An Artist in Treason: The Extraordinary Double Life of General James Wilkinson
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For almost two decades, through the War of 1812, James Wilkinson was the senior general in the United States Army. Amazingly, he was also Agent 13 in the Spanish secret service at a time when Spain's empire dominated North America. Wilkinson's audacious career as a double agent is all the more remarkable because it was an open secret, circulated regularly in newspapers and pamphlets. His saga illuminates just how fragile and vulnerable the young republic was: No fewer than our first four presidents turned a blind eye to his treachery and gambled that the mercurial general would never betray the army itself and use it too overthrow the nascent union—a faith that was ultimately rewarded. The Barnes & Noble Review In my battered copy of Arthur Schlesinger's Almanac of American History, James Wilkinson, commanding general of the United States Army, is introduced, with professorial blandness, simply as the man who, in November 1806, "reveals the Aaron Burr conspiracy to carve out an empire in the American Southwest and Mexico. But in his wonderful novel Burr, Gore Vidal pulls the middle-aged general snorting and belching into the spotlight and sits him down on the other side of the table for the reader to see: "a fat, soft man with loose jowls and a concentrated fierce gaze, rather like that of a sow about to cannibalise her piglets." Wilkinson's once clear voice, Vidal notes, "had grown harsh from drink." He "guzzled port." He wears a fantastically elaborate blue-and-yellow uniform he had designed himself, "calculated to make a Napoleonic marshal look drab as a Jesuit."
MapsEast of the Mississippi River viiWest of the Mississippi River ViiiIntroduction: A Test of Loyalty 11 The Penniless Aristocrat 72 Citizens and Soldiers 153 Wooing General Gates 244 The Triumph of Saratoga 335 Betraying General Gates 446 Love and Independence 607 The Kentucky Pioneer 718 Spanish Temptation 819 Cash and Conspiracy 9310 Enshackled by Debt 10311 A General Again 11312 Discipline and Deceit 12413 Poisoned Victory 13414 The Battle for Command 14015 Death of a Rival 14816 The New Commander in Chief 16317 Ellicott's Discovery 17718 The Federalist Favorite 18219 Jefferson's General 18820 Agent 13 Reborn 20221 Burr's Ambition 21422 Betrayer Betrayed 22523 The General at Bay 23824 His Country's Savior 24725 The General Redeemed 25626 Two Traitors on Trial 26427 The War with Randolph 27628 Madison's Accusations 28929 The Last Battle 30130 The Changing of the Guard 312Acknowledgments 329Appendix 1 331Appendix 2 333Notes 335Bibliography 367Index 377
