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

Leaving Natchez and the astonished Briggs behind, the general took a boat up the Red River to Cushing’s headquarters in Natchitoches, where he arrived on September 22. For several electric days, it seemed that the long-awaited conflict was about to begin. The general sent a message to the new governor of Texas, Antonio Cordero, in Nacogdoches, telling him to withdraw his forces from Bayou Pierre and all the territory east of the Sabine because it lay “fully within the limits . . . of the United States,” and Wilkinson was authorized to “sustain the jurisdiction of the United States against any force.” Wilkinson had about twelve hundred men at Natchitoches, and apart from a shortage of mules and tents he had sufficient supplies and intelligence for a successful campaign. Writing to John Adair, his old companion, he promised, “The time looked for by many and wished for by more has now arrived for subverting the Spanish government in Mexico. Be you ready to join me; we will want little more than light-armed troops . . . 5000 men will give us the Rio Bravo, 10,000 Monterey . . . 30,000 men to conquer the whole province of Mexico. We cannot fail of success.” On the other side, however, Cordero, with more than a thousand soldiers in Nacogdoches under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Simon de Herrera, was in no mood to back down. Yet so adroitly had Wilkinson maneuvered that either peace or war would suit him.

Some 750 miles to the north east, Aaron Burr was staying with Andrew Jackson in Nashville, Tennessee. The final arrangements for his descent of the Mississippi were put in place, including the provision of four thousand dollars to Jackson to buy boats and supplies. Such largesse was made possible by the financial backing of the hugely wealthy Harman Blennerhassett, whose elegant mansion on an island in the Ohio River served as Burr’s headquarters. Just a month earlier, Blennerhassett had helped Burr pay for the construction of fifteen boats big enough to ferry five hundred men downriver, and for sufficient pork, cornmeal, and whiskey to supply them for a month. About fifty recruits had already come forward, but once hostilities broke out, Jackson, Adair, and Senator John Smith of Ohio had made it clear they were ready to call out thousands of militia-trained volunteers from Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio eager for the Mexican adventure. Everyone was poised for the first shots to be fired.

Then unexpectedly, General Nemecio Salcedo, in overall command of defense on the frontier, intervened. At the end of September, he ordered troops to be withdrawn from east of the Sabine. Immediately tension in the area eased. The new situation apparently caught Wilkinson by surprise. Although he made arrangements to send the militia home and assured Cordero of his wish for a peaceful solution, he also informed Dearborn of his intention to occupy the land up to the Sabine. That this was deliberate provocation was made clear in a letter to Samuel Smith warning that war might still break out, and that the army was unprepared for it. With magnificent disregard for the ten weeks he had wasted in St. Louis, he blamed the lack of readiness for hostilities on Henry Dearborn’s failure to supply enough mules and tents. “You should immediately put a competent character at the Head of the War Department,” he informed the senator, “and prepare to reinforce me with from three to five thousand more [troops].” The president was to be informed, Wilkinson went on, that owing to the shortage of men and equipment “it is my opinion that we are approaching a crisis.”

It should have been a safe prediction—either the Spanish would react or Zebulon Pike would be captured. What the commander in chief did not expect was the arrival on the evening of October 8 of a twenty- three- year-old New Yorker named Samuel Swartwout.

Wilkinson and Cushing were seated together when the young man was shown in. He claimed to have come as a volunteer, ready to serve against the Spaniards, and he had with him a letter of recommendation from Jonathan Dayton to the general. But when Cushing stepped out of the room for a moment, Swartwout drew from his coat pocket a package that he slipped furtively into Wilkinson’s hand. It contained, he said, a message from Aaron Burr. Immediately Wilkinson asked where Burr was. Swart-wout replied that he was still in Philadelphia, or had been when he left. But Wilkinson’s lack of contact with Burr had forced the young man to spend more than two months searching for him, first turning upriver toward St. Louis before learning that the general was in the south. The news was outof-date. Burr might be anywhere. The general waited until Swartwout had left the room before taking the package to his “private chamber” and opening it in secret.

The letter was written partly in plain English and partly in the symbol-substitution cipher that Burr and Wilkinson often used when the writer was uncertain whether the recipient had access to Entick’s spelling dictionary. According to Wilkinson’s later testimony, he did not succeed in deciphering the entire message that evening, but he could read enough to know that he faced a devastating threat to his career.

The letter was dated July 29 and began with news of what Burr had achieved up to that date: “Yours postmarked 13th May is received. I have obtained funds, and have actually commenced the enterprise. Detachments from different points under different pretences will rendezvous on the Ohio, 1st November— everything internal and external favors views—protection of England is secured. T- [Commodore Thomas Truxton] is gone to Jamaica to arrange with the admiral on that station, and will meet at the Mississippi— England—Navy of the United States are ready to join, and final orders are given to my friends and followers—it will be a host of choice spirits.”

So far there was no direct mention of the general’s involvement. The next sentence must have chilled his blood, however. “Wilkinson shall be second to Burr only— Wilkinson shall dictate the rank and promotion of his officers.” Then came organizational details pointing to their close collaboration: “Burr will proceed westward 1st August, never to return: with him go his daughter . . . Send forthwith an intelligent and confidential friend with whom Burr may confer . . . Send a list of all persons known to Wilkinson west of the mountains, who could be useful, with a note delineating their characters . . . send me four or five of the commissions of your officers [blank forms to be filled in] . . . orders to the contractor [have been] given to forward six months’ provisions to points Wilkinson may name . . . the project is brought to the point so long desired: Burr guarantees the result with his life and honor—the lives, the honor and fortunes of hundreds, the best blood of our country.”

Finally and worst of all were the plans for the conspiracy’s immediate implementation: “Burr’s plan of operations is to move rapidly from the falls [of the Ohio] on the 15th of November, with the first five hundred or one thousand men, in light boats now constructing for that purpose—to be at Natchez between the 5th and 15th of December—then to meet Wilkinson— then to determine whether it will be expedient in the first instance to seize on or pass by Baton Rouge. On receipt of this, send Burr an answer—draw on Burr for all expenses, &c. The people of the country to which we are going are prepared to receive us—their agents now with Burr say that if we will protect their religion, and will not subject them to a foreign power, that in three weeks all will be settled. The gods invite to glory and fortune— it remains to be seen whether we deserve the boon.”

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HIS COUNTRY’S SAVIOR

THE TIMING MADE THE LETTER TOXIC. Had war with Spain broken out in September, Burr’s project would have been welcome and legitimate. Equally, had Burr held off until Pike was captured, national outrage against Spain would have seen his attack on Veracruz as patriotic assistance to Wilkinson’s efforts to liberate the prisoners. But, as it was, the United States and Spain were at peace, and the general had diverted nearly all American troops in the south, regular and militia, hundreds of miles from New Orleans, leaving the city virtually defenseless, with a population hostile to the United States, at the very moment when Burr was apparently shipping a thousand armed men down the Mississippi.