26: ANOTHER LONG NOSE
If it takes one biography to understand Washington, it takes hundreds to understand Jefferson, and even then the view in is only partial. Of the many to pick from, I relied most on Fawn M. Brodie’s Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History and Joseph J. Ellis’s American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson. Both were written before the DNA confirmation of the two centuries of rumors about his relationship with Sally Hemings, but even though Brodie wrote in 1974, she was better prepared, and better positioned, for the news. Jon Meacham’s more recent biography of Jefferson ferreted out fresh details regarding the Cosway scandal, which previously seemed to have been milked dry. The account of Hamilton’s appearance at Cherry Street is taken from Jefferson’s Anas.
27: AND WE HAD A BANK
The most complete account of the development of Hamilton’s doctrine of implied powers comes from The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788–1800, by Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick. Betsey Hamilton’s charmingly abridged version is in PAH. Her husband’s observations will, of course, be found there, too. I found Every Man a Speculator to be a helpful guide to the period kicked off by Duer, as was the biography of William Duer himself, “The King of the Alley.” It shed light on his role in the Panic of 1792, as does the article cited earlier, “The U.S. Panic of 1792.”
28: BOTANIZING
There are many accounts of the famous sightseeing trip of Jefferson and Madison right through Troup’s prophesy, but I have gotten some of the color of this one from Brookhiser’s biography of Madison. The Federalist angle is quite well known; the Burr not so much, and I have relied on Lomask to see it his way, and then to follow that narrative line through to its conclusion, with Burr a senator.
29: EMBRYO-CAESAR
It was Parton who supplied the wonderful vignette of Hamilton at dinner. For the lowdown on Burr’s presidential ambitions in 1792, I have turned to Kaminsky, who revealed them from Clinton’s point of view. Hamilton’s assessments of his rival can all be found in PAH.
30: OTHER THAN PECUNIARY CONSOLATION
Chernow captured the social scene in Philadelphia that may have contributed to Hamilton’s losing his sense of moral balance. But the best account of Hamilton’s affair with Mrs. Reynolds is indubitably his own from the so-called Reynolds Pamphlet, in PAH.
31: SOBER AMONG THE DRUNKS
Burr’s mysterious letters to Gaasbeck can be found in the collections of Peter Van Gaasbeck in the Senate House Museum, Kingston, New York. The consoling ones to Theodosia are in Davis, as are Theodosia’s complaints. Lomask details the effects of the yellow fever epidemic on the woman who would become Dolley Madison, and Gutzman’s James Madison and the Making of America supplied some of the humanizing details. For details of the disease itself, I relied on two books with very similar names: The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic That Shaped Our History, by Molly Caldwell Crosby, and An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793, by Jim Murphy. For Dr. Rusk and the early wooing of Burr, I depended on Lomask, who provided the early tally of Burrites. Morris’s letter to Hamilton about political sobriety is in PAH. Parton steered me through the futile efforts of Dr. Ledyard to win Hamilton’s backing. For the intricacies of Otsego balloting regulations, I depended on Lomask.
32: I HAVE BEEN SO CRUELLY TREATED
Much of Hamilton’s plans for the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures were laid out by him in his lengthy Report on Manufactures, available in the Library of America edition. PAH establishes that he was busy on the fateful morning when the Reynoldses both charged back into his life. His Reynolds Pamphlet gives a full rendering of all the letters back and forth. In his Hamilton papers, Syrett’s lengthy editorial note on Oliver Wolcott Jr., Hamilton’s successor as secretary of the treasury, offers the best and most judicious guide to the players, their backgrounds, and their motivations in this tawdry but high-stakes melodrama, which was now only in its opening act.
33: LOUIS CAPET HAS LOST HIS CAPUT
The events of the French Revolution are well known. In sculpting my own version—the one that was most pertinent to Hamilton, Burr, and Jefferson, among other American politicians—I have relied on Simon Schama’s magisterial Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution. To see these events from the American perspective, I turned to Elkins and McKitrick’s Age of Federalism, which also laid out the triumphal American tour of Citizen Genet. Chernow recorded the denouement. Hamilton’s comments are in PAH.
