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

132 “the old man really is mad”: Ibid., 250.

132 “My General treats me with great civility”: JW to Innes, October 3, 1793, Innes Papers, vol. 23.

132 “into the nature and degree of the Confusion of Stores”: Knox to Wayne, December 28, 1793, WDP.

132 “Your remarks of the disproportionate punishments of death”: Knox to JW, July 17, 1792, WDP.

132 “Mrs. W. ventures to hope your Excellency”: JW to Wayne, December 20, 1793, quoted in Jacobs, Tarnished Warrior, 118.

133 “to retard, disjoint and defeat the mediated irruption”: JW’s accounts presented to Carondelet, September 22, 1796, legajo 2375.

CHAPTER 13: POISONED VICTORY

The sources here are also those of the previous chapter.

134 “two distinct Parties”: Nelson, Anthony Wayne, 251.

134 “I am unsettled in my purpose”: JW to Innes, March 12, 1794, Innes Papers, vol. 23.

134 “I owe so much to my own feelings”: JW to John Brown, August 28, 1794, Innes Papers, vol. 23.

135 Article signed “Army Wretched”: Nelson, Anthony Wayne, 255.

135 “During my stay I found him attending”: Ibid.

138 The Battle of Fallen Timbers: JW’s jaundiced account of the march and battle was conveyed in a long letter to John Brown written after the fighting, JW to Brown, August 28, 1794. See Quaife, “General James Wilkinson’s Narrative of the Fallen Timbers Campaign,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, June 1929, 81–90.

CHAPTER 14: THE BATTLE FOR COMMAND

JW’s relentless battle for command and his desperate need for money from New Orleans swamped all other considerations, leaving the correspondence with Henry Knox and Carondelet as the major sources of information for this period in his life.

140 Official report on the battle: Wayne to Knox, August 29, 1794, American State Papers, 3rd Cong., 2nd sess., Indian Affairs, vol. 1.

140 “Yet the specious name of Victory”: JW to Brown, August 28, 1794, Innes Papers, vol. 23.

140 “The whole operation presents”: November 10, 1794, JW to Innes, ibid.

141 “a liar, a drunkard”: December 1794, JW to Innes, ibid.

141 “You must rest assured that your military reputation”: December 4, marked “private”; followed by December 5, 1794, Henry Knox to JW, WDP.

141 For the military costs involved, see Kohn, Eagle and Sword.

142 “I always indulged the Brigadier”: Wayne to Knox, January 25, 1795, quoted, with comments on Wayne’s surprise at JW’s animosity, in Nelson, Anthony Wayne, 276.

142 The Robert Newman affair was almost certainly contrived by Wayne to destroy JW’s connections to the British in Canada, which he believed had led to the sabotage of the Legion’s supplies. JW’s outrage, after Nolan tracked down Newman and got an inkling of what had happened, crystallized his hatred of Wayne.

143 Wilkinson’s claim for financial reward for defeating Clark: JW to Carondelet, April 30, 1794, Archivo Historico Nacional, Madrid, estado legajo 3898.

143 “Do not believe me avaricious”: JW to Carondelet, undated, Papeles de Cuba, legajo 2374.

144 The story of Owens, the silver dollars, and the arrest of his murderers was extensively covered in Clark’s Proofs, 17–19, and in the attached affidavit of Thomas Power, Proofs, 115.

147 The political campaign and Sedam’s remark “by many Genl. Wayne has been Sensured”: Nelson, Anthony Wayne, 277.

CHAPTER 15: DEATH OF A RIVAL

In addition to the military sources already cited, the diplomatic background is detailed in Kukla’s A Wilderness So Immense, and JW’s double triumph in securing command of the army and silver from Carondelet is also sourced in War Department documents and Spanish archives.

148 “vile assassin”: Wayne to Knox, January 29, 1795, quoted in Jacobs, Tarnished Warrior.

