James Wilkinson

James Wilkinson was born on March 24, 1757, the son of Joseph Wilkinson and Alethea (Heighe) Wilkinson. Wilkinson's birthplace was about three miles (5 km) northeast of Benedict, Charles County, Maryland, on a farm south of Hunting Creek in Calvert County.[7][8]

Wilkinson's grandfather had been sufficiently wealthy to buy a large property known as Stoakley Manor in Calvert County.[2]^:9 Even though James Wilkinson's family lived on a smaller estate than those of Maryland's elite, they still saw themselves as members of the higher social class.[2]^:9 According to historian Andro Linklater, Wilkinson grew up with the idea that "the image of respectability excused the reality of betrayal".[9] His father inherited Stoakley Manor but by then the family was in debt.[2]^:10 Joseph Wilkinson died in 1763 and in 1764 Stoakley Manor was broken up and sold.[2]^:10 Wilkinson's older brother Joseph inherited what was left of the manor property after his father died.[2]^:10 As the second son, James Wilkinson inherited no land.[2]^:10

Wilkinson's father had left him with the last words of "My son, if you ever put up with an insult, I will disinherit you."[9] Biographer Andro Linklater argued that this upbringing led to Wilkinson's aggressive reaction toward perceived insults.[2]^:7–14 Wilkinson's early education by a private tutor was funded by his maternal grandmother.[2]^:11 His study of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, also funded by his grandmother, was interrupted by the American Revolutionary War.[10]

Wilkinson married Ann Biddle (1742–1807) of the prominent Biddle family of Philadelphia[11] on November 12, 1778, in Philadelphia.[11] She was a first cousin of Charles Biddle, an associate of Aaron Burr,[12] and Wilkinson's marriage to the dynamic Biddle helped his career as a politician and general.[12][13] She died on February 23, 1807.[14][15]

The couple had four sons: John (1780–1796), James Biddle (c. 1783–1813),[16] Joseph Biddle (1789–1865), and Walter (born 1791). James and Walter both served as Captains in the US Army.[17]^:34 [18]

On March 5, 1810, Wilkinson married Celestine Laveau Trudeau, widow of Thomas Urquhart and daughter of Charles Laveau Trudeau.[19] They were the parents of twin girls Marie Isabel and Elizabeth Stephanie.[20] Celestine's father, known in Louisiana as Don Carlos Trudeau, had served in the Spanish government of New Orleans.[21] When the United States gained control of the city, he remained in New Orleans and anglicized his name.[21]

Marie Isabel Wilkinson died in infancy.[20] Elizabeth Stephanie Wilkinson (1816-1871) married Professor Toussaint Francois Bigot (1794-1869) in 1833.[20]

Wilkinson first served in Thompson's Pennsylvania rifle battalion, 1775–76, and was commissioned a captain in September 1775. He served as an aide to Nathanael Greene during the Siege of Boston, participated in the placing of guns on the Dorchester Heights in March 1776, and following the British abandonment of Boston, went with the rest of the Continental Army to New York where he left Greene's staff and was given command of an infantry company.

Sent to Canada as part of the reinforcements for Benedict Arnold's army besieging Quebec, he arrived just in time to witness the arrival of 8,000 British reinforcements under General John Burgoyne – which precipitated the collapse of the American effort in Canada. He became aide to Arnold just prior to the final retreat and left Canada with Arnold on the very last boat out. Shortly thereafter, he left Arnold's service and became an aide to General Horatio Gates in August 1776.

When Gates sent him to Congress with official dispatches about the victory at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, Wilkinson kept Congress waiting while he attended to personal affairs. When he finally showed up, he embellished his own role in the victory, and was brevetted as a brigadier general (despite being only 20 years old at the time) on November 6, 1777, and appointed to the newly created Board of War. The promotion over more senior colonels caused an uproar among Continental officers, especially because Wilkinson's gossiping seemed to indicate he was a participant in the Conway Cabal, a conspiracy to replace George Washington with Horatio Gates as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. Gates soon had enough of Wilkinson, and the young officer was compelled to resign in March 1778. On July 29, 1779, Congress appointed him clothier-general of the Army, but he resigned on March 27, 1781, due to his "lack of aptitude for the job".[2]^:68

Although eligible, Wilkinson did not join The Society of the Cincinnati as an original member when it was established in 1783. He did however qualify for membership and became eligible for representation by a living descendant after the "Rule of 1854" was adopted by the Society as a way to revive the membership.[22][23]

After his resignation from the Continental Army, Wilkinson reluctantly became a brigadier general in the Pennsylvania militia in 1782 and also a state assemblyman in 1783, due to the wishes of George Washington.[2]^:62 He moved to Kentucky (at that time, just three counties still belonging to Virginia) in 1784, and he was active there in efforts to achieve independence from Virginia.

