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Napoleon's Invasion of North America
THOMAS FLEMING
But Thomas Fleming asks us to consider some of the alternatives, and ones
that would have been altogether impossible without Aedes aegypti, the mosquito
that carries yellow fever. Would a French~led Caribbean~American empire, a sec­
ond New France, have taken shape? How would a Louisiana Territory in which
. slavery was banned have affected the United States? Might Napoleon himself
sought refuge in New Orleans-with a Waterloo in the bayous as the result?
NAPOLEON'S INVASIO
OF NORTH AMERICA
Aedes aegypti takes a holiday, 1802
As we have seen in Theodore K. Rabb's essay about Charles I, disease can
history's great leveler, literally, and epidemics, those accidental force mumnuen.
have been responsible for more than their share of turning points-and
have~beens as well. You think of the mysterious plague that decimated an
conquering Assyrian army in front of Jerusalem in 721 B. C., a decisive momenf.
in the religious history of the world; the ftulike iUness that ravaged P,,"';rIM';\
Athens (and killed Pericles himself), helping to destroy Athenian power; or
smallpox that wasted Native American tribes and brought down two empires,
Aztec and the Inca. The list could go on. What if these epidemics had never
pened, had broken out at a slightly different time or in a form less severe?
There may be no better example of the effect of disease on history than the
low fever epidemic that largely wiped out a French army in Haiti in 1802 and
sented the young United States, just twenty years after the Revolutionary
with a matchless opening to the West. That was of course the Louisiana
chase, the 868,000 square miles of the lands west of the MississiPPi that
Jefferson's representatives in France picked up for a bargain price of $15
or approximately four cents an acre. No longer would the United States
hemmed in by the Mississippi River and British Canada. New Orleans, the
trading city for the trans~Appalachian states and territories, would be ours.
westward movement (and with it, a half century of rancorous dispute over
spread of slavery) could begin.
IVIVll"\.O
FLEMING is a historian whose many books include biographies
Thomas Jefferson and Benj~min Franklin; an account of the American
Liberty!; Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Future
America; and most recently, The New Dealer's War: Franklin D. Roosevelt
the War Within World War II.
Napoleon's Invasion of North America
relationship with the republic that had been established on the island
variously as Hispaniola and Saint Domingue. Then as now it was di­
into a French-speaking western third (the future republic of Haiti)
a Spanish-speaking eastern two-thirds (the future Dominican Repub­
VERYONE AGREES THAT
E
the 1803 Louisiana Purchase was the
triumph of President Thomas Jefferson's administration. In one
the man from Monticello doubled the size of the United States. Few
the so-called "greatest real estate deal in history" also solved one of
president's most unnerving problems: the possibility of a biracial
tionary French army in New Orleans-a presence that would almost
tainly have changed the course of American history.
Even fewer know that the solution to this nightmare-and the origin
Jefferson's triumph-was largely the product not of clever diplomacy or
rious feats of arms, but of the existence of a tiny female creature known
scientists as Aedes aegypti-the mosquito that produces yellow fever.
ing in pools of stagnant water in cities, towns, and army camps, Aedes
gered devastating epidemics in the Caribbean, South America,
tropical Africa, with death rates as high as 85 percent. At the tum of
nineteenth century, no one had any idea that this seemingly harmless
sect was the source of such woe.
When Jefferson became president in 1800,
his long love affair with the French Revolution-a romance so intense,
once declared he would have gladly seen the entire world
UepUpUl<1C'
rather than permit "that cause" to fail. This ideological fervor enabled
ferson to dismiss the blood-soaked orgy of violence into which the
upheaval collapsed-and its evolution into a virtual tyranny under
leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte. The new president was equally
about the nasty undeclared war the United States had fought with
during the last two years of President John Adams's administ::ation,
which French warships and privateers had destroyed $12 miltior,
American shipping-the equivalent of $600 million in modem money.
Also ready for diplomatic revision in Jefferson's White House was
, with a range of mountains as a geographical barrier between them.
had ceded the Spanish part of the island to France in 1795. For
merchants, Saint Domingue's wealthy upper class were prime
istomers. In 1790, before the French Revolution exploded, U.S. exports
the island, mostly food and lumber, amounted to $3 miliion, second
the $6.9 million that the United States shipped to England. Small won­
that the island was considered the ultimate prize in the numerous wars
great powers fought in the Caribbean.
