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

320 “that I should descend to so unmeaning an act of treason”: Jefferson to Monroe, January 11 or 12, 1812, PTJ.

321 The story of Chisholm’s unexpected encounter with Jefferson and JW appears in Isaac Joslin Cox, “The Louisiana-Texas Frontier I.” Cox’s authority lends weight to his conclusion: “We are led to believe that Jefferson’s interest in Nolan extended farther than to the latter’s description of the wild horses of Texas.”

321 “I have ever and carefully restrained myself”: Jefferson to Monroe, January 11 or 12, 1812, PTJ.

322 “Suppose I get you a plantation adjoining me”: JW to van Rensselaer, December 29, 1815, Wilkinson Papers, N.Y. State Library.

322 “Blessed with my Celestine and two beloved little daughters”: JW to M. R. Thompson, January 14, 1818, Darlington MSS, University of Pittsburgh. Thompson, a wealthy Baltimore merchant, was a new friend who brought out the best of JW’s domestic side.

323 “new flushed, as elastic as [a] Billiard Ball”: Ibid.

323 “You can not find any one of virtue & Intelligence”: JW to van Rensselaer, January 16, 1821, Wilkinson Papers, N.Y. State Library.

325 “more the Lamb than the Lion, the Spinster than the Soldier” and “literally a Washington in all his great qualities”: JW to Jefferson, March 21, 1824, PTJ.

325 “slothful, ready to vice, insensible to social affection”: JW’s memorial to Iturbide appears in Bolton, “General James Wilkinson as Advisor to Emperor Iturbide.”

325 “divinely situated on the Coast of the Gulph”: JW to Jonathan Williams, December 1822, quoted in Jacobs, Tarnished Warior, 308.

327 That JW was caught on the horns of a dilemma, unable to make his fortune and too proud to return penniless, was made clear in a letter to Thomas Aspinwall, U.S. consul in London. JW said he needed to make a fortune in order not to have to depend on “gifts and graces” from the “little Jesuit Madison or his Bi-faced friend Monroe.” JW to Aspinwall, April 17, 1823, printed in Bulletin N.Y. State Library 3:362.

327 “I have just made a contract apparently”: JW to Joseph Wilkinson, February 25, 1825, Tarnished Warrior, 311.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

NOTES ON SOURCES

There has never been a shortage of material on James Wilkinson. He hoarded letters and papers obsessively, and his notoriety in his own lifetime ensured that many people either corresponded directly with him or made reference to his activities. The only problem is to make sense of information, which was rarely biased toward the truth.

James Wilkinson’s papers are widely distributed. The largest single collection, the James Wilkinson Papers, containing about 650 documents, is held by the Chicago Historical Society. Other notable sources are the Filson Historical Society of Louisville, Kentucky, covering the period 1784 to 1805, especially Wilkinson’s land deals and separatist activity; the Pennsylvania Historical Society, for papers relating to the Biddle family and Wilkinson’s political activities to 1807; the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, the Winthrop Sargent and William Claiborne Letters for the period 1795 to 1807; the Missouri Historical Society, covering Wilkinson’s governorship and exploration; and the Library of Congress (LoC). In this last location are also to be found important collections relevant to Wilkinson’s life: the Andrew Ellicott Papers relating to their connection, 1795 to 1807; Harry Innes Papers, particularly volumes 19, 22, and 23, containing Wilkinson’s business correspondence, 1784 to 1805; Thomas Jefferson Papers (TJP), correspondence from 1800 to 1824; George Washington Papers (GWP), letters and references, 1776 to 1799; and the Papeles Procedentes de Cuba of the Archivo General de Indias, in particular photostats of legajos (bundles) numbers 2373, 2374, and 2375, containing most of Wilkinson’s coded communications.

The Jefferson and Washington Papers are also available online at, respectively, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/jefferson_papers/index.html., and http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu:8080/founders/GEWN.html, as are other LoC sources: American State Papers; Journals of the Continental Congress (JCC); Letters of the Continental Congress; and the Annals of Congress— at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/browse/index.html. The Adams Family Papers (AFP) have been assembled online by the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the War Department Papers (WDP), once widely scattered, have been brought together at the Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, also available online.

Many of Wilkinson’s official letters were also published in his different volumes of memoirs.

UNPUBLISHED PAPERS

Archivo General de Indias. Papeles Procedentes de Cuba (PPC), legajos 2373, 2374, and 2375. LoC. The library also has photostats of manuscripts from the Archivo Historico Nacional, Madrid, containing references to Wilkinson.

Andrew Ellicott Papers. LoC.

Harry Innes Papers. LoC.

War Department Papers. Center for History and New Media. George Mason University. http://wardepartmentpapers.org/index.php.

James Wilkinson Papers. Chicago Historical Society.

CONTEMPORARY SOURCES

Adams, Charles F. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams. 12 vols. Vol 9. Philadelphia: 1874–77. Adams Family Papers (AFP). Massachusetts Historical Society. (digital) www.masshist.org/digitaladams/aea.

American State Papers. LoC. (ASP)

—Foreign Relations. Vol. 1, 1789–1819.

—Indian Affairs. Vol. 1, 1789–1819.

—Military Affairs. Vol. 1, 1789–1819.

Annals of Congress (AC) Burke, Edmund. Reflections on the Revolution in France. 1790. Reprint, New York and London: Penguin Classics, 1986.

Burr, Aaron. Memoirs of Aaron Burr with Miscellaneous Selections from His Correspondence. Ed. Matthew West. New York: Harper & Bros., 1834.

———. The Private Journal of Aaron Burr During His Residence of Four Years in Europe. 2 vols. New York: Harper, 1838.

Carpenter, T. The Trial of Colonel Aaron Burr on an Indictment of Treason. Washington, DC: Westcott, 1808.

Clark, Daniel. Proofs of the Corruption of General James Wilkinson and of His Connexion with Aaron Burr. Philadelphia: Hall & Pierie, 1809.

Ellicott, Andrew. The Journal of Andrew Ellicott, late Commissioner on behalf of the United States . . . for determining the boundary between the United States and the possessions of his Catholic Majesty in America . . . With six maps . . . To which is added an appendix containing all the astronomical observations made, etc. Philadelphia, 1803.

Filson, John. The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucke. Wilmington, Adams, 1784.

Foster, Thomas, ed. The Collected Works of Benjamin Hawkins, 1796–1810. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2003.

Imlay, Gilbert. A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America. 3rd ed. London: J. Debrett, 1797. Reprint, New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1969.

Kilty, John. Land Holder’s Assistant and Land Office Guide. Baltimore: G. Dobbin &Murphy, 1808. MSA L 25529.

Jefferson, Thomas. Notes on the State of Virginia. 1785. Reprint, New York, Evanston, London: Harper Torchbook, 1964.

———. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1950–74. Online: American Memory, LoC (PTJ).