In April 1787, Wilkinson made a highly controversial trip to New Orleans, which was the capital of Spanish colonial Louisiana.[2]^:80 At that time, Americans were allowed to trade on the Mississippi River, but they had to pay a hefty tariff.[24] Wilkinson met with Spanish Governor Esteban Rodríguez Miró and managed to convince him to allow Kentucky to have a trading monopoly on the River; in return he promised to promote Spanish interests in the west.[25] On August 22, 1787, Wilkinson signed an expatriation declaration and swore allegiance to the King of Spain to satisfy his own commercial needs.[2]^:86 The "Spanish Conspiracy", as it is known, was initiated by Wilkinson's "First Memorial", a 7,500-word report written before he left New Orleans for Charleston, to the Spanish concerning the "political future of western settlers" and to convince Spain to "admit us [Kentuckians] under protection as vassals".[2]^:85 This was encoded with myriad symbols, numbers, and letters that was decoded via a complex English-Spanish cipher code-named "Number 13", which became the basis for his pseudonym, "Agent 13".[2]^:88

Upon returning to Kentucky in February 1788, Wilkinson vigorously opposed the new U.S. Constitution. Kentucky had very nearly achieved statehood under the old Articles of Confederation, and there was widespread disappointment when this was delayed because of the new constitution.

Leading up to Kentucky's seventh convention regarding separation from Virginia in November 1788, Wilkinson attempted to gauge the support for Kentucky to seek union with Spain. Wilkinson's ability to win people over with his charm and sincerity got him elected committee chairman at the convention. He advocated for Kentucky to seek independence from Virginia first, and then to consider joining the Union of states as a second step. For many, joining the Union was conditional upon the Union negotiating with Spain to arrange free navigation on the Mississippi River, a contentious point which many doubted the eastern states would act upon.

Unable to gather enough support for his position at the convention, Wilkinson then approached Miró with a proposal. His intention was to obtain a grant of 60,000 acres (243 km²) in the Yazoo lands, at the junction of the Yazoo River and the Mississippi (near present-day Vicksburg). The land was to serve as payment for Wilkinson's efforts on behalf of Spain, and to serve as a refuge in the event he and his supporters had to flee from the United States. Wilkinson asked for and received a pension of $7,000 from Miró, while requesting pensions on behalf of several prominent Kentuckians, including: Harry Innes, Benjamin Sebastian, John Brown, Caleb Wallace, Benjamin Logan, Isaac Shelby, George Muter, George Nicholas, and even Humphrey Marshall (who at one time was a bitter rival of Wilkinson's).

However, by 1788 Wilkinson had apparently lost the confidence of officials in Spain. Miró was not to grant any of the proposed pensions and was forbidden from giving money to support a revolution in Kentucky. Furthermore, Wilkinson continued to secretly receive funds from Spain for many years.

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Lieut. Colonel-commandant Wilkinson's Report, August 24, 1791

In the Northwest Indian War, Colonel Wilkinson led a force of Kentucky volunteers against American Indians at Ouiatenon in May 1791. He commanded a follow-up raid that autumn, highlighted by the Battle of Kenapacomaqua. In October he received a commission in the U.S. Army as lieutenant colonel, commandant of the 2nd U.S. Infantry.

After the end of his military career, Wilkinson was appointed as U.S. Envoy to Mexico. This was during the period of the Mexican War of Independence against Spain, which was won in 1821. In that year, Wilkinson requested a Texas land grant. While awaiting the Mexican government's approval of his land scheme, Wilkinson died in Mexico City on December 28, 1825, at the age of 68. He was buried in Mexico City.[8]

Wilkinson's involvement with the Spanish (as Agent 13) was widely suspected in his own day, but it was not proven until 1854, with Louisiana historian Charles Gayarré's publication of the American general's correspondence with Esteban Rodríguez Miró, Louisiana's colonial governor between 1785 and 1791. Other historians subsequently added to the catalog of Wilkinson's treasonous activities.