149 JW’s replies to Knox’s private and public letters: JW to Knox, January 1 and January 2, 1795, WDP.

149 Of Timothy Pickering, David McCullough wrote in John Adams (Simon & Schuster, 2001), “In many ways, Pickering might have served as the model New Englander for those who disliked the type. Tall, lean, and severe looking with a lantern jaw and hard blue eyes, he was Salem-born and bred, a Harvard graduate, proud, opinionated, self- righteous, and utterly humorless,” 472.

150 “If my very damned and unparalleled crosses”: JW to John Adair, August 7, 1795, Clark, Proofs, notes 32. Polishing his frank, open guise, JW described himself as “a man of Mercury, whose heart and tongue are in unison.”

150 For the background to the San Lorenzo treaty, see Kukla, A Wilderness So Immense. 151 In April 1790, JW specifically advised Miro to add a garrison of two hundred to the fort at New Madrid, and fifty oarsmen for the galleys. To the total of his treacherous assistance should be added his betrayal of a reconnaissance party under Major Doughty exploring a route from Kentucky to New Orleans in 1790. After JW warned Miro of their movements and suggested an armed response, Miro sent Creek warriors to attack them, and several in the party were killed. Cox, in “Louisiana-Texas Frontier III,” suggests JW also briefed the Spanish on the proper border to defend during the 1805 negotiations with Monroe and Pinckney.

151 Harry Innes’s correspondence with Gayoso, and his involvement in the Spanish Conspiracy, are covered in detail in Whitaker, “Harry Innes and the Spanish Intrigue: 1794–1795.”

152 Joseph de Pontalba’s memorandum and career in New Orleans, where he lived for eighteen years, are described in Gayarre, History of Louisiana. But his subsequent imprisonment and emotional torture of his wealthy daughter-in- law, ending in her murder and his suicide, is an operatic tragedy that falls outside Gayarre’s canvas.

152 “And G.W. can aspire to the same dignity”: Carondelet to JW, July 16, 1795, legajo 2374.

152 Clark’s Proofs and Power’s affidavit are the primary sources for Carondelet and Gayoso’s contacts with JW, but JW provides his own defensive gloss in Memoirs, volume 2, repeatedly between pages 37 and 219.

154 “This accomplished, you will most probably have me for a neighbour”: JW to Innes, September 4, 1796, Harry Innes Papers, vol. 23.

154 “determination to inculcate”: JW’s general order, December 13, 1795.

155 Power’s second visit to JW was again the subject of Clark’s Proofs and his own testimony and was again rebutted by JW’s Memoirs, vol. 2.

156 The military consequences of the three treaties, Jay, Greeneville, and San Lorenzo, are detailed in Kohn, Eagle and Sword, 183, and Cress, Citizens in Arms, 133.

157 “to get rid of Genl Wayne”: Quoted in Nelson, Anthony Wayne, 291.

157 The drama of smuggling $9,640 past Fort Massac to JW’s bank account was described by Thomas Power in note 36 in Clark, Proofs.

159 “My views at Philadelphia”: JW to Carondelet, September 22, 1796, legajo 2375.

159 JW’s encounter with Andrew Ellicott was described in The Journal of Andrew Ellicott.

160 “I am proud of my little Sons”: Hay, “Letters of Mrs. Ann Biddle Wilkinson.”

160 “The fact is my presence with the army”: Wayne to James McHenry, July 28, 1796, quoted in Nelson, Anthony Wayne, 296.

161 “It is generally agreed that some cavalry”: Washington to the House of Representatives, February 28, 1797, PGW.

CHAPTER 16: THE NEW COMMANDER IN CHIEF

Despite its mendacity, JW’s Memoirs becomes the crucial text during the brief period when his public life as commanding general came close to coinciding with his private interests.

164 “You will endeavour to discover, with your natural penetration”: Carondelet to Power, May 26, 1797, Clark, Proofs, note 38.