The French Revolution's cry of liberty, equality, and fraternity had
Saint Domingue early in the 1790s. The precarious social mixture
royal officials, rich creole planters, middle-class storekeepers, and craftsand free mulattoes was sitting on a potential volcano of 400,000 black
whose toil on the sugar plantations made the island France's most
ucrative overseas possession. In 1793, war erupted between England and
France-a conflict that roiled the politics of the United
for a decade. The two embryo parties, the Jeffersonian Republicans,
of today's Democrats, and Alexander Hamilton's Federalists,
rerunners of the Republicans, took opposite sides.
The British and their allies made very little headway against the French
armies on land. But overseas, the British fleet proved a ma­
advantage. Island after island of France's Caribbean empire fell to
amphibious assaults, an art they had mastered during the Seven
War (1754-61). In Paris, meanwhile, the radical Jacobins seized con­
of the French National Assembly. In 1794 they issued a declaration
the slaves in France's overseas dominions. The move was moti­
only partly by a belief in universal liberty. The French also hoped to
massive slave revolts in Jamaica and other English colonies and in
United States. By that time President George Washington had de­
America neutral in the global war-with a distinct Hamiltonian tilt
England.
WHAT IF? 2
NapoLeon's Invasion
North America
When news of the Jacobin decree reached Saint Domingue, a civil W<lr
unbelievable ferocity exploded, with massacres of whites by blacks and
lip;},;
.0 ".
'~;;q;:,
/.?,r;.,.
versa, compounded by the invasion of a British army. Out of the tur­
emerged a charismatic black leader, Toussaint L'Ouverture, a
terrified slave owners in
American South. The Federalists in conof the American government took a different view. President
and his secretary of state, Timothy Pickering, saw L'Ouverture as an
to frustrate British and French imperialism in the Caribbean
maintain America's lucrative trade with Saint Domingue. They shipped
's army supplies and ammunition and at Alexander Hamilton's
$uggestion, sent his boyhood friend Edward Stevens, born on St. Croix,
to
the island's major port, Cap Fran~ois, where he became L'Ouverture's
trusted friend and adviser. The Adams administration even ordered the
American fleet in the Caribbean to show the flag at Cap Fran~ois. Without:
quite saying it, they urged L'Ouverture to declare independence.
SeFretary of State Pickering performed masterfully in this delicate diplo­
macy, persuading jittery South Carolina Federalist slave owners to back
him in Congress
producing evidence that the French government's
representative in Saint Domingue, a demagogic Jacobin named Theodore
Hedouville, had urged L'Ouverture to ,invade British Jamaica and
American South to foment slave uprisings there. But the black leader had
refused to pursue this racist foreign policy.
Backed by American diplomacy and firepower, L'Ouverture routed the
British army and became the de facto ruler of Saint Domingue. His troops
quickly conquered the Spanish part of the island as well. Through Ed­
ward Stevens and Timothy Pickering, Alexander Hamilton was invited to
advise the black leader on a constitution. True to his authoritarian in­
stincts, Hamilton told L'Ouverture to appoint himself governor general for
life-and enroll every able-bodied man in the militia. An assembly was
also added to the government's structure, but it had no power to initiate
pacifiCOceo;i',
legislation.
With driving energy, L'Ouverture invited whites and mulattoes to join
him in restoring a semblance of prosperity to Saint Domingue. He banned
slavery forever but persuaded the former slaves to return to the sugarcane
<:~Q
WHAT IF? 2
fields to work as draftees in the service of the state. Unfortunately, he
trusted the slave-owning British and Americans enough to declare
pendence. He retained a frequently expressed loyalty to
France, which had given his race their freedom.
When Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in Paris, followed within a
months by Thomas Jefferson's electoral triumph in 1800, Toussaint I..:
verture was doomed. In Washington, D.C., the new American president
urged the French charge d'affaires, Louis Pichon, to tell his
that America was eager to help restore French rule in Saint Domingue.
advised France to make peace with England and send an army to crush
black rebels; "Nothing would be easier than to furnish your army and
everything and to reduce Toussaint to starvation," Jefferson said.
