While Meriwether Lewis and his entourage travel between Louisville and Frankfort, 395 river miles up the Ohio, former Vice President Aaron Burr is recruiting soldiers and amassing men and supplies on Blennerhassett Island. From Natchez, Mississippi, General James Wilkinson warns President Thomas Jefferson of Burr’s “spectacle of human depravity”.
Aaron Burr c. 1803
John Vanderlyn (1775–1852)
Oil on canvas, 28 9/16 x 22 in. Yale University Art Gallery, Bequest of Oliver Burr Jennings, B.A. 1917, in memory of Miss Annie Burr Jennings, artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/8817.
Aaron Burr’s Spectacle of Depravity
Seat of Major Minor, near
Natchez, Novem. 12, 1806.Sir,
I again intrude upon you the subject of the duplicate under cover, which presents a spectacle of human depravity, to excite our sorrow, indignation and abhorrence.
. . . . .
I received from a correct source the information under cover, at Natchitoches on the 6th instant, and make no question of the facts, though I trust the report of the agent alluded to was a mere “ruse de guerre” to popularize and gain auxiliaries to the real design, “to seize on New Orleans, revolutionize the territory, and carry an expedition against Mexico by Vera Cruz.” This is indeed a deep, dark and wide spread conspiracy, embracing the young and the old, the democrat and the federalist, the native and the foreigner, the patriot of ’76 and the exotic of yesterday . . . .
Ja. Wilkinson.[1]James Wilkinson to Thomas Jefferson, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-4537.
Notes
| ↑1 | James Wilkinson to Thomas Jefferson, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-4537. |
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The Lewis and Clark Trail Experience—our sister site at lewisandclark.travel—connects the world to people and places on the Lewis and Clark Trail.
Discover More
- The Lewis and Clark Expedition: Day by Day by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). The story in prose, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
- The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery (abridged) by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Selected journal excerpts, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
- The Lewis and Clark Journals. by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001). The complete story in 13 volumes.
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