HYPERBOLE IN PERSON Trying to fire William Stanton

I guess the modern politician whom Edwin Stanton reminds me of most is Dick Cheney. Physically they were very similar, and they shared the post of Secretary of War, albeit a century apart. Like Dick Cheney, Stanton was a Prima Donna who displayed a self indulgent affection for conspiracies, and practiced such hyperbole that “At certain crises…doubts of his sanity were widespread…”(p 286 – “Lincolns War Cabinet” Hendrick). . There were differences, of course. Stanton never actually shot anyone, but when he was a young man he did carry a large knife in his pants, which would have fascinated Freud had he been born yet. In the end, the nicest thing I can say about Stanton is that he was a “rude and offensive” manic depressive lunatic on the right side of history.

When Stanton first set eyes upon Lincoln, in an 1857 Cincinnati courtroom, the bully loudly demanded, “Where did the long-armed baboon come from?” Eight years later Stanton lay literally sobbing on Lincoln’s deathbed. Lincoln was the only man who ever controlled Stanton, and it took a lot of his time. He called Stanton “my rock”, but admitting to devising strategies for “plowing around” that rock. Lincoln’s last official act before heading out to Ford’s Theatre, was to overrule yet another Stanton overreaction.

On the day Lincoln died Andrew Johnson from Tennessee was sworn in as President and inherited the pit- bull lap-dog that was Stanton. Over the next two years the slavery loving pro-Union Democratic President Johnson struggled to find a way to make Stanton “heel”. Finally, on Monday, August 5th, 1867, Johnson just asked Stanton for his resignation. To his surprise, Stanton simply said “no”.

There was a week of stunned silence from the White House, until the following Monday, August 12th, when Johnson tried another tact. He ordered Civil War hero General U.S. Grant  to the War Office, to tell Stanton he was being temporarily suspended. Johnson also told Grant that if Stanton still refused to leave, Grant should arrest him. But Grant didn’t want to do that. Instead he and Stanton came up with a plan of their own. Grant took possession of the office. But Stanton never left the building.

There was a move to impeach Johnson for this attempt, but the votes fell short. The new congress was sworn in on Tuesday, January 7, 1868, and on Monday, January 13th  it voted to back Stanton. The next day Grant locked the Secratary of War’s office, handed the key to an aide, and left. An hour later Stanton arrived and was handed the key. Only then did Grant tell President Johnson he had quit. The b-tch was back.

In desperation, Johnson turned to a character he could control, a 63 year old paper pusher, the Armies’ Adjutant-General, Lorenzo Thomas (above). To this point, Thomas’ greatest claim to fame was that he had help spread the rumor that General William Tecumsha Sherman was crazy. That had not worked, which should have been a hint to Johnson, but he didn't take it. Now, on February 21st, 1868, the President handed General Thomas two letters. The first letter fired Stanton (Again!). The second named Thomas as Secretary of War. Johnson then ordered Thomas to deliver them to both to Stanton. Alas, it was a like sending the Little Dutch Boy to stop a forest fire. All he got was a burned finger.

At the War Office (above), Stanton read both notes, and asked, “Do you wish me to vacate the office at once?” Magnanimously, the old man answered, “Act at your pleasure.” Stanton then went down the hall to make a copy of the letter. While Thomas dumbly waited, and a clerk laboriously wrote out an exact copy of the order, Stanton arranged his thoughts and morphed into a petulant two-year old. When he returned Thomas announced that he would now issue orders as Secretary of War. To which Stanton replied “You shall not. I will countermand.” In front of Thomas, Stanton then dictated a letter to Thomas, saying, “Sir: I am informed that you presume to issue orders as Secretary of War…you are hereby commanded to abstain from issuing any orders other than in your capacity as Adjutant-General of the army.” Stanton then handed the completed letter to Thomas and ordered him out of the office.

A bewildered Thomas informed Johnson of this conversation. The President must have been flabbergasted. He ordered Thomas to return to the War Office and begin issuing orders. Thomas tried that, but discovered he could no longer get in. Stanton had locked the doors.