Historians debate whether this ruthless reversal of American
rooted in Jefferson's eagerness to show his friendship for the new r.
France or in his fear of a slave republic that would communicate UC1U~C1U'
ideas about freedom and equality to the restless blacks of the
South. It was probably a mixture of both motives. Napoleon had not
made himself france's ruler for life. Jefferson was still able to view him
legitimate heir of the Revolution. In September 1800, Virginia had
shaken by the aborted rebellion of Gabriel Prosser, a I\.l....lllHV
blacksmith, and his brother Martin, an itinerant preacher.
The Prossers, both free blacks, had organized slaves at funerals an6
religious meetings, using the language of the American Declaration of
dependence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man. The
called for a march on Richmond from nearby plantations, a seizure
state arsenal to equip a black army, and the massacre of all the white
habitants except Methodists and Quakers, who opposed slavery.
night the rebellion, a storm washed out the roads to Richmond
would-be rebels scattered. Before they could reorganize, the secret
and the Prossers and other leaders were promptly executed. But
smaller slave revolts had continued to disturb the state for the
two years.
In Europe, Jefferson's election as president coincided with the
Napoleon's Invasion of North America
the two superpowers, after eight years of global warfare. As peace
;negotiations began, Napoleon acted on Jefferson's invitation. In November
801, the First Consul shipped a 20,000 man army to Saint Domingue,
commanded by his brother-in-law, General Charles Leclerc. Unknown tu
lefferson or anyone else, this expedition had another purpose. In March
801, the Man of Destiny, as Napoleon liked to be called, had browbeaten
reluctant Spanish ally into retroceding the immense territory of Louisi­
to France. It had been given to Spain as compensation for her losses in
secret orders, Bonaparte told Leclerc to transfer the bulk of the army
New Orleans as soon as he restored French supremacy in Saint
a task that Bonaparte estimated would take only six weeks. As
slavery, Napoleon thought it ought to be reimposed along with French
he withheld judgment on that deCision for the time being.
was the creation of a self-sufficient overseas empire. Louisiana would
JV.Ul"1;jUC,
Saint Domingue and the other French islands with food at cut-rate
eliminating the need to buy from the Americans. The islands would
sugar, coffee, and cotton to swell France's depleted exchequer.
of other nations would be excluded from this lucrative business.
A confident Leclerc arrived in Cap Fran<;ois in February 1802, and
went to work on "the gilded Africans," as Napoleon contemptu­
called them. The size of the French fleet and army made L'Ouverture
his allies more than a little suspicious. It was much too large to be
escort of a delegation from Paris, reaffirming France's theoretical sov­
When Leclerc called on Henri Christophe, one of L'Ouverture's
to surrender the port city, he declined. Leclerc promptly attacked
land and sea. Christophe responded by burning Cap Fran<;ois and re­
into the country.
ll-out war erupted throughout Saint Domingue. At first it seemed to go
for the French. The Spanish section of the island was quickly occupied
the help of the local population. Some black garrisons surrendered to
French brigades. In ten days Leclerc had captured all the key
forts and was preparing an offensive into the interior.
WHAT IF? 2
Napoleon's Invasion of North America
L'Ouverture remained beyond his grasp, and another black general, Jean-'
, get the best possible deal from Leclerc. L'Ouverture's second in command,
Jacques Dessalines, rampaged through the countryside, slaughtering every
white person he found-and any black who tried to help them.
An attempt at negotiations failed and on February 18, 1802, Leclerc
launched an offensive against L'Ouverture's interior stronghold, Gonalves, '
Advancing in four columns, the French discovered they had to
general~
switched sides and supported Leclerc. The French commander
force with lavish promises of money and power to those who joined him
a pacified Saint Domingue.
throughout the interior of the island. Moreover, Leclerc was confronting
..other problems beyond Saint Domingue's horizon.
Madison, learned that the French now owned Louisiana. Next, tbe
American ambassador in London warned them of Napoleon's plan to make
Domingue a mere way station on Leclerc's voyage to New Orleans.
