So it was that a bill containing these authorizations was prepared and hastily passed by the Legislature, and Judge Return Jonathan Meigs and Major General Buell were sent to Marietta with a small body of Ohio militia to carry out the order. Mrs. Blennerhassett, who was on the island, learned of the rising tide of public indignation and dispatched Peter Taylor, her gardener, to Kentucky to find Blennerhassett and Burr and to warn Burr not to return.
On hearing that the Ohio militia under Judge Meigs and General Buell were on the way to the boat yard, Dudley Woodbridge set off for the island to give the alarm. On the way he ran into Blennerhassett, Comfort Tyler, and some of the young men who were going after the boats. But they were too late. The boats had been seized by Meigs and Buell and with them 200 barrels of provisions.
Following this loss, and alarmed by the threatening attitude of the Wood County militia, Blennerhassett and Tyler concluded that the expedition would be jeopardized by remaining longer on the island. They decided, therefore, to slip away during the night on Tyler’s four boats, leaving Mrs. Blennerhassett and the two boys on the island with instructions to follow later when arrangements could be made.
The weather was enough to take the heart out of the conspirators. It had snowed during the day; then the snow was followed by rain and the ground near the river bank was a sea of mud. Regardless of the need for secrecy, a fire was lighted where the members of the expedition might find a little warmth and perhaps a chance to get partially dry. Throughout these trying preliminaries Margaret Blennerhassett exhibited surprising energy in helping with preparations for the departure.
It was 1 A.M. on the morning of December 10 when the four boats put off from the island and began their long journey downstream. The conspirators numbered about thirty in all. It was a sorry war they were waging against the United States, if war it could be called. Their departure was made none too soon. A few hours later Colonel Phelps arrived at the head of the Wood County militia. These patriots, finding their quarry gone, made free with Blennerhassett’s wine, got drunk, insulted Mrs. Blennerhassett, and vented their wrath against the owner of the house by smashing windows, breaking up pictures and furniture, and committing other disgraceful acts of vandalism.
The Ohio authorities set a guard on the river at Cincinnati to halt any expedition as it came down, but the little flotilla passed during the night and was not detected. Six days after leaving the island it arrived at Jeffersonville, Indiana, opposite Louisville. There it found and joined forces with Davis Floyd, another Burr lieutenant, and his detachment of two boats.
Meanwhile Burr had appeared before the two grand juries in Kentucky and had been discharged by both of them without being indicted. He had faced up to Andrew Jackson’s suspicions and convinced that gentleman of his innocence of any wrongdoing against the United States. In the boats built for him by Jackson and John Coffee he set out from Nashville down the Cumberland River to rendezvous with his forces on the Ohio. Burr had sent word to Blennerhassett by Jackson’s nephew that he would join him at the mouth of the Cumberland on December 28. He actually arrived one day ahead—the historic meeting took place on December 27. The flotilla had now grown to ten boats and a company of not more than 100 men.
The rank and file were in need of inspiration by this time and it seemed appropriate for the leader to say a few words to them. So they were marshaled on Cumberland Island for that purpose. But if they expected to get any information from their leader they were disappointed. With his customary air of mystery Burr merely announced that he could not at that time tell them what their destination would be, and that he must wait for a more appropriate occasion.
From there the flotilla continued on its journey down the Ohio River. At Fort Massac, the army post above the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi where Burr and Wilkinson had conferred in the summer of 1805, Burr presented himself to the commander, Captain Daniel Bissell, who greeted him warmly and extended to him all the courtesies of the post. The party had completed its visit and departed when a messenger arrived posthaste from General Jackson warning Bissell of the nature of the expedition and urging him to halt it. Bissell, having seen the force with his own eyes, sent the messenger back to Jackson with the report that there was nothing to fear from it. From then on Jackson was more than ever convinced that the furore raised by the Administration over the conspiracy was purely political and had no basis in fact.
On January 10 the flotilla reached Bayou Pierre, some thirty miles north of Natchez, in Mississippi Territory. There Burr landed and went to pay a call on a friend, Judge Bruin, who lived nearby. And there, in a newspaper handed him by the Judge, he saw his letter of July 29 to Wilkinson and knew for the first time that he had been deserted and betrayed by the General. At Judge Bruin’s, too, he learned of the President’s proclamation and that his arrest had been ordered by the acting governor of the territory, Cowles Meade.