A Treasury of Foolishly Forgotten Americans

by Michael Farquhar

  Ledyard was without a doubt stalwart, but by the time he reached St. Petersburg in March 1787, it was clear that his dream would have to be modified. The vast stretches of Siberia that lay before him would take years to walk, and Ledyard lacked the money to support such an extended venture. Instead, he would travel in a Russian coach known as a kibitka. “Kabitka travelling is the remains of Caravan travelling,” he wrote. “It is your only home—it is like a ship at sea.”

  During the next four months Ledyard covered most of Russia’s enormous expanse, more than five thousand miles since he left St. Petersburg. He was now tantalizingly close to the Pacific Ocean, just five hundred miles away, and the next leg of his journey across North America. But in the frontier town of Yakutsk, three hundred miles below the Arctic Circle, he was stopped in his tracks. Winter made it impossible to go any farther. And it wasn’t just the elements that conspired against him. Catherine the Great, empress of Russia, had denied Ledyard passage through her realm when he applied for a passport, and he had defied her. Now he had to pay the price. On February 1, 1778, while waiting for the winter weather to pass, he was arrested in the town of Irkutsk, ordered to be escorted under guard back across Siberia, and left at the Polish border with the warning never to return to Russia. Ledyard’s wandering spirit flagged under confinement.

  “Loose your liberty but once for one hour, ye who never lost it, that ye may feel what I feel,” he wrote. “Altho’ born in the freest Country of the World, Ideas of its exquisite Beauties & of its immortal Nature that I had never before. Methinks every Man who is called to preside officially over the Liberty of a free People should once—it will be enough—actually be deprived unjustly of his Liberty that he might be avaricious of it more than of any earthly possessions.”

  An ordinary man might have taken a good long rest after traveling fifteen thousand miles over mostly inhospitable terrain, but not John Ledyard. Almost as soon as he returned to London, one and a half years after he began his walk, he was enthusiastically planning an expedition to Africa with the famed naturalist Joseph Banks and other esteemed members of a society known as the African Association. It would be the ultimate adventure into regions thus far unexplored. Yet despite his pretense of vigor, Ledyard was not a well man. And he seemed to sense that this would be his last journey. His friend Henry Beaufoy, a member of the African Association, recalled his words of farewell:

  I am accustomed to hardships. I have known both hunger and nakedness to the utmost extremity of human suffering. I have known what it is to have food given me as charity to a madman; and I have at times been obliged to shelter myself under the miseries of that character to avoid a heavier calamity. My distresses have been greater than I have ever owned, or will own to any man. Such evils are terrible to bear, but they never yet had power to turn me from my purpose. If I live, I will faithfully perform, in its utmost extent, my engagement to the Society; and if I perish in the attempt, my honor will still be safe, for death cancels all bonds.

  John Ledyard never did make it out of Africa. Indeed, his last great venture had barely begun when, on January 10, 1789, he succumbed to dysentery at age thirty-seven. Perhaps Jefferson was right when he said Ledyard had too much imagination, but that’s what made him uniquely American. “It is that overflowing, unmanageable, penetrating, elastic imagination which places him at the core of a nation’s psyche,” writes James Zug. “Too much imagination is the American ethos.”

  9

  Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte: Royal American

  “Nature never intended me for obscurity,” Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte announced to her father in 1815. Although she may have been a bit premature in that assessment, largely forgotten as she is today, few at the time would have disagreed. The beautiful native of Baltimore, Maryland, achieved the fame she craved when she married Jérôme Bonaparte, younger brother of the soon-to-be emperor Napoléon. Entry into the imperial family banished all the young woman’s fears of anonymity and allowed her to bask in worldwide celebrity. Unfortunately, it was quickly doomed, as the union clashed with Napoléon’s own ambitions.