:jefterson's love affair with the French Revolution came to an
On February 23, L'Ouverture ambushed a French force of 5,000 men
few miles from Gona'lves. For a while the French teetered on rout. But
commander, General Donatien de Rochambeau (son of the general
influence of the cooler, more suspicious Madison and other ad­
visers. Tench Coxe, a Philadelphia merchant who was heavily involved in
cotton business, warned that
United States could not "be too much
. on our guard against the consequences" of a French army in Louisiana.
was George Washington's partner at Yorktown) rescued the situation
a moment of bravado. Tossing his
into the ranks of the
When General Leclerc proclaimed a blockade of the Saint Domingue's
rebel-held ports and asked Charge Louis Pichon to obtain American coop­
blacks, he shouted: "My comrades, you will not leave your general's
The French infantry wheeled and soon had L'Ouverture's men
the run. The next day Gona'ives went up in flames.
Leclerc was losing men-as many as two thousand in a single
Also, for the first time he noticed a strange illness creeping through
But the war was far from over. Guerrilla rc,':istance continued to flare
the same first months of 1802, Jefferson and his secretary of state,
through "fire and bayonets" for every foot of ground. Losses were heavy
sides but the aggressive attack paid off when several black
Dessalines, sullenly accepted similar terms on lYby 6.
OIl
army. Soldiers weakened without warning; in a day
dismayed Frenchman encountered an American about-face
him speechless. Jefferson and Madison informed him, presumably
with straight faces, that they would not be able to starve Toussaint's army
The United States did not have the power to enforce an embargo
against American merchants, who were making millions trading with the
An agitated Pichon reported that he found Jefferson "very reserved
walk. Then came black vomit, yellowing skin, convulsions, and death.
the French commander, as determined and as ruthless as his imperi()l1~
Secretary of State Madison told Pichon the United States would adopr
brother-in-law, pressed his offensive, and soon other black generals­
a posture of "neutrality" if war broke out between the French army and the
notably Henri Christophe-switched sides.
On May 1, L'Ouverture agreed to peace terms.
black rebels. That meant the French could seize American ships if they
could catch them. But it also meant that the American government
and retire with a respectable bodyguard to a plantation in the interior.
not give Leclerc's army loans or credits to buy food and ammunition for hi~
generals and officers would receive equivalent ranks in the French army;
men. The French did not have enough warships to clamp a meaningful
which soon became 50 percent black.
Why did Toussaint surrender? Probably because he learned
blockade on the island's thirteen ports and France was too far away to sup­
ply them with food.
had signed what seemed a definitive treaty of peace with the British
Amiens. This left him and his black army at the mercy of Bonaparte's
superior numbers and weaponry. The black leader capitulated, hoping
A testy Leclerc tried to force American merchants trading
Saint
,
ingue to accept lower prices or promissory notes for thelf cargoe~.
'They refused the notes, knowing that France was more or less bankrupr,
Napoleon's Invasion of North America
WHAT IF? 2
preferred to
to
or otherwise learned Napoleon's plan to make trade with Saint UUUUHj;(U<
an exclusively French affair. Profits, present and future, accentuated
American tilt to the rebels.
Next came an uproar from New Orleans that had a huge impact on Jef.
ferson's attitude toward Leclerc's expedition. The Spanish, still in
of the port city, suddenly announced they were revoking the "right of
posit," which George Washington's administration had negotiated in 1795..
"'HL1Ll",U
to export cotton, farm
items of trade through New Orleans. When the right
revoked, an instant shout
war rose from the Western states,
rior politicians such as Andrew Jackson of Tennessee. Kentucky
a half million dollars in goods and crops on the Mississippi when the news
of the revocation arrived.
General Hamilton warmly seconded this call for war in the pages of the
New York Evening Post. In private letters he gloated over the dilemma Jef­
ferson confronted. He had been elected deploring the large army and
the Federalists had raised
undeclared war with France and the
new militarv establishment. He had repealed
and reduced
armed
to a shadow. Now he was faced
great embarrassment of how to carryon a war without taxes."
