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

164 “General Wilkinson received me very coolly”: Power to Carondelet and Gayoso, undated, Clark, Proofs, note 43.

166 James McHenry’s directive to General James Wilkinson: McHenry to JW, March 12, 1797, WDP.

166 “There is strict discipline observed”: Power to Carondelet and Gayoso, Clark, Proofs, note 43.

166 “In fact the American peasant”: Murray, Travels in North America, 1834, 1835 & 1836 (New York: Harper, 1839), 2: 67–68, quoted in Prucha, “The United States Army as Viewed by British Travelers, 1825–1860.”

167 The challenge of peacetime soldiering in the period is detailed in Ricardo A. Herrera, “Self-Governance and the American Citizen as Soldier, 1775–1861.”

168 The fort “presents a frightful picture to the scientific soldier”: JW to Captain James Bruff, June 1797, quoted in Hay, Admirable Trumpeter, 163.

168 For JW’s disciplinary methods, see general orders issued from Fort Washington, May 22, 1797, and from Detroit, July 4, 20, and November 3, 10, 1797, cited in Hay, Admirable Trumpeter, 148.

169 Carondelet “ought not to be apprehensive”: Power to Carondelet and Gayoso, Clark, Proofs, note 43.

169 For Gayoso’s delaying tactics, see Ellicott, Journal of Andrew Ellicott, and Linklater, Fabric of America.

170 “that there is too much ground to think”: Pickering to Winthrop Sargent, August 1797, quoted in Hay, Admirable Trumpeter, 171.

170 “was strongly attached to the interest and welfare of our country”: Ellicott, Journal of Andrew Ellicott.

170 “a child of my own raising”: JW to Gayoso, February 6, 1797, Clark, Proofs, 42.

171 “You have a warm place in my affections”: JW to Ellicott, September 13, 1797, quoted in Ellicott, Journal of Andrew Ellicott.

171 “the chain of dependence”: JW to McHenry, August 1797. The argument continued through the end of the year, when McHenry proposed new regulations for the army. JW replied January 8, 1798, that they would result in “the destruction of subordination and Discipline.” McHenry then backed off, letting it be known that they were proposals only. WDP.

172 Ellicott’s dispatch to Pickering: Ellicott to Pickering, November 14, 1797, quoted in Catherine van C. Mathews, Andrew Ellicott: His Life and Letters (New York: Grafton Press, 1908), 161– 63.

172 The Little Turtle saga, “Could I be made instrumental”: JW to John Adams, December 26, 1797, quoted in James Wilkinson (grandson), “Paper Prepared and Read,” and John Adams’s reply, Adams to JW, February 4, 1798, The Works of John Adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown, 1856).

173 “I most sincerely wish an inquiry”: Wilkinson, “Paper Prepared and Read.”

173 “I esteem your talents”: Adams, Works.

174 “How is the subordination of the military to the civil power to be supported?”: “Review of the Propositions of Mr. Hillhouse,” 1808, ibid., vol 5.

174 “that provisions will always be made at Headquarters”: JW to Samuel Hodgdon, July 7, 1797, WDP.

175 “My Ann unusually hearty”: JW to Owen Biddle, December 24, 1797, quoted in Hay, Admirable Trumpeter, 169.

175 Ellicott report on Captain Guion’s behavior: Ellicott to Pickering, February 10, 1798, Ellicott Papers, LoC.

175 “Observed everywhere, I dare not communicate”: JW to Gayoso, March 5, 1798, legajo 2374.

CHAPTER 17: ELLICOTT’S DISCOVERY

My admiration and affection for Andrew Ellicott led me to include a study of him in The Fabric of America, and together with his Journal and the Andrew Ellicott Papers in the Library of Congress, this provides much of the background to this chapter.

177 “My Love,—I have at length worried the Spaniards out”: Ellicott to Sarah Ellicott, quoted in Mathews, Andrew Ellicott, 128.

177 JW’s visit to Ellicott’s camp followed by Clark’s to Loftus Heights were explored in Clark, Proofs, 62, 64, 79–80, and in Memoirs, 2:37, 133, 183.

178 “My friend, you are warranted”: Quoted in Linklater, Fabric of America.

180 Ellicott’s report: Ellicott to Pickering, November 8, 1798, quoted in Memoirs, 2:171. The original letter from Gayoso to Power was dated October 23, 1798.

180 “I have seen a letter of Mr. Power’s”: Ellicott to JW, December 16, 1798, quoted in Memoirs, 2:172.

180 “a beastly, criminal, and disgraceful intercourse”: Testimony of Thomas Freeman, April 10, 1811, at the court- martial of JW.

CHAPTER 18: THE FEDERALIST FAVORITE

The short-lived expansion of the army in the wake of the XYZ affair receives detailed attention from military historians cited earlier; it forms part of Theodore Crackel’s Mr. Jefferson’s Army and is the particular focus of Murphy, “John Adams: The Politics of the Additional Army, 1798–1800.”

182 “Four times from 1786 to 1792”: Pontalba’s memorandum, Gayarre, History of Louisiana, 410.

183 JW’s mutually admiring relationship with Hamilton was reported in Memoirs, 1:442–51, and as JW admitted, the latter’s friendly attitude “excited my admiration and gladdened my self love.”

183 “I am aware that some doubts have been entertained of him”: Hamilton to Washington, June 15, 1799; Washington to Hamilton, June 25, 1799, PGW.

184 “The anxiety of my wife at the idea of our separation”: JW to Gayoso, May 14, 1799, legajo 2375.

184 “a few cranberries”: JW to Gayoso, May 15, 1799, ibid.

184 “Would you take the trouble”: JW to Gayoso, Arpil 20, 1799, ibid.

184 “I left Mrs. Wilkinson”: JW to Ellicott, June 12, 1799, Ellicott Papers, LoC.

185 The ban on wearers of the “French cockade”: Reported in Centinel, quoted in Crackel, Mr. Jefferson’s Army.

185 “when a clever force has been collected”: Hamilton to Sedgwick, February 2, 1799, The Works of Alexander Hamilton, federal ed., ed. Henry Cabot Lodge (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904), vol. 10.

185 “whenever the Government appears in arms”: Hamilton to McHenry, March 18, 1799, ibid.

186 “brave, enterprising, active and diligent”: Hamilton to Adams, September 7, 1799, quoted in Memoirs, 2:157.

186 Washington’s last strategic advice: Washington to Hamilton, September 15, 1799, PGW.

186 “I cannot more safely consign my own Interest”: quoted in Hay, Admirable Trumpeter, 184.

CHAPTER 19: JEFFERSON’S GENERAL

The constitutional importance of JW’s relationship with Jefferson makes the military studies of this period exceptionally useful, especially Crackel’s distinguished Mr. Jefferson’s Army, Skelton’s counterbalancing An American Profession of Arms, and Jackson’s “Jefferson, Meriwether Lewis, and the Reduction of the United States Army.”

188 “Blooming still as Hebe”: JW to Hamilton, March 24, 1800, Lodge, Works of Alexander Hamilton.

188 “I defy the most prized of mortal”: JW to Hamilton, June 27, 1800, ibid.

189 “Through all parts of the Country”: Adams to McHenry, May 8, 1800, Adams, Works of John Adams.