34: THE BEST WOMAN AND FINEST LADY I HAVE EVER KNOWN
For Abigail Adams’s fervid admiration of Richmond Hill, see Charles Felton Pidgin’s 1907 biography, Theodosia, the First Gentlewoman of Her Time. Pidgin also calls the roll of the famous guests to the Burr mansion. The death of Theodosia is recorded in the letters collected in Davis, most of them from Burr as Theodosia went into ever-steeper decline. Côté’s Theodosia Burr Alston picks up the story, once it turned to the other Theodosia, and Parton tells the tale of the unnamed woman in Burr’s library.
35: ROOT OUT THE DISTEMPERED AND NOISOME WEED
Hamilton’s resignation letter to Washington is in PAH, as is the tender one back from his fatherly commander in chief. PAH also has Hamilton’s long, anguished letter to Rufus King about his bête noire, Burr.
PART THREE:
TO THE DEATH
36: TO FIGHT THE WHOLE DETESTABLE FACTION
The various offers for Hamilton’s legal services are related in PAH. Chernow recounts the raucous evening Hamilton spent defending the Jay Treaty on the streets of an inhospitable New York. As always, the quotes are in PAH. The two Madison biographies above, by Brookhiser and Wills, chronicle the struggle to write Washington’s farewell address. The various Jefferson quotes about racial differences can all be found in his Notes on the State of Virginia.
Although it is one of Callender’s more notorious efforts, Nos V & VI of the History of the United States for the Year 1796 has fallen out of print, but the contents are widely cited, and the facts of Callender himself can be found in Michael Durey’s biography, “With the Hammer of Truth,” which details the wrecking-ball life of this Scotsman. Hamilton’s famous Reynolds Pamphlet, again, is in PAH, as is the commiseration of his friends. Chernow rounds out the tale with the quotations from Abigail Adams, and then the go-around with Monroe, Muhlenberg, and Venable. The account of the set-to with Monroe was the one set down at the time by his associate Gelston; I relied also on Harry Ammon’s Monroe biography. Angelica’s sympathetic letter to Betsey is in PAH. Chernow recounts the tale of Philip’s illness.
37: THE BUBBLE OF SPECULATION IS BURST
The fullest and most reliable account of Burr’s various financial misadventures—but especially with Angerstein and Lamb—will be found in a lengthy editorial note in Kline’s two-volume edition of the public letters. Hamilton’s delight in Burr’s debt is in PAH. For Joseph Brant-Thayendanegea, the Indian King, I relied on William L. Stone’s two-volume 1845 biography, Life of Joseph Brant-Thayendanegea; also on Côté; and on a long and fascinating entry in the online Dictionary of Canadian Biography. It is Parmet and Hecht who penetrate most deeply into the true nature of Burr’s relationship with the Indian King.
38: AN ABSOLUTE AND ABOMINABLE LIE
The fulsome letters from Jefferson to Burr are in the Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Lomask details Burr’s efforts in the Assembly, both for the common good and for Burr’s singular advantage. Davis records his indignant response to the many reasonable questions about his bill. Chernow reports Burr’s ensuing duel with Church. Among others, Parmet and Hecht relate the creation of the Manhattan Company. Brian Phillips Murphy’s “A very convenient instrument,” an award-winning article about the bank in the William and Mary Quarterly, is particular insightful.
39: STRUT IS GOOD FOR NOTHING
Elkins and McKitrick relate the
famous brawl between Griswold and Lyon, according it the balance of horror and hilarity that it deserves. They are also very good at showing the overlap between foreign concerns and domestic ones and relating the balance between sensible caution in regard to France and paranoia, and also the fine distinction, for Hamilton, between a healthy sense of duty and shameless self-aggrandizement. Lomask ably gives the Burr angle on all this and on the misguided Alien and Sedition laws that ensued. I was also very glad to consult Dunn’s Jefferson’s Second Revolution, which sets the scene for his election. For Washington’s death, I relied on Chernow’s biography of the first president.