Stanton now went native. Food was brought in, and and drink, and Grant appointed a special guard to defend the building, against whom he did not say. This military guard was joined by members of the House of Representatives and 100 staffers, who patrolled the basement. I guess because down there Grant figured they could only shoot each  other. That night, at a White House masked ball in honor of George Washington’s Birthday, and emboldened by a little wine, Thomas boasted that in the morning he would break down the walls of the War Office and arrest the Secretary of War. It looked as if come morning, the nation would be either defended for stolen by a coup d’tetat.

What saved the nation this disaster was that Washington, D.C. (above) was, has always been, and remains to this day, a small southern town filled with gossips. Stanton heard Thomas’ boast almost as soon as he had uttered it, and at 2 o’clock in the morning as the White House Party was just breaking up, Stanton was awakening a federal judge to sign an arrest warrent. At eight the next morning, as Thomas was just setting down to eat breakfast, he was arrested and charged with violating the Tenure of Office Act, which Congress had passed to prevent Johnson from firing Stanton without Congressional approval. There was no coup d’tetat because at nine a.m. General Thomas was in court.

After he had been released on his own recognizance (who was he going to hurt?), Thomas returned to the White House, where, once again President Johnson ordered the old man to go to the War Department and take possession if it. So, for a third time, the old soldier pushed his rock of Presidential command up the hill to confront his nemeses. The old man intoned, “I will stand here.” Stanton responded, “You can stand there if you please, but you cannot act as Secretary of War. I am Secretary of War. I order you out of this office and to your own.” Thomas answered, “I refuse to go and will stand here.” It was a circular conversation, and getting nowhere fast.

After trying to issue orders to everyone he could (and meeting impassive resistance), Thomas gathered his wounded pride and asked Stanton, “The next time you have me arrested, please do not do it before I get something to eat. I have had nothing to eat or drink all day.” Now it was Stanton’s turn to be magnanimous. He produced a bottle of whisky and poured them equal amounts. Handing a glass to Thomas, Stanton said, “Now, this at least is neutral ground.”

Over the next weeks, while the Senate heard President Johnson’s impeachment trial for trying to fire Stanton, Stanton remained barricaded in the War Department. He received all dispatches and reports, had full accesss to the telegraph lines. He just never left the building.  Meanwhile Thomas had no access to any of that, but he appeared at daily Cabinet meetings as Secretary of War. But the two never crossed paths. And while the process was argued behind the closed doors of the Senate, a compromise (of sorts) was reached.

On Saturday, May 16, 1868 the Senate took their first vote on an article of impeachment. It fell short of conviction. President Johnson, who had promised to cease obstructing the Reconstruction acts, would survive. The next day, Stanton wrote his letter of resignation. The crises had been resolved. But it would not be until 1887 before the Tenure in Office Act would be repealed.

Edwin Stanton was nominated to the Supreme Court by the next President, U. S. Grant. But the mercurial  clerk died four days after being confirmed by the Senate, Christmas Eve, 1869. It was so unlike him to sneak out of town before the his chance at a really grand performance.

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EXTRAORDINARY TRAITOR James Wilkerson

I could tell you a lot of nasty things about General James Wilkerson (above), but in the spirit of Donald Rumsfeld's memoir, let me begin by offering some known positives. His public manners were “accommodating and popular” -  in short he was a politician and ambitious. He was also brilliant. At twenty he was the youngest general in the American Continental Army. He was plump and ruddy faced and usually had a drink close at hand. And he knew how to dress well. He “made a showy appearance, wearing medals and gold buttons on his braided uniform.” And this was at a time when general officers in the Army usually designed their own accoutrement's. “Even in the backwoods, he rode around in gold stirrups and spurs while seated on a leopard skin saddle cloth.” He also fathered six children with two wives, and one of his distant ancestors tried valiantly to defend his reputation. It did not work.

George Washington did not trust James Wilkerson, nor did John Adams or James Madison. General Andrew Jackson called him a “double traitor.” John Randolph, Virginian politician supreme, described him as “…to the very core a villain!” One of his business partners published a book entitled, “Proofs of the corruption of General Wilkerson.” And that was just for the offenses people knew about. What the public suspected but could not prove until the 1850's was that the Spanish gave General James Wilkerson the title of “Agent 13”, and paid him $12,000 and several thousand acres of land to encourage Kentucky to separate from the United States, and he came close to pulling it off. Twice he was forced to resign from the Army. He betrayed every commanding officer he ever served, including Benedict Arnold. That is quite an accomplishment, to have betrayed the most famous traitor in American history. He also betrayed Generals Horatio Gates and George Washington. 