  Elizabeth met Jérôme in September 1803, when the dashing but spoiled lieutenant in the French navy visited Baltimore during a tour of the American East. The attraction was immediate, and the couple soon made plans to wed. The only hitch was Elizabeth’s father William, one of Baltimore’s wealthiest citizens, received an anonymous letter detailing Jérôme’s “profligate” ways. He had “ruined” many a young lady, the letter warned, and would marry Elizabeth only “to secure himself a home at your expense” until he returned to France, after which time he would “laugh at your credulity.” Needless to say, William Patterson found this somewhat disturbing. He cancelled the wedding and sent Elizabeth away to stay with relatives in Virginia.

  Love wasn’t quenched so easily, however. Elizabeth pined for her prince, declaring that she “would rather be the wife of Jérôme Bonaparte for one hour than the wife of any other man for life.” Her father relented when Elizabeth threatened to run away with Jérôme, and the couple was married on Christmas Eve. The mayor of Baltimore, James Calhoun, performed the civil ceremony, and John Carroll, the first Catholic bishop in the United States, performed the religious rite. In a bow to contemporary French fashion, the bride wore a rather flimsy wedding dress that one guest noted “could have been put in [his] pocket.”

  The newlyweds were eagerly received in the highest social circles, while the masses who read of the couple’s every move in daily newspaper reports clamored to get a glimpse of them. They were stars, and Elizabeth certainly dressed the part. The revealing French fashions she had previewed at her wedding both shocked and titillated. At a party given for the couple in Washington, D.C., for example, she wore a gown described by one guest as “so transparent that you could see the color and shape of her thighs, and even more!” Another wrote that “her appearance was such that it threw all the company into confusion, and no one dared look at her but by stealth.” Elizabeth ignored all warnings that her unconventional fashion sense would adversely affect her social standing, believing instead that the bold styles, combined with her notoriety, would gain her entrée almost anywhere. She was right. “Knowing how important these public occasions were,” writes historian Charlene Boyer Lewis, “Elizabeth never shrank from the attention, as well-mannered ladies were supposed to do, and she always carefully dressed for them. Her clothing helped her maintain the celebrity status that she not only loved, but also considered a necessary part of her life.”

  While Elizabeth’s daring dresses created quite a stir in the United States, her marriage had a seismic impact in France. Napoléon, then first consul, was enraged when he heard the news. He had great dynastic plans for his siblings, intending to marry them into some of the royal houses of Europe, and Jérôme had just thwarted his ambitions by taking an American nobody as a wife. He refused to recognize the marriage and ordered his brother home immediately—without Elizabeth. “If he brings her with him,” Napoléon fumed, “she will not set foot on French territory. If he comes alone, I will overlook his error.” Jérôme, every bit as stubborn as his mighty brother, refused his summons.

  President Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison had anticipated Napoléon’s negative reaction to the wedding, and sent diplomatic reassurances that even the president of the United States was powerless to prevent a marriage. The Louisiana Purchase was at stake, and Jefferson could ill afford to alienate the French leader. Meanwhile, Jérôme’s brother Lucien sent word that the Bonaparte clan was thrilled with the union. “Tell Monsieur Patterson [Elizabeth’s brother] that our mother, myself, and the entire family unanimously and fully approve of the marriage,” he wrote. “The Consul does not agree with us for the moment, but he must be considered the sole dissenting voice in the family.” Napoléon’s may have been the lone voice, but it was the only one that mattered. And he was implacable. He would never accept “Miss Patterson,” as he insisted upon calling Elizabeth, and pr
ohibited any French civil authority to recognize the union under penalty of prison.

  Jérôme deluded himself into believing that Napoléon’s heart would thaw once he met his charming bride. Accordingly, he and Elizabeth, now pregnant, set sail for France in the fall of 1804 after learning that Napoléon had declared himself emperor. They planned to attend his coronation, but their ship was beset by a fierce storm as it left harbor and sank. The couple barely escaped with their lives, and all their wedding gifts and other possessions, including several thousand dollars in gold, were lost. Desperate to share in the glory of the coronation, they hired another brig, but it was turned back by British warships. They missed the ceremony. Finally, William Patterson provided one of his own ships to sail them across the Atlantic. When they arrived in Lisbon, however, an emissary from Napoléon informed them that “Miss Patterson” would not be permitted to disembark on European soil. “Tell your master that Madame Bonaparte is ambitious and demands her rights as a member of the imperial family,” Elizabeth reportedly responded—to no avail.

