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.”