In fact the infamous Aaron Burr conspiracy was invented at least in part by James Wilkerson. And when President Jefferson (above) had Burr arrested for treason, Wilkerson became his chief witness against Burr. But the same Grand Jury that indicted Burr missed indicting Wilkerson by just two votes. And I've always felt that the primary reason Burr was not convicted of treason is that the jury disliked Burr less than they mistrusted Wilkerson.

General James Wilkerson was court martial-ed three times and investigated by Congress four times, and every time he came out smelling like a very well fertilized rose. The reason was simple - like J. Edgar Hoover, Wilkerson knew where all the bodies were buried, occasionally literally. He won the unquestioned backing of President Jefferson after he betrayed Burr, making Jefferson just about Wilkerson's only superior he did not betray. I'm sure it was just an accident. Among those who knew him only by his record, Fredrick Jackson Turner, the historian who closed the book on the American frontier, called Wilkerson “the most consummate artist in treason the nation ever possessed.” Teddy Roosevelt called him “the most disgraceful” commander the U.S. Army ever had. Wilkerson was, according to historian Robert Leckie “a general who never won a battle and never lost a court-martial” He was suspected of several murders, assorted frauds and constant graft.

He even warned the Spanish about the Lewis and Clark expedition, and it was only blind luck that prevented their murders by the Spanish agents sent after them. It was also Wilkerson who was responsible for the U.S. Army's worst peace time disaster. As top general in the American Army he had been dispatched to New Orleans in early 1809, when it looked like war with Britain might break out at any moment. Wilkerson paid more attention to his own land deals than he did to his troops. By April over one quarter of his army, 500 men, were on sick call. Things got so bad that the Secretary of War, penny pincher William Eustis, suggested that the General move his troop to healthier ground north of the city, even as far as Natchez, whatever the cost. 

Instead, Wilkerson moved them down river, into the swamps – to a spot called Terre aux Boeufs. His reason was that he got a kickback from the $630 paid to the land owner for three months rent on the new campground.

The move was completed on 9 June, 1809, just in time for the height of summer. First came the afternoon rains, which matched well with a level of humidity capable of inducing bread growth under the soldiers' armpits. And then came the lousy camp sanitation, because the officers were already learning from their commander. The food supplied to the troops was spoiled, the mosquitoes experienced a population explosion, the water supply was polluted, and the few medicines available were limited by orders from the Secretary of War to no more than $50 for the entire 2,000 man force for the entire year. And, as a topper, the War Department denied any expenditure for fresh fruit for the troops; too expensive.  In January of 1810, after the Secretary specifically ordered the troops back to New Orleans, there were barely 1,000 men fit for duty, with 166 desertions and the rest dead. Of the officers, forty of them had either resigned or died. Lt. Winfield Scott, who would one day command the army himself, suffered through this debacle and publicly described Wilkerson as “a traitor, liar, and a scoundrel.” Wilkerson had him court martial-ed and sentenced to loss of pay and rank for one year. The net effect was to convince everybody that Scott was at least an honest man. It was an accusation never made against General Wilkerson.

The debacle of Terre aux Boeufs forced Wilkerson to resign from the army, but the War of 1812 got him reinstated, not as over all commander this time but at least as a general in command of 12, 000 men. This force was supposed to conquer Montreal...maybe. The new Secretary of War, John Armstrong, could never make up his mind what the objective of the campaign was supposed to be. And until the last moment, he was going to lead it himself, since he did not trust Wilkerson, and since the next in the line of command, General Wade Hampton, refused to work under Wilkerson. Hampton was thus dispatched to command troops on Lake Champlain. 

From day one things did not look promising for the campaign, and then at the last second Secretary Armstrong decided too dump everything into Wilkerson's lap, and head back to Washington. That left the biggest thief in uniform running the campaign, with predictable results. When Hampton got word that Wilkerson was now in command, he carried through his threat, and resigned.

As was to be expected, Wilkerson's army was poorly fed, and poorly supplied. But Wilkerson got rich off the kickbacks.  They had no uniforms or training. Wilkerson led his dispirited troops up the St. Lawrence until they reached a narrowing of the river at a place called Crysler's Farm. Here the Canadians had established an outpost, and Wilkerson called a council of war to decide what to do next. His subordinates were unanimous in wanting to attack. But the next morning, faced with a cold rain and an impending battle, General Wilkerson came down sick, and the actual command fell to a General Boyd. It was 12,000 cold, hungry and disorganized Americans attacking a few thousand Canadian militia. The Canadians beat the pants off the Americans.