  Faced with the emperor’s unbending will and far-reaching power, Jérôme and Elizabeth decided that she would sail on to Amsterdam to have the baby, and he would proceed to Milan, where Napoléon was crowning himself king of Italy. There Jérôme would confront his brother. “My good wife, have faith in your husband,” he wrote soothingly. “The worst that could happen now would be for us to live quietly in some foreign country…. My dearest Elisa, I will do everything that must be done.” She never saw him again.

  Jérôme had been given a powerful ultimatum: Either renounce his “mistress,” or face ruin. Napoléon threatened to strip his brother of all ranks and titles, remove him from the line of succession, and abandon him to his staggering debts. Furthermore, Jérôme would be banished from France and all its territories (which then included Holland, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Portugal), and would never receive another franc from the government or from the Bonaparte family.

  Steadfast and true, Jérôme agreed to abandon his wife. The emperor was delighted. “Mon frère,” he exclaimed, “there is no fault you could commit that would not be overlooked by your repentance…. Your marriage thus annulled at your own request, I should like to offer you my friendship.” Napoléon gave Jérôme the kingdom of Westphalia to rule, and married him—bigamously—to Princess Catherine of Württemberg.

  While her husband was busy renouncing her in Italy, Elizabeth was stuck at port in Amsterdam. Officials there, fearing the emperor’s wrath, refused to let her off the ship, and she was forced to sail to England. There, for the first time in fourteen weeks, she finally touched solid ground. And on July 7, 1805, gave birth to a baby boy she named Jérôme-Napoléon Bonaparte. “Rest assured, your husband will never abandon you,” brave Jérôme wrote. “I would give my life for you alone, and for my child.” The British secretary of legation in the United States, Sir Augustus Foster, later recalled Elizabeth’s dramatic declaration that she would rather be the wife of Jérôme Bonaparte for one hour than the wife of any other man for life, and noted wryly, “She did not know she was so near the real event.”

  Abandoned by her husband, Elizabeth returned to Baltimore with her baby, who she called Bo. Yet despite her rejection, she retained all her royal pretensions and continued to cultivate her celebrity. She ordered a coach with the Bonaparte family crest painted on its doors, and unfailingly reminded people of her imperial connections. Madame Bonaparte, as she styled herself, still wore her outrageous dresses and remained a sought-after guest. “The state of nudity in which she appeared [at a presidential dinner] attracted the attention of the Gentlemen,” one guest reported, “for I saw several of them take a look at her bubbies when they were conversing with her.”

  In 1808, Jérôme, now king of Westphalia and married to Catherine of Württemberg, wrote Elizabeth and asked her to send him their son. She refused. Several years later, he asked again, offering to set Elizabeth up in her own castle. Again she refused, declaring that she would never relinquish her son, adding that Jérôme’s kingdom was “not quite large enough to hold two queens.” Eventually she accepted a yearly pension from Napoléon, and obtained a divorce from Jérôme in the Maryland legislature. Soon after, Napoléon’s empire collapsed and all the ruling Bonapartes were booted from their thrones.

  With the collapse of the empire, Elizabeth felt free to return to Europe in 1815. Though once forbidden to step foot on the continent, she was now warmly welcomed by the European elite, and believed she had found her rightful place in the world. “I get on extremely well,” she wrote her father, “and I assure you that altho’ you have always taken me for a fool, it is not in my character here. In America, I appeared more simple than I am, because I was completely out of my element. It was my misfortune, not my fault, that I was born in a country which was not congenial to my desires. Here I am completely in my sphere…and in contact with modes of life for which nature intended me.”