Some 65 years after the general's misdeeds, then-Governor of New York Theodore Roosevelt condemned him in print: "In all our history, there is no more despicable character."[5] Historian Robert Leckie characterized him as "a general who never won a battle or lost a court-martial", while Frederick Jackson Turner called Wilkinson "the most consummate artist in treason that the nation ever possessed". George Rogers Clark biographer Temple Bodley said of Wilkinson, "He had considerable military talent, but used it only for his own gain."

• Frankfort, Kentucky's downtown was created from land owned by Wilkinson, and he designed the layout. A major street, which runs along historic Liberty Hall, was named Wilkinson Street.[34]
• New Orleans has a short street called Wilkinson named for James Wilkinson, in the French Quarter near Jackson Square.[35] There is also a Wilkinson Street in Mandeville, Louisiana. Many of the oldest streets in Mandeville, close to Lake Pontchartrain, are named after prominent New Orleans residents of the late 18th and early 19th centuries or for Battle of New Orleans heroes.
• Wilkinson County, Georgia, is named for Wilkinson. A Georgia historical marker on the courthouse square gives a brief biography of the general and identifies him as the source of the county's name. (The entry on the county in the usually reliable reference Georgia Place Names, by the late Kenneth Krakow, confuses James Wilkinson with James Marion Wilkinson, a Valdosta, Georgia, politician and railroad executive, but the latter Wilkinson was born decades after the county was founded.)
• Wilkinson County, Mississippi, is named for General Wilkinson as well. It was there in the Old Natchez District that Wilkinson spent much of his time, allegedly plotting the Burr Conspiracy; Fort Adams (then an important U.S. Army post) was constructed by Wilkinson as the most southwesterly point in the U.S. and the last American stop on the Mississippi River before entering Spanish territory.
• Wilkinson was an avid supporter of the military's short-hair codes. He attempted to prosecute Colonel Thomas Butler, a veteran of both the Revolution and the Indian wars, for keeping his long hair. Colonel Butler died before the trials closed. He never did cut his long, braided queue prior to his death and a possibly apocryphal story tells that his last request was for a hole to be drilled in his casket so that the queue could hang out and taunt Wilkinson even in death.[36]
• Wilkinson was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1789.[37]

• Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long – Wilkinson's niece, nicknamed "Mother of Texas"
• Philip Nolan – Wilkinson's protege

• Jacobs, James Ripley. Tarnished Warrior: Major-General James Wilkinson. New York: Macmillan Company, 1938.
• King, John D. "Doctors Afield: General James Wilkinson." New England Journal of Medicine, 279:1043, 1968.
• Linklater, Andro. An Artist in Treason: The Extraordinary Double Life of General James Wilkinson (Walker Publishing Company, 2009)
• Narrett, David E., "Geopolitics and Intrigue: James Wilkinson, the Spanish Borderlands, and Mexican Independence", William and Mary Quarterly 69 (January 2012), 101–46. online
• Nelson, Paul David. "Wilkinson, James (1757–28 December 1825)" American National Biography (1999)
• Posey, John Thornton. "Rascality Revisited: In Defense of General James Wilkinson." Filson Club Historical Quarterly 74 (2000): 309–52.

• James Wilkinson, A Study in Controversy
• Spaniards, Scoundrels, and Statesmen: General James Wilkinson and the Spanish Conspiracy, 1787–1790
• Texas Handbook Online
• Wilkinson Bio in Commanding Generals and Chiefs of Staff 1775–1995, a publication of the United States Army Center of Military History
• Encyclopedia Louisiana
• William Harrison Safford, ed. (1864). The Blennerhassett papers. Moore, Wilstach & Baldwin. ISBN 0-405-02882-2. wilkinson burr.
• "Wilkinson Portraits". Historical Society of Frederick County. Retrieved 2012-10-17.
• James Wilkinson at Find a Grave
• James Wilkinson Estate Collection at The Historic New Orleans Collection
• Guide to the Reuben T. Durrett Collection of James Wilkinson Papers 1784-1882 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
• The Society of the Cincinnati
• The American Revolution Institute