40: THE LADY IN THE WELL
To recount this peculiar tragedy, I turned to Paul Collins’s Duel with the Devil, which tells the tale and makes much of the odd fact that Burr and Hamilton made up the defense team. For further details, I depended on Kleiger’s Trial of Levi Weeks, which offers a transcript of the case, drawn from the newspapers of the time. Hamilton’s derision of Burr is in PAH.
41: THE FANGS OF JEFFERSON
To recount the tumultuous election of 1800, from Burr’s effort to wrest a majority from the state Assembly to the Manhattan street fight of the election itself, I depended on a range of accounts of this signal event in American history: A Magnificent Catastrophe, by Edward J. Larson; Susan Dunn’s Jefferson’s Second Revolution: The Election Crisis of 1800 and the Triumph of Republicanism; John Ferling’s Jefferson and Hamilton; and Ferling’s Adams vs. Jefferson. The Larson was especially enlightening. It was the indefatigable Lomask who dredged up the odd story about how Clinton would accept the vice presidency, but only if he was allowed to resign it shortly afterward.
42: THE GIGG IS THEREFORE UP
As with the previous chapter, I was impressed with Larson, Dunn, and Ferling, all of whom do yeomen’s work to bring clarity to a very murky period of American political history. For the correspondence with Theodore Sedgwick, I turned to our kinsman Richard Welch’s biography. Hamilton’s bitter comments toward Burr are in PAH. Isenberg helps sort out why Burr might have attracted this particular type of vituperation in this period. Along with Pidgin, from an earlier day, Côté tells the grim story of young Theodosia’s misguided marriage. For the pivotal anecdote about how Burr packed but did not come—this comes from the dogged Parmet and Hecht.
43: A DAMN’D RASCAL
Parmet and Hecht, along with Lomask, are the best on Burr’s miseries as vice president. Davis reveals Burr’s letters dismissing the suspicions against him. Kline’s edition of Political Correspondence and Public Papers of Aaron Burr is good on the sad saga of Davis’s attempt to get a job with the new administration. Chernow provides a useful gloss on Jefferson’s administration by providing the Hamilton angle. And he gives the most poignant account of the unbearably tragic death of Philip Hamilton at the hands of Captain George I. Eacker.
Of all Burr’s biographers, Isenberg was the most diligent in tracking down Burr’s many paramours, from Celeste to Sansay. Lomask dug out the two women Burr seduced into prostitution while vice president.
44: TANT MIEUX
In his trenchant character study of Jefferson, Ellis lays out the continuing appeal of the Jefferson presidency. Kline offers the most succinct account of the falling-out between Jefferson and Burr. Lomask is terrific on the governor’s race, being fair to both sides—Hamilton’s and Burr’s—while sliding in the wild card of the allure of the Northern Alliance for Burr. Burr’s postmortem to Theodosia is in Davis.
45: A STILL MORE DESPICABLE OPINION
For the history of dueling in New York, and more generally, by far the most spirited are Gentlemen’s Blood: A History of Dueling, from Swords at Dawn to Pistols at Dusk, by Barbara Holland; The History and Examination of Duels: Shewing Their Heinous Nature and the Necessity of Suppressing Them, by John Cockburn; and a curious Essay on the Practice of Duelling, as It Exists in Modern Society, by James Sega, LL.D., in 1830, occasioned by the death of a friend.
Hamilton’s line about popular opinion regarding duels is in PAH. For sources regarding the Albany dinner, see those in the introduction, when the dinner is first introduced. Coleman offers the best compendium of the letters between Burr and Hamilton, and of the consequences that followed. Chernow follows Hamilton’s movements once the duel is set. The descendant of the original Manhattan Company, now called JP Morgan Chase & Co., possesses the original pistols in its archives at its Manhattan headquarters but is lamentably chary of showing them to the public. The New-York Historical Society possesses nearly perfect facsimiles. For the line of inquiry behind the footnote regarding the timing of fire, I found Joseph Ellis’s Founding Brothers to be the most compelling on a point that is often overlooked. The sad lines of farewell from Hamilton to his wife are in PAH.
