An Artist in Treason: The Extraordinary Double Life of General James Wilkinson

APPENDIX 2

JAMES WILKINSON’S CODE

In 1929, Lieutenant Mark Rhoads of the U.S. Army’s Signal Corps, and soon to be the first instructor employed by the army’s cryptanalysis training section, the Signal Intelligence School, undertook to analyze the ciphers used by James Wilkinson. He started with ciphered messages sent to New Orleans, most of which were already decoded, and worked back to find out what ciphering method had been used. Rhoads learned that, in addition to the basic cipher based on dictionaries, Wilkinson added complications of his own— substitution codes, doubled ciphering, and arbitrary transposition of symbols and letters. His notes are preserved in the Library of Congress files.

A code refers to the substitution of specific words in the original plain text with an arbitrary and predetermined set of words or symbols—e.g., the president was represented by O, the vice president by . A cipher refers to the substitution of the plain text with words, numerals, or other symbols selected according to a predetermined rule. A code is necessarily limited to the previously selected words. A cipher is as elastic as an alphabet.

Wilkinson’s most commonly used code was based on the 1800 edition of John Entick’s The New Spelling Dictionary. The coded text appeared as numbers separated by a decimal point. The digits up to the decimal point indicated the page of the dictionary; the digits after the point indicated the number of the word on the page; e.g., 261.37 stood for page 261, word on line 37; thus “able” = 2.18; “yourself” = . (Since there were two columns on each page of Entick’s dictionary, the second column was indicated by two lines over the first digit after the decimal point; no marking meant the first column.)

This code was relatively easy to compose; Wilkinson’s reports were long and chatty, spread over up to thirty pages, suggesting that he could easily remember the code for most words. It was also relatively simple to decode. As Rhoads himself pointed out, a quick study of the coded text revealed the maximum number of pages in the book, and the maximum number of lines. From this, it would have been possible to deduce the volume being used, a task made easier by the supposition that the likeliest choice was a dictionary or encyclopedia that had all the words needed. Accordingly Wilkinson also used substitution ciphers based on a keyword such as CUBA. This also produced a ciphered text in digits, following the rules below:

This required each letter to be ciphered in relation to the keyword. The first letter was taken from the first column, second from the second, and for a word of more than four letters, the substitution continued with the fifth letter from the first column, etc. Each letter was separated by a comma, each word by a period. Thus “bare” would be 26, 7, 18, 5. The keyword could be changed according to a predetermined order from paragraph to paragraph. Wilkinson’s preference for ornate, polysyllabic words led him to select long keywords such as NORTHUMBERLANDSHIRE.

Finally, very sensitive information was coded replacing individual letters for arbitrarily selected substitutes, but repeated the process several times: e.g., A=K=N= I; N =A=R= - .

NOTES

INTRODUCTION: A TEST OF LOYALTY

The pivotal test of General James Wilkinson’s ( JW) uncertain loyalties received considerable publicity at Aaron Burr’s trials in the summer of 1807. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Cushing’s sworn affidavit was presented in court; see T. Carpenter’s The Trial of Colonel Aaron Burr on an Indictment of Treason, and reprinted in JW’s Burr’s Conspiracy exposed and General Wilkinson vindicated against the slanders of his enemies on that important occasion. JW’s own reactions were recorded in Burr’s Conspiracy. The widespread belief that he was in the pay of Spain, a “Spanish pensioner,” provided the basis of Burr’s defense. In their words, “General Wilkinson had an interest with the king of Spain.”

CHAPTER 1: THE PENNILESS ARISTOCRAT

The main sources for colonial Maryland’s aristocratic and tobacco culture are Aubrey C. Land’s rather old- fashioned Colonial Maryland— A History (Kraus International); Trevor Burnard’s Creole Gentlemen: The Maryland Elite, 1691–1776 (New York and London: Routledge, 2002); and Arthur Pierce Middleton’s Tobacco Coast: A Maritime History of Chesapeake Bay in the Colonial Era (Newport, VA: Mariners’ Museum, 1953). The background of JW’s ancestry and upbringing is taken from his Memoirs and from his two earlier biographies; James R. Jacobs’s meticulously researched Tarnished Warrior: Major-General James Wilkinson; and Thomas R. Hay and M. R. Werner’s Admirable Trumpeter: A Biography of General James Wilkinson. None of these sources refer to the near bankruptcy of Joseph Wilkinson. Evidence for this appears in the colonial probate records in the Maryland State Archives, Liber 52, 54, and 86 with relevant folios; in Calvert County tax assessments for 1783, MSA 1437; and in genealogical records of the Wilkinson and Heighe families.

8 “these bold and indigent strangers”: Quoted in The Conquest of the Old Southwest by Archibald Henderson (New York: Century, 1920).

8 “The Manners of Maryland are somewhat peculiar”: John Adams diary, November 21, 1777, Adams Family Papers (AFP), Massachusetts Historical Society, (digital) www.masshist.org/digitaladams/aea.

10 “The last words my father spoke to me”: Memoirs, 1:7–9.

12 For colonial Philadelphia, see The Private City: Philadelphia in Three Periods of Its Growth by Sam Bass Warner, Jr. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987).

12 “These inclinations were seconded” and JW’s time in Philadelphia: Memoirs, 1:11–13.

13 “The Rage Militaire”: quoted in Margaret Wheeler Willard, ed., Letters on the American Revolution, 1774–1776 (Boston, 1925).

CHAPTER 2: CITIZENS AND SOLDIERS

The rivalry between supporters of militia and professional soldiers in the Revolutionary War has been the subject of extensive research. I have consulted the following: Lawrence D. Cress’s Citizens in Arms:The Army and the Militia in American Society to the War of 1812 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), and his chapter “Reassessing American Military Requirements, 1783–1807” in Against All Enemies: Interpretations of American Military History from Colonial Times to the Present, edited by Kenneth J. Hagan and William R. Roberts (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1986); Ricardo A. Herrera, “Self-Governance and the American Citizen as Soldier, 1775– 1861,” Journal of Military History 65, no. 1 ( January 2001); Paul David Nelson, “Citizen Soldiers or Regulars: The Views of American General Officers on the Military Establishment, 1775–1781,” Military Affairs 43, no. 3 (October 1979); William B. Skelton, “The Confederation’s Regulars: A Social Profile of Enlisted Service in America’s First Standing Army,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 46, no. 4 (October 1989); and Skelton’s “Social Roots of the American Military Profession: The Officer Corps of America’s First Peacetime Army, 1784–1789,” Journal of Military History 54, no. 4 (October 1990).

15 “the familiarity which prevailed”: Memoirs, 1:33–34.

16 “no Dependence can be put on the Militia”: General George Washington to John Hancock, July 10, 1775.

16 “When I look to the consequences of it”: Quoted in The Correspondence of King George the Third from 1760 to December 1783, ed. John Fortescue (London: Frank Cass & Co., 1967).

16 “never desired to see better soldiers”: Quoted in Nelson, “Citizen Soldiers or Regulars.”

16 “A Standing Army, however necessary”: Samuel Adams to James Warren, January 7, 1776, Warren-Adams Letters, I.

16 “Our troops are animated”: Address of the Continental Congress to “The Inhabitants of the Colonies,” February 13, 1776, JCC.

17 “Men may speculate as they will”: Washington to John Banester, April 21, 1778, Writings of George Washington.

17 “The regiment was ordered for muster”: Memoirs, 1:34–35.