In the confused melee,  the Americans maneuvered and the Canadians attacked. The result was 31 Canadian dead, 148 wounded and 13 missing, while General Wilkerson admitted 102 killed, 237 wounded , but he never gave a total for the missing. In fact the Canadians reported the battlefield covered with American dead and captured 120 Americans. The Battle of Crysler's Farm is referred to north of the border as The Battle That Saved Canada.

Wilkerson retreated downstream into winter quarters. As spring of 1814 approached, General Wilkerson got word that the disaster was being blamed on him and he decided to save his reputation by taking a cheap shot at 80 British soldiers at an outpost on the Lacolle River. 

Wilkerson's attack fell on the Canadians on March 30h. He had 4,000 men and artillery. The Canadians had a few Congreve rockets. Once again the Americans maneuvered and the Canadians attacked The Canadians lost 11 killed, the Americans 13. Throughout the engagement, General Wilkerson rode about in full view of the enemy as if he wanted to get shot. Or he was drunk. Or both. But even in that, he failed. By evening the Canadians still held their positions and the Americans retreated. The score was now Canadians two and General Wilkerson nothing. Eleven days later General Wilkerson was relieved from command.

Afterward came the court-martial and another acquittal. And although it would be unfair to pile all of the blame for the debacle of the 1813 Canadian campaign on James Wilkerson, he did not help the situation one little bit. Two years later James Wilkerson published his memoirs, entitled “Memoirs of My Own Times.” It was not a best seller. Ever the schemer, in 1821 he went Mexico City, seeking a land grant in the disputed territory of Texas. And that was where he died, and where he was buried.

But let the last words be James Wilkerson's own. In the first decade of the 19^th century, he wrote to the Spanish Governor of New Orleans. He was seeking a job as a secret agent for the Spanish government.  This was his job application as a traitor. “Born and educated in America," he wrote,"I embraced its cause in the last revolution, and remained throughout faithful to its interest, until its triumph over its enemies: This occurrence has now rendered my services useless, discharged me of my pledge, dissolved my obligations, even those of nature, and left me at liberty, after having fought for her happiness, to seek my own; circumstances and the policies of the United States having made it impossible for me to obtain this desired end under its Government, I am resolved to seek it in Spain.”

That ought to have been carved on his tombstone. But, fittingly, he remains buried in Mexico.  Where they read Spanish,

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MIND OVER WATER - Building a Canal In Royal France

I don’t know if you know this, but the French have long been obsessed with finding a way around Spain. A trip from the French port of Marseilles, on the Mediterranean, to the French port of Bordeaux, on the Atlantic, covers 1,500 miles – a month’s long voyage in the age of sail, through storm tossed pirate infested seas. In the first century Roman engineers schemed with the idea of building a canal, from the Gulf of Lion, following the River Herault north toward the Montagne Noir – the black mountain -  through a pass called the Collar of Naurouze, and then dropping down to Toulouse, at the head of navigation on the River Garone, and via that river north 180 miles to the Atlantic. There was just one thing missing from this grandiose and brilliant solution of a canal; water.

See, the thing about the Mediterranean coast of France is that the climate is Mediterranean; it has short, mild, wet winters, and very long and very dry summers. Every August the rivers in southern France shrink, some years drying up completely.  And a canal without water is not a just a ditch. Even Leonardo da Vinci, asked by the King of France to come up with a workable solution in 1516, failed because of the lack of water. A century later, in 1618, the Council for the Languedoc province in southern France sat through yet another sales pitch for a canal, this time from huckster named Bernard Arrobat. Not surprisingly the Council voted it down, in part because of arguments against it, presented by William Riguiet, the provincial prosecutor. But witnessing that sales pitch was the prosector’s young son, Pierre-Paul Requiet, and he was sold.