When Jefferson tried to defuse the situation by sending James Monroe
France as an envoy extraordinary, Hamilton, writing in the Evening
under the pseudonym Pericles, ferociously attacked the move.
recommended going to war immediately, before the French had time to
ship an army to New Orleans. He called on Jefferson to triple the size of the·
muster a 40,OOO-man standby force
to
to a
we now
men
secret service
\Smmi~h archives, Napoleon had on
matter.
have made his conquest of the Mississippi valley a
Brigadier General James Wilkinson, the commander in chief of the
\.111"'11 .... <\11 army, received a secret annual stipend from Madrid (currently
allied with France). Known to his Spanish handlers as Agent 13, Wilkin­
had taken an oath swearing allegiance to Spain back in 1787. George
Clark, conqueror of the Northwest Territory in the Revolution, was
among the distinguished names on the French secret service payrolL Such
enabled Napoleon to add the United
to
un­
ble foreign policy somersault, he talked of "marrying ourselves to the
fleet and nation" to keep Napoleon out of Louisiana. It is
that the British would have been eager to do business with a man who hdci
. vilified them for the previous decade.
Fortunately for the disturbed president, that aforementioned character,
French regiments. Noting
. Aedes aegylJti, was hard at work, decimating
Leclerc's growing weakness, a watchful L'Ouverture
intriguing for a
was watchinQ' him too. Lured to a nearby plantation
without his usual escort, the black leader was
ona
deposited
. deported to France as a common criminal. There,
Mountains, where L'Ouverture
in a freezing fortress in the
a year
later.
At this point Bonaparte made a truly egregious blunder. Pressured by
refugee planters from Saint Domingue and by numerous merchants in Le
Havre and other French ports who had grown rich on the slave trade, he
England to "cooperate with us at a moment's warning."
Now the whole country, instead of a few administration
the threat President Jefferson was confronting-and
to portray the president in the worst possible light. Unfortunately, the de-.
tails were essentially true. Jefferson had reduced the army and navy to a .
decided to reimpose slavery. When word of this decision reached Saint
against the French
them, triggering a new cycle of massacre
and countermassacre. General Leclerc was
blacks' resistance. "They die
WHAT IF? 2
Napoleon's Invasion of North America
death; it is the same with the women," he said. The astonished French
he would be willing to pay for all of Louisiana. The amazed ambassador
commander concluded he would have to kill everyone above the age of
twelve, a policy he proceeded to put into brutal practice.
was soon joined by special envoy Monroe, who could speak forcefully for
President Jefferson. By July of 1803, they had bought 868,000 square
Weakened by a growing food shortage and a lack of water bottles and
medical supplies, the French also found themselves fighting a losing battle
with Aedes aegypti. Whole regiments died virtually en masse. Soon an ap­
palling 60 percent of Leclerc's staff was dead. Finally, on November 2, 1802,
the French commander himself succumbed.
American merchants continued their clandestine trade with the black
miles of North America for $15 million, and Jefferson was able
to
pro­
claim a tremendous political triumph over Alexander Hamilton, who had
solemnly predicted Napoleon would never sell Louisiana.
Napoleon continued the struggle to subdue Saint Domingue-stirring
fears that he might repudiate the Louisiana deal. But the moment news of
rebels, shipping them guns and ammunition as well as food. The enraged
the declaration of renewed war with England reached the Caribbean, the
British West Indies fleet made Saint Domingue target number one. The
French threatened to send captured blacks to America, where they would
royal navy bombarded the French-held seaports and smuggled guns and en­
make good on Hedouville's plan to spread slave revolts throughout
couragement to the rebels. A desperate Rochambeau told French charge
Western Hemisphere. A grimly determined Napoleon poured in replace­
Louis Pichon the situation could be rescued only if he received a million
ments and ordered General Donatien de Rochambeau to continue the
francs a month to buy food and weaponry. Jefferson declined to help and
American bankers were equally cold. In November 1803, Rochambeau, his
struggle.
Reinforced by 15,000 men, Rochambeau seemed on his way to restoring
French control of the island. He drove black rebels from all the chief sea­
ports, cutting off most of their supply of guns and ammunition, and began
launching devastating attacks into the interior. But in Europe events were
army reduced to 8,000 men, retreated for a last stand in Cap Fran<;:ois.
yellow fever continuing to ravage
ranks, he surrendered to a British tleet
cruising offshore.
unfolding that soon turned these victories into hollow triumphs. The
On January 1, 1804, the new black ruler, General Jean-Jacques Dessalines,
who had long since switched back to the rebel side, proclaimed the island
British decided that their experiment with a purportedly peace-loving
independent of France and declared it would henceforth be known by its
Napoleon was not working. France was exhibiting aggressive behavior in
Carib-Indian name, Haiti. Taking a French tricolor, Dessalines tore the
white strip from the flag, a graphic illustration of his regime's racial policy.
the Mediterranean and elsewhere. It soon became obvious to Napoleon
the war for world supremacy was about to resume.
