On May 29, 1805, on his first visit to the West, Aaron Burr arrived in Nashville, Tennessee. There he was heartily welcomed as was becoming a former Vice-President of the United States, a member of the ascendant political party in that section of the country, and one who in the best frontier tradition had met his man on the field of honor.

Still another potent reason for the warmth of the reception was Tennessee’s gratitude to Burr who, as a member of the Senate, had actively supported her successful appeal for statehood.

Foremost among those greeting the statesman was Andrew Jackson, Nashville’s first citizen, businessman, planter, sportsman, former judge, and major general of militia. The two had met before in Philadelphia when that city was the seat of the Federal Government and Jackson appeared there briefly as Senator from Tennessee. The General retained vivid recollections of a magnificent dinner he had attended as a guest of Colonel Burr—a dinner featuring foods and wines which reflected the Colonel’s reputation as an epicure. Jackson was only one of many guests and Burr did much entertaining. It is not improbable that in the intervening years Burr had forgotten the tall, lanky frontiersman who had not at that time made his mark on the national scene. But even if that were the case Burr was far too astute to let Jackson know it. He saluted him as an old friend. The bustling young town did itself proud in entertaining its distinguished visitor. There were military reviews to the sound of martial music, the firing of salutes, and the cheers of the crowds along the way. Crowning the celebration was a banquet at which General Jackson undertook to repay Burr’s hospitality in kind, and where toasts were drunk until late in the evening.

After the public festivities were concluded Burr stayed on for five days as a guest of Andrew and Rachel Jackson at the Hermitage. The Jacksons had only recently moved in and the dwelling that was to become so intimately associated with them was a mere blockhouse consisting of a single room downstairs, two rooms upstairs, a kitchen, and a detached guest house in the yard.

From Nashville Burr proceeded to New Orleans where his welcome was as cordial as that extended him in Kentucky and Tennessee. In August he was back in Nashville after a strenuous journey on horseback through wild country that would have tested the physical vigor of any man and satisfied the Tennesseans that here was no effete easterner but a red-blooded individual who could keep pace with the best of them. This was not the Burr of the drawing room but the veteran warrior of the Quebec campaign and numerous pitched battles of the Revolution.

On this occasion Burr was a guest at the Hermitage for eight days. Of the second visit the Colonel wrote in glowing terms to Theodosia: “For a week I have been lounging at the house of General Jackson, once a lawyer, after a judge, now a planter; a man of intelligence, and one of those prompt, frank ardent souls whom I love to meet.”

What bond held the two men together? No formal record was kept of their conversations but more than a year later, when much had happened, the General wrote a letter to a friend in Washington, George W. Campbell, that throws light on the two meetings.

Prevalent throughout the western country was the belief that war with Spain was inevitable and imminent. Spain had been forced against her will to consent to the sale of Louisiana by Napoleon to the United States. New Orleans, though now an American possession, was flanked by the Floridas on one side and by Mexico on the other, both still Spanish territory. A Spanish army stood threateningly on the Sabine River which separated Texas from Louisiana. Acquisition of Louisiana Territory, too, brought on a renewed fever for expansion in the western country. Underlying the spirit of unrest was the fact of an aged dying empire faced by a young and virile country. The West was so confident of itself and so contemptuous of the Spaniards that it longed for action. No person there was more impatient than Andrew Jackson who looked scornfully at the dilatory policy in Washington. In Aaron Burr he thought he saw the dynamic leader needed to put an end to dilly-dallying.

According to what Jackson said in his letter to Campbell, Burr told him the expedition he was planning was primarily to settle the Wachita lands to which he claimed a title. However, if on the way down the Mississippi River war with Spain were to break out, as seemed probable, his force could be diverted to march into Mexico, support the patriots there, and effect the country’s independence from Spain. For this plan of action Burr assured the General he had the support of the Washington administration. It was a plan which fired the General’s imagination, and, as Burr outlined it, bore no taint of illegality. By November Burr was again in the East, spending part of his time in Washington and there dining with the President at the White House.

On March 24 Burr wrote a letter to Jackson which contained several mischievous passages. First he reported what he knew would be unpleasant news to the General—that the Administration was against a war with Spain, “if it can be avoided with honor, or even without.” Equally irritating to the fiery Tennessean must have been Burr’s report that Jefferson was trying to wring from Congress an appropriation of $2,000,000 for the purchase of the Floridas. Why, the General might have asked, was the nation proposing to hand out all that money for what it could get by the use of its strong right arm?

Yet, continued Burr, in spite of the pacific attitude of the Administration there still was reason to expect hostility. He argued that Spain, aroused by Miranda’s activity in behalf of the independence of her American colonies, which the United States Government was suspected of supporting, would attack this country.

