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

Much of Collot’s geography was wrong, but his military instinct was right. So long as a commander chose the right rivers to follow through the dry land that lay beyond the Mississippi, Santa Fe could be reached without overwhelming difficulty. And from Santa Fe, the royal road, El Camino Real, led due south to Chihuahua and Mexico City. The route left New Orleans more than one thousand miles to the east. The city could be ignored in any advance through Santa Fe.

The alternative was to sail directly to Veracruz on the coast of Mexico and march less than two hundred miles inland to Mexico City. In every way it was simpler than the Santa Fe route, except that the commander would have to decide what to do about New Orleans, the port where his army had to be assembled for embarkation to Mexico. If it could not be cajoled into giving its support willingly, New Orleans would have to be captured.

After his first discussions with Wilkinson, Burr contacted the British ambassador, Anthony Merry, to enlist Britain’s aid. The plan, Merry tersely informed London, was “to effect a separation of the Western Part of the United States from that which lies between the Atlantick and the Mountains, in its whole Extent.” What Burr wanted, as he soon made clear, was a squadron of British warships from the West Indies to prevent the United States navy from reaching the mouth of the Mississippi. This would stop New Orleans from being reinforced from the sea and allow a force bound for Veracruz free passage to the coast of Mexico.

From an early stage, therefore, the colonel favored a plan for, directly or indirectly, the secession of the western states, and an invasion of Mexico through Veracruz. The general’s interests, by contrast, were always drawn toward Santa Fe. Nor was his name mentioned in Merry’s report, even though the secessionist plan outlined there was essentially the Spanish Conspiracy in British colors. Long experience had inoculated Wilkinson against any scheme that involved detaching the western states from the Union.

IN JANUARY 1805, the president nominated James Wilkinson to the Senate to be governor of the new Louisiana Territory. The choice drew immediate criticism in Congress that “it was anti- republican to unite civil and military office in one person,” and in defending it Jefferson had to contradict his own principle that “no military man should be so placed as to have no civil superior.” Louisiana Territory, the president claimed, was a military outpost— an officer administered each of its five districts—thus requiring a general to be in command. But the casuistry did not alter the reality. From his headquarters in St. Louis, Brigadier General James Wilkinson would not only have command of an army whose troops were increasingly concentrated in the south and the west, but would also exercise civilian control over an area that reached from Canada to the Arkansas River, and from the Mississippi westward to the indeterminate border with the Spanish empire.

Criticism was not confined to Congress. From Kentucky, Judge Joseph Daveiss wrote in alarm to the president, “You have appointed General Wilkinson a governor of St. Louis, who I am convinced has been for years, and now is, a pensioner of Spain.” Almost apologetically, the judge referred to the earlier warning given to Jefferson: “I am told that Mr. Ellicott, in his journal, communicated to the office of state the names of the Americans concerned [in the Spanish Conspiracy]. If this is true you are long since guarded; but I suspect either that it is not, or has escaped you; or you have considered the affair dead.” Jefferson immediately acknowledged the importance of his allegation and requested “a full communication of everything known by you.” Daveiss’s reply revealed, however, that he was relying on Humphrey Marshall’s suspicions dating back to the 1780s and had nothing more substantial to offer than gossip about the barrels of money Wilkinson had received. In Washington, where the general’s role was becoming more important, it was easy to dismiss this as politically motivated abuse.

Within the administration, Wilkinson’s warmest supporter was Gideon Granger, the postmaster general, who described the general that spring as “one of the most agreeable, best informed, most genteel, moderate & sensible Republicans in the Nation.” What most of Jefferson’s cabinet felt was best expressed by Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin, when he said, “Of the General I have no very exalted opinion; he is extravagant and needy and would not, I think, feel much delicacy in speculating on public money or public lands. In both these respects he must be closely watched . . . But tho’ perhaps not very scrupulous in that respect and although I fear he may sacrifice to a certain degree the interests of the United States to his desire of being popular in his government, he is honorable in his private dealings and of betraying it to a foreign country I believe him altogether incapable.”

This profound misjudgment by Jefferson’s sharpest political adviser points to the difficulty that everyone would shortly face in deciding where the general’s loyalties really lay. Unmistakably he was capable of betraying his country: since his payment of twelve thousand dollars, he had twice briefed the Spanish ambassador, the Marqués de Casa-Yrujo, on U.S. strategy, and when spring came, Captain Pedro Vial’s column was roaming the headwaters of the Missouri in search of Lewis and Clark. As tensions about the border grew angrier in the early months of 1805, leading to talk of war, the advantage of having Agent 13 in command of the U.S. army and governor of a border province must have seemed unmistakable to his Spanish handlers. Yet even they could hardly have known which way he would jump if hostilities did break out.

The governor’s post carried with it a salary of two thousand dollars a year, as well as the power of patronage, the chance of bribery, and a preferential position for land speculation in the wide-open prairies beyond the Mississippi River. Nevertheless, when Charles Biddle, Nancy’s cousin and Burr’s friend, wrote to congratulate Wilkinson on the appointment, his reply alluded to an entirely different advantage. It would take a year to show how rewarding the post would be, Wilkinson said, but “in the meantime I can only say the country is a healthy one and I shall be on the high road to Mexico.”

His florid style always made the import of such remarks equivocal— was this rhetoric or reality? For a plain-talking frontiersman such as John Adair, his old comrade-in- arms and expert in horseflesh, it had to be real. In December 1804 he had written Wilkinson lamenting the failure of the United States to declare war on Spain and thereby provide an excuse for invading Mexico. “The Kentuckians are full of enterprise,” he assured the general, “and, although not poor, as greedy after plunder as ever the old Romans were. Mexico glitters in our Eyes— the word is all we wait for.” In June 1805, Adair received a teasing reply. It was an apology for Wilkinson’s failure to introduce him to Aaron Burr, who “understands your merits, and reckons on you.” The general promised to make up for it when they next met. “I will tell you all . We must have a peep at the unknown world beyond me.” The world beyond Louisiana was Mexico.

For every adventurer, not just those in Kentucky, the dream of seizing Mexico’s silver and gold mines did indeed dazzle the imagination.

ON MARCH 4, 1805, Jefferson’s new vice president, George Clinton, was sworn in and Colonel Aaron Burr ceased to have a job. A few days earlier, at Wilkinson’s recommendation Congressman Matthew Lyon from Kentucky had gone to Burr with a plan for reviving his political career. His suggestion was that the colonel should immediately relocate to Tennessee, where his national reputation would almost guarantee his immediate election to the next Congress. Lyon was forced to wait for almost an hour to see Burr at his lodgings in Washington because the former vice president was locked in conference with Wilkinson and Jonathan Dayton, an old political ally of both men’s.