With that near certainty in mind, the Man of Destiny rethought his
plans for Louisiana. Without a fleet, he would be unable to defend the ter­
ritory. Pichon reported that the cancellation of the right of deposit at New
Orleans had turned American public opinion strongly against both France
and Spain. That aroused the specter of fighting a war with the Americans,
which he was unlikely to win, especially if war with England resumed and
the British fleet interdicted support from France for Rochambeau's army.
Perhaps more important, Bonaparte needed money for his war machine.
When Ambassador Robert R. liVingston visited him in early 1803 seeking
to buy New Orleans and Florida, Napoleon suddenly asked him how much
He proceeded to massacre all the remaining whites on the French pC-lit of
the island. (The Spanish part of the island regained a precarious independ­
ence with the help of the British fleet.) Under Dessalines's personal direc­
tion, white men, women, and children were hacked and shot to dearh. It
was a blunder that sent Haiti careening into isolation for decades-and
banished all thoughts of emancipating slaves in the American South.
If Napoleon had been a true son of the French Revolution, with a gen­
uine commitment to universal human rights, instead of a Corsican military
genius with only minimal moral standards, he might well have succeeded in
his original vision of using Saint Domingue as a first step toward the estab­
lishment of a Caribbean-American empire. The key to his possible success
Napoleon's Invasion of North America
WHAT IF? 2
was a genuine alliance with Toussaint L:Ouverture and his black
Philadelphia merchant Tench Coxe knew whereof he spoke when he
scribed Toussaint's soldiers as "military" with "habits of subordination"
ken forever.
A worried Coxe envisioned the possibility of a "large detachment of
publican blacks [being sent} to Louisiana, accompanied bv the
war on the American continent with barbarities that more than lI1GlL\..l1<O".
the gruesome. horrors of Haiti. Out of the turmoil might have arisen
American warrior whose generalship matched L:Ouverture's, and whose
rocity matched Dessalines's-Andrew Jackson. Almost certainly, Old Hick,
ip
this measure, claiming that the Haitians were only guilty of having
skin not colored like our own." It was, thanks to Napoleon and
much more complicated.
An even larger possibility swirls out of this historical kaleidoscope. If
bean-American empire, when he was defeated in Europe and exiled
Elba, he might have fled w~stward from that island and found refuge in
still loyal colony of Louisiana, where the blacks of the French army
have welcomed him as an apostle of emancipation. His white troops
have been equally ready to rally to his standa.rd.
The Spanish policy of closing New Orleans would have been long since
blacks and whites
in Louisiana anp avoided war with the United States, it would have put
rific pressure on the American South to begin a policy of gradual
cipation. President Jefferson was strongly
Haiti, which Jefferson signed. Former secre­
of state Timothy Pickering, now aU .S. senator from Massachusetts, at­
apoleon had followed a wiser, more moral policy and created a biracial
emancipation of the blacks there." The result might
ory would have meted out to the blacks the fate he
Indian nation in 1814: extermination.
If Napoleon had established a biracial colony of
prohibiting all trade
favor of this idea.
Gabriel's Rebellion, he had drawn up a draft't:onstitution for Virginia
would have freed all slave children born iIi the state after December
1800. Even after Gabriel Prosser's attempted insurrection stoked white
the Man from Monticello continued to insist that gradual emancipation,
stead of guns and whips and patrols, was the best way to defuse black
If such a policy had prevailed, the United States would have been
national nightmare known as the Civil War, with its 600,000 dead.
biracial nation might have emerged a hundred years earlier than the
that is still struggling to heal the spiritual wounds of involuntary <tuvm,,,,
and slavery's incalculable humiliations.