Whether Burr actually believed that or not it gave him a chance to get in a little flattery. He observed that he had often said that a brigade could be raised in West Tennessee capable of driving double the number of Frenchmen off the earth. Would General Jackson care to select officers for two regiments from colonel down? If so, and in case troops should be called, Burr would recommend the list to the Department of War “... and I have reason to believe that on such occasion my advice would be listened to....” Burr had no such reason. He was vague, as usual, but the implication was strong that he was acting with the knowledge and consent of the Administration.

Burr closed his letter on a critical note that played up to Jackson’s prejudice against the occupant of the White House. He had been told, he said, that Mr. Randolph had charged the President with duplicity and imbecility. “All these things, my dear Sir, begin to make reflecting men to think, many good patriots to doubt, and some to despond.” Just what did he mean? Burr was again resorting to innuendo which he handled so skillfully.

While Burr was in the East General Jackson had been fully occupied. In April his thoroughbred stallion Truxton won a classic race against Joseph Erwin’s Ploughboy, earning a stake of $3,000, which the General greatly needed, and establishing his owner as the leading turfman of the West. This sporting event was followed by the General’s meeting with Charles Dickinson in a duel in which Dickinson was killed. On the way to the duelling ground the General was not too preoccupied with the business in hand to discuss the Spanish matter with his second, General John Overton. He doubted that the conquest of Mexico would be as easy as Burr imagined. “Burr,” he commented, “is as far from a fool as ever I saw, and yet he is as easily fooled as any man I ever knew.”

Jefferson’s help the General did not value highly. He was then under the impression, which had been encouraged by Burr, that the Government was a silent partner in the plotting against Spain. He prophesied that the Federalists, when they learned about it, would assail the policy tooth and nail. And, he observed, when they did so Mr. Jefferson would “run like a cottontail rabbit.” Here was the rugged frontiersman’s scorn for the timidity of the intellectual in the White House.

In the autumn of 1806, more than a year after his first visit, Burr returned to Nashville. His welcome was as cordial as ever. Another banquet and a ball were given in his honor. Burr entered the hall on the arm of Jackson, resplendent in the uniform of a major general of militia. The General had seen to it that all his friends were on hand to pay their respects to the distinguished visitor. The tall, raw-boned Jackson and the trim, diminutive Burr made a striking contrast. When time came for the drinking of toasts, Jackson arose and offered the always popular one: “Millions for defense; and not one cent for tribute.” Did he have in mind the two millions Jefferson was just then trying to get from Congress for the purchase of the Floridas?

On this visit Burr gave Jackson an order for five large boats and provisions sufficient for the complement of men they would carry. In payment he tendered $3,500 in Kentucky bank notes. Jackson turned over the execution of the contract to his faithful friend and partner, John Coffee. Meanwhile another friend of Jackson’s, one Patton Anderson, set to work in earnest raising a company of young men to go with the Burr expedition down the river, whatever the destination might be.

On Colonel Burr’s appearance in Nashville in late September he imparted confidential information to Jackson which led the latter to believe that war with Spain was about to break out. On the strength of it the General on October 4 took it upon himself to issue a proclamation to the Tennessee militia stating that the menacing attitude of the Spanish forces already inside the American boundary required that the militia be called out and made ready for instant duty. He then notified President Jefferson of his readiness to tender his services:

“Sir: In the event of insult or aggression made on our government and country from any quarter, I am well convinced that the public sentiment and feelings of the citizens within this State, and particularly within my division, are of such a nature and such a kind that I take the liberty of tendering their services, that is, under my command; and at one moment’s warning, after your signification that this tender is acceptable, my orders shall be given conformably.” There could not have been a more generous and loyal gesture.

To a man of Jackson’s impetuous temperament Jefferson’s reply was like a dash of cold water in the face. “Always a friend of peace,” wrote the President, “and believing it to promote eminently the happiness and prosperity of mankind, I am ever unwilling that it should be disturbed as long as the rights and interests of the nation can be preserved. But whenever hostile aggressions on these require a resort to war, we must meet our duty, and convince the world that we are just friends and brave enemies.”

This noncommittal philosophizing was hardly agreeable to the ears of a man whose command was already drawn up under arms and waiting impatiently for the proper authorities to give the word “go.” It could not have failed to increase Jackson’s distaste for Jefferson.

The friendly relations between Burr and Jackson continued as late as November 3. Then, within a week, Jackson’s attitude underwent a sudden reversal. The change came with the visit to the Hermitage of a Captain Fort, a stranger to the General. Fort stayed for the night and part of a day. By this time the country was seething with rumors of a conspiracy, and the conversation between the master of the Hermitage and his guest turned on that subject. Captain Fort ventured the opinion that part of the plot was the division of the Union. The General asked him how it would be done. Captain Fort replied that it would be done by seizing New Orleans and the bank there, closing the port, conquering Mexico, and uniting part of the Union to that country. It was to be accomplished, he said, with the aid of Federal troops under the command of General James Wilkinson. Jackson inquired if Burr was involved. Fort replied that he did not know. Asked where he got his information, he said it came from Col. John Swartwout of New York. At this the General pricked up his ears, for Swartwout was well known as a political lieutenant of Burr.