Pierre inherited property from his father, and in 1630 he bribed himself into an appointment as the Controller of the Languedoc "gabels", which was the tax on salt. Now, every French citizen above the age of eight was required to buy a minimum amount of salt each week from the state. The price varied from province to province, and could be as high was as 12% of a families’ income. The King received 40% of this money, off the top. From the remaining 60%, the Controller paid the costs for collecting and enforcing the tax, and then pocketed the profits. It was a system designed to be gamed. From his profits, Pierre not only paid for a wife, three daughters and two sons, but bought a fancy house in Toulouse. But he spent most of his time in the village of Revel, next to the Montagne Noir

But Pierre’s had never forgotten that sales pitch, and hired experts to comb the mountains above Revel, looking for the water needed to build a canal. And in 1661, he claimed to have found it. According to Pierre, a stone had fallen from a miniature dam he had built across a stream on the Montagne Noir.  As the water poured out, it divided, half flowing north (toward the Atlantic) and half south (toward the Mediterranean), and a leaf in the pond was left spinning, unable to decide which way to go. It was a typically French moment of inspiration, poetic and lyrical and probably made up, but it did lead to the building the canal, despite a serious mistake.

The mistake was the Basin of Naurouze, a huge 8 sided water tank embedded in the ground, which Pierre proposed to build at the site of his test dam. It would be fed by numerous mountain streams, and once filled would provide the year round water supply for the canal.

Pierre took his plan to the King’s Minister of Finance, Jean Baptiste Colbert. This guy was a genius with money, who once observed that “The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest amount of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing”. That was "truthyness" in the extreme. But Colbert knew nothing about canals, so he asked the advice of the foremost hydrological engineer in France, Chevalier de Clerville.

Chevalier (above) took one look at Pierre’s Basin Naurouze and knew immediately it would never work. Instead he proposed an artificial lake in the Laudot valley at St. Ferreol, higher up in the mountains. And since Pierre needed Clerville’s approval to open the King’s check book, Pierre agreed to build the reservoir, so long as he also got to build his Basin. Colbert thereupon approved Pierre’s plan, with a couple of catches. First, only the southern half of the canal would be built initially, because of the expense. And second, the King would finance the project only if Pierre kicked in the first 25%. That way, if it turned out Pierre didn’t know what he was doing, it wouldn’t cost the King a single livres. And that is why Colbert was a financial genius.

Pierre was not. He was so obsessed with building the canal, he might as well have been a complete fool about everything else. On March 1st, 1667 the Council of Languedoc loaned Pierre 2 ½ million livres to begin construction, and on 16 April, 1667, the first earth was moved for the dam at St Ferreol...

and the Basin Naurouze...

and first bricks were laid for the locks at Toulouse.

In all the 240 mile long canal would have 103 locks. It would cross several rivers, and it would have to build two aqueducts so rivers could cross the canal. Since Pierre had found the money to get started, the King had to cough up 3 ½ million livres to finish the canal. Other investors, pressured by the King, provided the rest of the 15 million livers, but the canal (along with his other expensive construction projects) would bankrupt the King. It did not bankrupt Colbert, bit it also bankrupted Pierre.

The terms of that 8 year loan from his friends at the Council would prove to be crushing. Pierre had to sell off most of his property to meet the interest payments, and eventually he even had to cash in all three of his daughter’s dowries to meet refinance extensions. For 14 years, 12,000 workers sweated and strained with picks and shovels – over a thousand of them women – to reach the Mediterranean at the little port of Sete.

When Pierre died in 1680, at the age of 71, he still owed 2 million livres, and his canal was still a mile and a-half short of completion. His sons were forced to sell half of their interest in the canal to finish it, and it would take a century before they could pay off the debts.

But of course, once the canal, originally called the Canal Royal de Languedoc, was finished on 15 May, 1681, Pierre got credit for the whole thing, including the Basin of St. Ferreol...

and the Malpas tunnel, the first tunnel built using explosives. Both of those innovations were designed by and forced on Pierre by Chevalier de Clerville. But Chevalier is just a footnote in history.

Worse, a few years after the canal’s completion, Pierre’s center piece, the Basin Naurouze was abandoned. It had been a failure for just the reason Clerville said it would be; the tank kept filling with sediment. But on the monument eventually erected in 1825 by his sons near the site of the abandoned and dismantled Basin Naurouze, there is no mention of any mistakes.

And every school child in France knows that the Canal du Midi – as it is known today – was built by the genius and drive of one man only, Pierre-Paul Requit.

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