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

750

To do. remitted by J. E. Collins

6350

1796 Jan. 4, To do. paid Philip Nolan per receipt

9000

To balance due J. W.

2095

29,995

Cr[edit].

By net proceeds of 235 hogshead of Tobacco condemned

in the year 1790 by Arietta, and passed in the year 1791 by Brion—

17874

By so much recovered for loss sustained on the cargo

of the boat Speedwell—

6121

By so much sent by H. Owen, insured—

6000

29,995

Balance due James Wilkinson

$2095

New Orleans, January 4, 1796.

(Errors excepted) for Don E. M.

Gilbert Leonard.

This should be compared to the real account kept by his Spanish handlers: see Appendix 1.

295 “to vary or expunge any rank Epithet”: Jacobs, Tarnished Warrior, 251.

296 “to take care of the interests of the North:” Samuel Perkins, History of the Political and Military Events of the Late War between the United States and Great Britain.

297 “I therefore feel anxious not only to add the Floridas to the South”: Grundy, December 9, 1811, Annals of Congress.

298 “It has been hinted to me that I may be recalled”: Hay, Admirable Trumpeter, 313.

299 The capture of Mobile: Memoirs, 3:339-41.

300 “Why should you remain in your land of cypress”: John Armstrong to JW, March 12, 1813, ibid., 3:342.

CHAPTER 29: THE LAST BATTLE

JW’s role in the Canadian campaign is reflected darkly through Memoirs, vol. 3, written around the defense he presented in his last trial. The military background comes primarily from Quimby, The U.S. Army in the War of 1812: An Operational and Command Study; Skelton, An American Profession of Arms; Stagg, Mr. Madison’s War; and as always Henry Adams provided the broader view.

302 “a general officer does not expose his person”: JW’s comment represents the shift from the front-led collisions of eighteenth-century warfare, to the distantly generaled battles of maneuver that Napoleon bequeathed to the nineteenth century. It was unfortunate for JW, and the entire army, that Armstrong remained mired in the earlier era.

302 “struck at the very foundation of military character”: Memoirs, 3:345.

305 “Two heads on the same shoulder”: JW to Armstrong, August 24, 1813, American State Papers, Military Affairs.

306 “I have escaped my pallet and with a giddy head”: September 16, 1813, ibid.

306 “General Wilkinson arrived this day in Sackett’s Harbor”: Armstrong’s entry quoted in Memoirs, 3:69.

307 “in my feeble condition”: Ibid., 3:71.

307 The story of the St. Lawrence campaign comes from Adams, History of the United States, 7:193–98; the testimony of General Lewis in Memoirs, 3:128–29; and JW’s reports in American State Papers, Military Affairs, 1: 462–79.

308 JW’s poor health was apparent in a flood of references: October 28 he was “very ill”; on November 2 “very feeble”; on November 30 “sick”; and on December 7 “seriously indisposed.” Colonel Joseph Swift thought that between the two commanders, “Wilkinson and Lewis had not a day of sound health.” November 21, 1813, Swift, Memoirs, 122.

310 “The mortality spread so deep a gloom over our camps”: Memoirs, vol. 3, appendix 9.

310 “on which a box is placed to receive my bed”: Hay, Admirable Trumpeter, 323.

310 “He threatens to make a dash soon”: Daniel Tompkins to Armstrong, ibid., 324.

310 “blasted all my hopes”: Memoirs, vol. 3, appendix 53.

310 La Colle Mill skirmish: Ibid., 3:102.

CHAPTER 30: THE CHANGING OF THE GUARD

The proceedings of JW’s court-martial form the core of Memoirs, vol. 3. The final stages of his life are covered by his letters, the autobiographical torrent finally running dry with the publication of Memoirs, vol. 2, in 1816. Academic sources are Thomas R. Hay, “Some Reflections on the Career of General James Wilkinson,” and for his last days in Mexico, Bolton, “General James Wilkinson as Advisor to Emperor Iturbide.”

313 JW’s successful protest against his court- martial: Memoirs, 3:492–93.

313 JW’s family loss left Celestine distraught: Jacobs, Tarnished Warrior, 282. JW was seemingly a caring father; shortly before James Biddle left with Pike’s expedition in 1806, JW wrote anxiously to the hard-driving Pike, “My Son has the foundation of a good Constitution but it must be tempered by degrees, do not push Him beyond his capacities in hardships too suddenly. He will I hope attempt any thing but let the stuff be hardened by degrees.”

314 Henry Adams’s scathing account of the burning of Washington ends with a bitter jab: “Before midnight the flames of three great conflagrations made the whole country light, and from the distant hills of Maryland and Virginia the flying President and Cabinet caught glimpses of the ruin their incompetence had caused.”

314 JW’s account of the opening of the court- martial, and his success in disposing of Van Buren, Memoirs, 3:4–22.

315 “a vice my soul detests”: Supported by the testimony of several witnesses, ibid., 3:104, 144–45, 163, 211.

315 “He is hereby honourably acquitted”: Ibid., 3:496.

315 “the first victory gained over the enemy on a plain”: Quoted in Kimball, “The Battle of Chippawa: Infantry Tactics in the War of 1812.”

316 “The British were beaten. It was evident”: Fortescue, History of the British Army, 10:109–10.

316 “that so great a difference existed between regular troops and a militia force”: Madison quoted in Carl Benn, The War of 1812 (New York: Osprey Publishing, 2002), 20.

317 “The Die is Cast,” Cushing wrote when he heard of his forcible retirement, “unless it should please the President of the United States to reward me for long and faithful services by a civil office, I shall be left on the verge of sixty years of age, after devoting almost forty years to the military service of my country, with no other prospect before me but that of spending the remnant of my days in poverty and wretchedness.” Quoted in Skelton, “Social Roots of the American Military Profession.”

317 “General Wilkinson has broken through all decorum”: Dallas to Madison, August 3, 1815, Dallas, Life of Dallas, 436.

320 “As to Long Tom—meaning you”: JW to Jefferson, January 21, 1811, PTJ.