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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THE BATTLE OF BRISTOL - The Fight for Democracy

I can’t imagine anyone was surprised that Sir Charles Wetherell (above) eventually inspired a riot. Sir Charles (above) was “…half mad, eccentric, ingenious…a coarse, vulgar mind, delighting in ribaldry and abuse …”  He was also rich and a bigot.  Remind you of anyone?  Donald Trump, maybe?

Sir Charles was fired from his cabinet post in the Duke of Wellington’s government because he made a vicious anti-Catholic speech, exactly when the government was trying to decriminalization Catholicism. And when the government moved to reform the stifling limitations on the right to vote in Britain, Sir Charles opposed that, too. A colleague noted, “…no one spoke more than Sir Charles Wetherell; often to no good purpose.” 

The man who invented the London Bobby's,  Sir Robert Peel, watched his performance in the House of Commons and was not impressed. “This Wetherell unbuttoned his braces (suspenders) when he began to speak, and put his hands into the waistband of his breeches…Horace Twiss said he was very mad, and had but one brief lucid interval, which was between his breeches and his waistcoat.”

Sir Charles represented the tiny market town of Boroughbridge (above), 13 miles northwest of York and 187 miles northeast of London.  It was the very epitome of “a rotten borough”. 

The election districts of Parliament had not been redrawn in two hundred years, and fishing villages that had been washed out to sea, and hamlets long abandoned still had sent representatives to London. Meanwhile, newly industrialized population centers were underrepresented, In 1831, only 6,000 of the 104,000 citizens of Bristol could vote,

Boroughbridge (above) was a typical rotten borough.  There were only 947 people in the village, and only 65 of the 154 households were recognized as “entitlements”, meaning ownership or occupancy brought with it the right to vote. 

Yet this village with just 65 legal voters still qualified for two representatives in Parliament, Sir Matthias Attwood, and Sir Charles Wetherell (far left on the tetter-totter above). The public was desperate for reform of this system, and despite (or because) of Sir Charles’ opposition the Reform Bill carried the House of Commons by 345 to 239 votes. 

But Sir Charles was also a member of the cloistered red robed House of Lords (above), and as such was able to vote against the bill,  twice. He helped to kill it "in the Lords” by 41 votes and became the public face of the opposition to reform.

There were riots and threats that fall in Manchester and Birmingham, and a half dozen other industrialized towns. But things came to head on Friday, 29 October, 1831, when the Courts were set to open in the west coast port city of Bristol. 

The Official Recorder for those courts  was none other than Sir Charles Wetherell,  He came parading into town in a carriage pulled by four magnificent matching grey horses, and it is hard to see how he could have chosen a worse time for a display of ostentation and privilege. Shops and markets had closed so no one would be dissuaded from joining the crowds gathering to “welcome” Sir Charles.

Expecting trouble three troops of Dragoons were stationed on the outskirts of Bristol. Sir Charles’ carriage was met by 300 “marshals”, especially hired for the occasion. The crowd called them Sir Charles' Bludgeon Men. Some 2,000 people packed the route, hissing and booing as Sir Charles passed. And when the carriage crossed the bridge over the River Bath, stones were thrown.

The procession reached the Guildhall at noon. There the town clerk, Mr. Ludlow, tried to make a speech praising the reform movement. But the crowded courtroom would not be placated, and the hissing drove poor Mr. Ludlow into retreat. From atop the bench Sir Charles (above) imperiously threatened to arrest anyone interfering with the court, and the catcalling became even louder. Eventually Sir Charles had to withdraw. Once he was gone, the crowd gave three cheers for the King.

A carriage took Sir Charles through the thick crowds to the Mansion-house on Queen Square (above), where he was to spend the night. But once he was safely inside several of the “Marshals”,  sallied into the crowd to arrest individuals they deemed troublemakers. This increased the anger of the crowd, who attacked the house with rocks. The shower of missiles drove the mayor and the town council up the staircase to the second floor. 