grisly events in Saint Domingue combined with Gabriel's Re
to make this biracial dream untenable in 1804. Jefferson was a iJUllLl\..l<Ul
well as an idealist
fellow Southerners to make sure Haiti remained isolated from the
can South. His son-in-law, John W. Eppes, rose in Congress to declare
U.S. merchants should have nothing to do with people of a race
needed "to depress and keep down." Congress soon concurred and
, stirring warm feelings for France up and down
Mississippi Val­
Napoleon's charisma would have electrified the fighting men of the
It is hard for us to realize the fascination with which everyone re­
this larger-than-life figure. Newspapers reported his taste in food,
clothes, horses, in rapt detail. Combine this hypnotic effect with a
to defend the rights of man against Perfidious Albion and you have
down the great predator, as they viewed
would have dispatched a huge fleet and army in pursuit of final
What might have happened? One can easily envision a battle of
Orleans in which Andrew Jackson performed as one of Napoleon's
JU~dUICll>. Also in the upper ranks of this force might have been another
of political power-Aaron Burr.
With the French firmly in control of New Orleans and the lower Missis­
Valley, there would have been no opportunity for Burr to launch his
scheme to detach the western states from the Union and conquer
That gambit depended on intimidating an enfeebled Spain. But
hatred of Thomas Jefferson and James Mad ison would have been no
intense. With his confederate, General James Wilkinson, who almost
have thrown in his lot with Bonaparte, Burr might
convinced Napoleon to launch a war of conquest to absorb Texas and
WHAT IF? 2
Napoleon's Invasion
North America
Mexico. By the time Napoleon arrived in New Orleans, Spain would no
longer have been an ally. The lure of filling his exchequer with Mexico's
gold and silver would have been all but irresistible. Moreover, General
Wilkinson had something very tangible to offer-a collection of rare maps
delighted ministers would have found themselves in control of
that dominated the American heartbnd-with a force
,re
to possession of the entire province of Louisiana. Up in New ;:'n­
gland, Senator Pickering and other Yankees, disgusted by fourteen yeti!
of the Southwest that would have enabled the Man of Destiny to invade
Jeffersonian government, were discussing secession from the Union.
Mexico from a half dozen possible routes.
would have greeted the news of Wellington's triumph with gloats ot gun
satisfaction.
But first, there was the ultimate battle with the English. How fitting,
Americans (and even Bonaparte) might have thought, that this decisive
clash should take place in the New World, where the idea of liberty first
flowered. The British would have been driven by a variant on this idea­
For a decade Pickering had been talking about negotiating a New En­
gland alliance with London, which would join the descendants of the Puri­
here was a chance to stamp out once and for all the American perversion
of that noble idea, British liberty, into the license of a rabble in arms to defy
lawful sovereign.
To command their forces in this revised battle of New Orleans, the
tans with Canada and the Maritime provinces to create a nation capable of
eventually dominating the continent, reducing Jefferson and his slavocmts
to a humbled minority. The destiny of North America-and the worLi
would have been
different, if this political realignment had come to r'ss
on Wellington's bayonets.
British would not have sent any old general, picked out of the government's
Such are the amazing possibilities negated by a tiny insect with an ,,)­
hat, to finish off Bonaparte and the Americans. They would have chosen
lutionary compulsion to feast on humans' blood-and infect them With
one of the world's deadliest diseases. With blind indifference, these
their best man-Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington. Napoleon,
fighting on unfamiliar ground, without the massed cavalry that so often.
shattered his foes at a battle's crucial moments, might have found himself·
at a severe disadvantage. The Russian debacle would have also shaken his
creatures frustrated the dirtiest schemes and the noblest ambitions. On
l.le
Fourth of July, Americans, after toasting their heroes, might well rabc: a
fglass to Aedes aegypti as one of the unsung heroines of the republic.
self-confidence.
We can be certain that the Iron Duke would not have committed the
blunders perpetrated by his impulsive brother-in-law, Major General Ed­
ward Pakenham, in the confrontation with General Jackson at New Or­
leans in January 1815. There would have been no suicidal frontal assault
against massed French and American muskets. Wellington would have had
the advantage of an overwhelming British fleet-something Pakenham's
puny squadron never gave him. With full control of the Mississippi in
grasp, the British commander would have enfiladed the French-American
barricades from the river, forcing the defenders to fight in the open against
his battle-tried veterans.
A British victory, a Waterloo of
bayous, would
no means
been impossible or even improbable. Napoleon would have ended up on
Helena with a steady diet of British arsenic, as he did in factual
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