academic sources are Thomas R. Hay, “Some Reflections on the Career of General James Wilkinson,” and for his last days in Mexico, Bolton, “General James Wilkinson as Advisor to Emperor Iturbide.”

313 JW’s successful protest against his court- martial: Memoirs , 3:492–93.

313 JW’s family loss left Celestine distraught: Jacobs, Tarnished Warrior , 282. JW was seemingly a caring father; shortly before James Biddle left with Pike’s expedition in 1806, JW wrote anxiously to the hard-driving Pike, “My Son has the foundation of a good Constitution but it must be tempered by degrees, do not push Him beyond his capacities in hardships too suddenly. He will I hope attempt any thing but let the stuff be hardened by degrees.”

314 Henry Adams’s scathing account of the burning of Washington ends with a bitter jab: “Before midnight the flames of three great conflagrations made the whole country light, and from the distant hills of Maryland and Virginia the flying President and Cabinet caught glimpses of the ruin their incompetence had caused.”