This attack was stopped by the timely arrival of Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Brereton, with a single troop of dragoons. Despite Sir Charles’ demand that the troops open fire on the crowd, Brereton spoke to them instead and they dispersed willingly. At about three o’clock Col. Brereton returned with his troopers to their barracks. He immediately requested reinforcements, but he might have been more cautious had he known that while transporting their prisoners to jail, the Bludgeon Men were waylaid and the “troublemakers” were freed.

The Mayor and council spent the night boarding up the broken windows and doors, but all their work was for nought. Saturday afternoon some six hundred angry men and women smashed through the front door, driving the mayor to clamber over the back garden wall (above), while Sir Charles escaped out the roof, jumping into a neighboring house. 

Sir Charles was then spirited out of town dressed as a groom. The city council spread the news, in the hope his retreat would calm the mob. But Sir Charles Wetherell's work in Bristol was done.

The Mansion-house was trashed and burned, and its wine cellar looted. Several other buildings surrounding Queen Square were ransacked as well. 

Then the New jail was attacked, followed by the Gloucester Prison. The gates were rushed, the jailers beaten, and some 200 prisoners released.

The Custom’s House, the Excise Office, and some fifty private houses and warehouses were looted and burned. But it was a very selective riot. All the lost property belonged to those who had opposed the reform bill. And no one was killed or even seriously injured by the rioters.

The city was finally 'brought under control' when reinforcements arrived Monday afternoon and the dragoons were turned loose on the crowd. 

Several hundred were now killed. Total damages were estimated at between four and eight hundred thousand pounds sterling.

Sir Charles (above) was at first confused by what had happened. The night of his escape he confessed to an inn keeper, “I am not aware that I ever injured any individual in the city.” But by the time Parliament convened in December he was sure again.

He denounced the London press for laying for the blame for the riot on him. He also demanded that he be allowed to sit as judge of the rioters. That request was denied. However a statue of Sir Charles was erected in Queen Square, to remind the citizens who had won the battle for Bristol.

In January of 1832 eighty-two people went on trial for crimes committed during the riot. Despite a petition for clemency signed by 10,000 citizens of Bristol, four men were hung over the gates of the new jail. The punishment drove the hangman to sob uncontrollably so that he almost fell off the scaffold. But the four were hung, nevertheless. 

A fifth man, James Ives, was judged insane and his death sentence was commuted to transportation to Australia for life. Seventy-four others were also exiled to Australia, while forty-three were sentenced to hard labor in England. Of those forty-three, one old woman, convicted of receiving silver plate looted from the Mansion-house, hung herself in prison. 

Colonel Brereton was court-martialed for refusing to fire on the crowds, and after a week of testimony at his court-martial (above), he shot him self in the heart. He left behind two small motherless children. His second in command was allowed to resign and sell his commission. 

Meanwhile, seven of those sentenced to transportation to Australia died of cholera before their ship even set sail. Another, Matthew Warry, jumped ship. While swimming to shore he was shot and killed by a sentry, as was James Ives, the man too insane to hang for his crimes against property. And that was the fate of the victims of Sir Charles Wetherell’s “…coarse and vulgar mind…”, all save one.

No one tried to defend any of these victims. Instead the champions of reform concentrated their efforts on passing the Reform bill in 1832.  One of the last to speak against the bill, again, was Sir Charles, who knew he had done much to ensure the elimination of his own “rotten borough.” He concluded his remarks by saying, “This is the last dying speech and confession of the member for Boroughbridge.” And it was. 

The new reforms did not not increase the size of Parlement, but based the districts on the most recent  census. When Sir Charles stood for election that fall for one of the “new” seats from Oxford University he received so few votes he withdrew his name as a candidate.  He died of a “concussion of the brain” caused by a carriage accident, on Monday, 17 August, 1846. He left behind no heirs. 

And in 1983 his statue was removed from Queens Square in Bristol, because, in the words of the City Council Engineer, “We are redesigning the garden for the 17th century period and Sir Charles will not blend in”. They hid it under an alcove behind the Red Lion Inn.  And that cleaned up for democracy in Great Britain forever. 

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