PART FOUR:
AND THEN THERE WAS ONE
46: HAVE NO ANXIETY ABOUT THE ISSUE OF THIS BUSINESS
Lomask tells the odd story of the visit of Burr’s cousin. Kline has Burr’s letter of uncharacteristic concern to his son-in-law. Lomask relates the bit about Truxtun but misses the shading that Truxtun is potentially a Burr ally, and he carries the tale through the shadows of Philadelphia. The letters of Burr’s to and from his confederates are all in Davis.
47: A GOOD MANY INCIDENTS TO AMUSE ONE
For the full story of the remarkably untrustworthy James Wilkinson, I have turned to Andro Linklater’s Artist in Treason, which details the dawn of the Burr conspiracy, which began over maps in Burr’s library. It is unknown what maps Burr and Wilkinson were poring over, but one of them might have been the exquisite Faden map of the United States from 1796, which shows the known world ending at the Mississippi, with mostly blank spaces beyond. Burr’s reassuring letter to Theodosia is in Davis. In volume 2 of his big Burr biography, Lomask nicely lays out the secession plan, as does David O. Stewart in American Emperor, a fine account of Burr’s career as a traitor. Burr’s bouquet to Williamson is in Davis, as are Burr’s many complaints about his various amours. For the Truxtun negotiations, as well as the Merry mission, the complications with Spain, and the other preliminaries, I turned to Stewart, Lomask, and Parmet and Hecht, but Lomask offers the best understanding of Burr’s sojourn farther south before he doubled back to preside over the Chase trial. Burr’s brave and blustery letters to Theodosia are in Davis. Lomask is essential to following the story of Burr’s recruiting efforts in Washington.
48: MOTIVES OF PROFOUND POLITICAL IMPORTANCE
In general, I preferred Lomask’s version of Burr’s tour down the Ohio, although Stewart’s American Emperor provides a good guide to the territory, filling out the details on what he terms the “high-spirited” Kemper brothers, elsewhere considered notorious desperadoes. All the commentators go to town on poor Blennerhassett, but William H. Safford’s 1850 The Life of Harman Blennerhassett gives a good sense of how Blennerhassett’s near contemporaries might have viewed this eccentric. Burr’s letter to Theodosia, in which he extols Jackson and his hospitality, is in Davis. Wilkinson, again, is best understood through the biography An Artist in Treason. His own interminable autobiography is, like the man, overstuffed, showy, and not to be relied on. The complicated interplay among Burr, Wilkinson, and the rightly suspicious Major James Bruff is difficult to piece out, but I found that Stewart has the best close-up view of the later stages of the plot, while Lomask is better at providing the overview of the goals of Burr’s conspiracy, which are otherwise hard to discern, especially as they came into conflict with his hopes for extracting a political appointment from Jefferson, and his investment in the Bastrop Tract.
49: A TERRIBLE WHIRLPOOL, THREATENING EVERYTHING
Lomask’s account of the endgame of the Burr conspiracy is the most thorough and convincing, as he recounts how the unwanted newspaper publicity aroused the determined Kentucky US attorney Daviess. Linklater does his best to render Wilkinson’s objectives, which were no more transparent than Burr’s. Saff
ord helps out with poor Blennerhassett. Stewart describes Burr’s fling with Madeline Price, drawing the quote about his “witchery” from Claiborne’s Mississippi, and on through the various court cases, until Burr hit a judge who was not taken in by him.
50: A SLIGHT EXPRESSION OF CONTEMPT
The Burr letter to Theodosia is in Davis. For Jefferson’s, see the Papers of Thomas Jefferson. For Marshall, there are several biographies of this remarkable jurist, of which Jean Edward Smith’s 1996 John Marshall: Definer of a Nation offers the fullest account of Marshall’s life, and not just his public life. Linklater, however, does the best at bringing to life a long, meandering trial with quotations he collected from skeptical observers such as Washington Irving. Lomask ably represents the trial’s basic shape.
War of Two : Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and the Duel That Stunned the Nation (9780698193901) Page 48