Impressed and shocked, Jackson acted with characteristic directness. He ordered Coffee to accept no more contracts from Burr. He penned a letter to Burr in strong terms, telling him of his suspicions and warning him that until they were cleared from his mind he wished no further intimacy to exist between them.

While Jackson had only suspicions of Burr he appears to have been convinced of the guilt of Wilkinson, whom he had known in years past, with whom he had had business dealings, and for whom he had no love. To Gov. William C.C. Claiborne, of the New Orleans territory, he dispatched a dramatic warning: “Indeed I fear treachery has become the order of the day.... Put your town in a state of defense. Organize your militia and defend your city as well against internal enemies as external.... Be upon the alert; and keep a watchful eye upon the General [Wilkinson] and beware of an attack as well from our own country as Spain.” In his idle moments at the Hermitage between horse races and duels General Jackson must have been dipping into Shakespeare. The letter continued: “I fear there is something rotten in the State of Denmark.... Beware the month of December. I love my country and government, I hate the Dons; I would delight to see Mexico reduced; but I will die in the last ditch before I yield a foot to the Dons, or see the Union disunited. This I write for your own eyes, and for your safety; profit by it and the Ides of March remember.”

To Jackson’s demand for an explanation Burr gave prompt attention. According to the General he answered “with the most sacred pledges that he had not, nor never had, any views inimical or hostile to the United States, and whenever he was charged with the intention of separating the Union, the idea of insanity must be ascribed to him.”

General Jackson was not the only one demanding reassurances from Burr. When Burr was about to appear before the Kentucky Grand Jury at Frankfort he asked Henry Clay to defend him. Clay, too, wanted to hear from Burr’s own lips whether there was any substance to the charges that had been preferred by Daveiss and the Western World before accepting the commission. From Burr he got this categorical denial: “I have no design, nor have I taken any measure, to promote a dissolution of the Union or a separation of any one or more States from the residue.... I do not own a musket nor a bayonet, nor any single article of military stores, nor does any person for me, by my authority or with my knowledge.... Considering the high station you now fill in our national councils, I have thought these explanations proper, as well as to counteract chimerical tales, which malevolent persons have so industriously circulated, as to satisfy you that you have not espoused the cause of a man in any way unfriendly to the laws, the government or the interests of his country.”

Burr’s friend Senator John Smith, of Kentucky, also had expressed misgivings. To him Burr wrote: “I was greatly surprised and really hurt by the unusual tenor of your letter of the 23rd [October], and I hasten to reply to it as well for your satisfaction as my own. If there exists any design to separate the Western from the Eastern states, I am totally ignorant of it. I never harbored or expressed any such intention to anyone, nor did any person ever intimate such design to me.”

Following his exoneration by the Grand Jury in Kentucky, Burr went back to Nashville and called once more at the Hermitage. The General was not at home, but the visitor got a cool reception from Rachel. She evidently was not entirely satisfied by his written explanation to the General. Burr then put up at the tavern at nearby Clover Bottom where Jackson had a store. There he was confronted by Jackson and John Coffee and again protested he had no object in view except what was sanctioned by legal authority, and that, when the time came, he would produce the Secretary of War’s orders. According to one account not mentioned by Jackson in his letter to Campbell, Burr drew from his pocket a blank commission signed by Jefferson saying, “Gentlemen, I suppose this will satisfy you.”

Jackson concluded his letter to Campbell “... if he [Burr] is a traitor, he is the basest that ever did commit treason, and being tore to pieces and scattered to the four winds of heaven would be too good for him.”

Campbell turned the letter over to Jefferson. It may well have been responsible for the President’s declaration that Tennessee was faithful and “particularly General Jackson.”

At Clover Bottom Burr’s persuasiveness and apparent frankness dissipated the worst of Jackson’s suspicions. So much so that when Burr, using the boats that Jackson’s firm had built, dropped down the river, Rachel Jackson’s 17-year-old nephew, Stokely D. Hays, was permitted to go along. In later years Hays testified that he carried a letter to Governor Claiborne and that he had instructions from the Jacksons to leave the expedition if he should discover any action on its part that was inimical to the Government.

