Letters from James Wilkinson

James Wilkinson was an American army officer and politician who was associated with multiple scandals and controversies during his life, including the Burr conspiracy. He served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, but he was twice compelled to resign. He was twice the Senior Officer of the U.S. Army; was appointed to be the first governor in the newly acquired western lands of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, later organized by the United States Congress and the third President, Thomas Jefferson as the Louisiana Territory in 1804-1812, west of the Mississippi River; and commanded two unsuccessful military invasion campaigns in the St. Lawrence River valley theater in Canada during the War of 1812.