  For the next twenty-five years, Elizabeth spent most of her time in Europe and became increasingly contemptuous of American mores and culture. In other words, she became French. Surrounding herself with aristocrats, artists, and intellectuals, she reveled in the attention lavished upon her and fancied herself a member of the nobility. She maintained friendly ties with the Bonapartes in exile, as she considered the family connection advantageous for her son, who she believed was born for greatness. And though she continued to call Baltimore home, she returned only occasionally to attend to her financial affairs. It was impossible, she sniffed, “to be contented in a country where there exists no nobility.”

  One of Elizabeth’s primary obsessions as her son grew older was to marry him into an aristocratic European family. “Bo has rank,” she informed her father. “His name places him in the first society in Europe.” She was devastated, therefore, when she learned in 1829 that the young man had wed a girl from Baltimore. “When I first heard my son could condescend to marry anyone in Baltimore I nearly went mad,” she wrote. Elizabeth’s sense of nobility was offended by her son stooping so far beneath him. She had married “the brother of an emperor,” and had not the “meanness of spirit to descend from such an elevation to the deplorable condition of being the wife of an American.” But, she conceded in resignation, she and her son were different people. The young man, “not having my pride, my ambition, or my utter abhorrence to vulgar company,” had the “right to pursue the course he prefers.” She had done all she could “to disgust him with America,” and “give him the ideas suitable to his rank in life.”

  Eventually Elizabeth settled back in Baltimore, among the masses she so disdained. She wasn’t happy. “There is nothing here worth attention or interest,” she wrote a friend, “except the money market.” She returned to Europe one last time in 1860, when Jérôme died and left no provision for their son in his will. In a celebrated lawsuit against the surviving Bonapartes, she vainly sought to have Bo recognized as a legitimate heir. Defeated, she returned home and settled in a boarding house where she lived as an imperial relic until her death in 1879.

  10

  Stephen Pleasonton: The Clerk Who Saved the Constitution

  (and the Declaration of Independence, Too)

  The Founding Fathers are revered for having created two of history’s most enlightened testaments: the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. But no one seems to remember poor Stephen Pleasonton, who rescued the precious documents from almost certain destruction.

  The sweltering languor of August in Washington gave way to a spreading panic in 1814. It was two years into America’s second war with Britain, and the enemy was marching ever closer to the heart of her former colonies. Local residents, having heard of the terrible destruction already inflicted by the British on a number of towns along the Chesapeake Bay, were eager to escape the coming onslaught. The dusty roads leading out of the capital were filling with citizens carting out their most valued possessions, while the few government workers not serving in the lo
cal militia struggled at the same time to save what they could of the young Republic’s most vital records and irreplaceable treasures.

  It was in this atmosphere of escalating fear and tension that Pleasonton, a State Department clerk, went to work saving the Declaration and the Constitution from destruction. The War of 1812 was essentially a second declaration of independence, this time from British interference in U.S. trade and sovereignty, and Pleasonton ensured that these unique parchments of American principle would not become spoils of war—even if the nation’s capital did. He was acting on instructions from his boss, Secretary of State James Monroe, who was out scouting British positions. Observing the enemy’s advances and fearful of what lay ahead, Monroe sent a courier back to the department asking that someone attend to the safety of the historic books and papers kept there.

  The task fell to Pleasonton. After purchasing quantities of coarse, durable linen, the clerk ordered the material made into book bags. He then gently packed the scrolled documents and prepared to haul them to safety. Before leaving the State Department, however, Pleasonton encountered Secretary of War John Armstrong, an officious character who had been stubbornly insisting for weeks that the British posed no threat to the capital. Just a month earlier, in fact, Armstrong had berated William Winder, the head of Washington’s militia, for expressing concerns over enemy reinforcements sailing up the Chesapeake Bay.

  “By God,” Armstrong bellowed, “they would not come with such a fleet without meaning to strike somewhere. But they will not come here! What the devil will they do here? No! No! Baltimore is the place, sir. That is of so much more consequence.”