Jefferson’s expressed confidence in General Jackson, inspired by the letter to Representative Campbell, alas! came too late. All sorts of rumors were reaching the Government in Washington. One which was taken seriously came from a Captain Read, of Pittsburgh, who asserted that upon his honor he was firmly persuaded that “large bodies of troops from Tennessee, with General Andrew Jackson at their head, were in full march to join the traitors.” Perhaps Washington had also received reports of Burr’s visits to the Hermitage, which would have lent color to the charge. Indeed, Jackson’s complicity in the plot was so fully accepted in the East that the Richmond Enquirer, while rejoicing that Wilkinson had been “tampered with unsuccessfully” added that “we must acknowledge that we have entertained involuntary suspicions of him as well as of a militia general in Tennessee.” It regretted that it could not also withdraw its suspicions of the militia general.

So it came about that when Secretary of War Dearborn found it necessary to communicate with his subordinate in Tennessee on the subject of the nation’s defense, he assumed he was writing to a man whose loyalty was seriously questioned.

Prefacing his letter on his belief that an unlawful enterprise against the Government had been commenced, Dearborn stated hesitantly that “it is presumed that the Proclamation of the President ... will have produced every exertion ... and that you will have been among the most jealous opposers of any such unlawful expedition.” He then went on to say: “About Pittsburgh it is industriously reported among the adventurers, that they are to be joined, at the mouth of the Cumberland, by two regiments under the command of General Jackson.” He concluded: “... such a story might afford you an opportunity of giving an effectual check to the enterprise if not too late.”

Little did the Secretary of War understand the man to whom he was writing. The suspicion of guilt contained in the letter would have been calculated to arouse even the mildest of men. But Andrew Jackson was not a mild man. He was least mild when his honor was in question. The General took up his pen, but his emotions were too aroused to permit orderly thinking. He had to make several drafts of a reply before he settled on one that satisfied him. It would require an exhaustive search to find anywhere as bold and unrestrained an answer from a subordinate to his superior as the one Jackson directed to the Secretary of War.

Wrote Jackson: “You stand convicted of the most notorious and criminal acts of dishonor, dishonesty, want of candour and justice. You say, Sir, that it is industriously reported among the adventurers that they are to be joined at the mouth of the Cumberland by two regiments under the command of General Jackson. Such a story might afford him an opportunity of giving an effectual check to the enterprise, if not too late.

“After I have given the most deliberate consideration to your expressions ... I cannot draw from them any other conclusion but this: that you believe me concerned in the conspiracy and that I was fit subject to act the traitor of traitors, as others have done [the reference was to Wilkinson], and that the Secretary of War could buy me up without honor.” Dearborn did not answer the letter.

To his friend Patton Anderson, Jackson wrote: “I have received some communications from the President and the Secretary of War. It is the merest old-woman letter from the Secretary you ever saw.” Then he turned on Wilkinson: “Wilkinson has denounced Burr as a traitor, after he found that he was implicated. This is deep policy. He has obtained thereby the command of New Orleans, the gunboats armed; and his plan can be executed without resistance. But we must be there in due time, before our fortifications can be erected, and restore to our government New Orleans and the western commerce.” Then, as an afterthought: “The Secretary of War is not fit for a granny.”

General Jackson had taken one other precautionary measure. He had sent a messenger to Captain Bissell, who commanded the Federal post of Fort Massac on the Ohio River a short distance above its confluence with the Mississippi, warning him of the approach of Burr’s forces and urging him not to let any warlike party go past him down the river. He added that if Bissell should need help his troops were ready to march.

From Captain Bissell he shortly received a curt reply to the effect that Burr had already arrived at Massac, that his party showed no evidence of being on a warlike mission and had been permitted to proceed down the river.

Already Burr’s protestations of innocence had begun to have their effect on the General and now this report from Bissell strengthened his conviction of Burr’s sincerity. From then on in Jackson’s judgment Wilkinson, and not Burr, was the real culprit, and he acted accordingly.

In the ambitious roundup of witnesses that followed the Chief Justice’s demand on the prosecution for more evidence, General Jackson was caught and summoned by the lawyers of the Government to testify against Burr. But, contrary to the Government’s expectations, he turned out to be the noisiest of Burr’s champions, in the same breath attacking the Government and defending Burr in the very shadow of the Capitol for the benefit of anybody who chose to hear. Richmond’s best people already were aligned with Burr and needed no exhortations. But Jackson’s arguments were directed to the masses who up to this time had been clamoring for Burr’s blood. Jackson, too, spoke as a Republican to Republicans. Such a man was highly dangerous. To his friend Patton Anderson he wrote from Richmond on June 17: “I am sorry to say that this thing has in part assumed the shape of a political persecution.” No wonder then that, after bringing him all the way from Tennessee to Richmond, once the Government’s lawyers had heard about the speech, the prosecution decided it was best not to let him testify.

But the mischief went beyond the Burr trial. The break between Jackson and the Jefferson Administration was never mended. It was inherited by James Madison with the result that when the War of 1812 broke out the Government was reluctant to use their most competent general when he was sorely needed. Had Jackson commanded on the Canadian front the story might have been different.