Treason

American Story #4

by David Nevin

This is a story of ambitions and dreams shattered. It is a tale of intrigue and greed, surrounding the powerful figures in history, who are unable to see the consequences of their visions. It is the story of a young democracy.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, 19th Century

464 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

David Reinhardt Nevin was born in Washington. His father, a veterinarian in the US Army when it had a horse cavalry, was soon assigned to Fort Sam Houston in Texas. Mr. Nevin joined the US Navy as a teenager and served in the Pacific. After the war he did poorly in college, but could write well enough to be hired as a police reporter for The Brownsville (Texas) Herald. That led to work for Time and Life magazines.

Reviews

[KOMET · Rating 5 out of 5]

TREASON is one of David Nevin's quartet of novels that comprise The American Story Series of historical novels spanning from 1799 to 1860.

The story begins in late 1803, shortly after the U.S. had concluded the Louisiana Purchase with France, paying Napoleon $15 million for a large expanse of land to the west of what was then the United States. This acquisition doubled the size of the country.

A young officer (Captain Julius Caesar Barlow of the U.S. Army) is newly arrived in Washington City (as Washington DC was referred to at that time) from Indiana Territory in the Midwest. He has been placed on detachment to the State Department, where he reports to the chief clerk (Jacob Wagner). Wagner then gives Barlow a message to convey to the President's House (i.e. the White House). As requested, Barlow had passed on the message to the President's secretary, who had then taken him into a large, oval room where President Jefferson was in a spirited discussion with some members of his Cabinet, including the Secretary of State, James Madison (Barlow's boss and one of Jefferson's closest friends). At some point in the discussion, Barlow finds himself being briefly queried by Jefferson when it becomes known that Barlow had once, in his capacity as an army officer, traveled to New Orleans by flatboat and spent some time there. I found this to be a revealing passage in the novel because it made me aware that, despite the Louisiana Purchase, this was a vast land whose inhabitants were uncertain or leery of what American rule would mean for them. Many of the people there (New Orleans in particular) felt themselves to be French.

The novel goes on to give the reader entree into the lives of a number of key historical figures during this period: James Madison, his wife Dolley, Aaron Burr (a Revolutionary War hero, lawyer, former Senator, and Vice President during Jefferson's first term; he had a reputation as a very able, charismatic figure, very erudite and urbane - but with wide-ranging ambitions; neither Jefferson nor Madison trusted him and tended to keep him at a distance, leaving Burr feeling alienated), and General James Wilkinson, head of the U.S. Army, suspected spy in the pay of the Spanish, and an old associate of Burr's.

Nevin does a very skillful job of showing the reader the fragile state the United States was in as it sought to assert itself as a sovereign state. The U.S. Army was small and there wasn't much of a navy. Indeed, during Jefferson's presidency, he was set on making economies in government as much as possible. As a result, the U.S. Navy was hardly in a position to challenge the Royal Navy (then the most powerful in the world, which was heavily involved in Britain's war against Napoleon). One of the major complaints the United States had with Britain was the matter of impressment, through which British warships (sometimes within U.S. territorial waters) would stop American ships at sea, and board them to see if any British sailors were aboard. Usually, there was no rhyme nor reason to these boardings. The British simply would take any sailors it wanted (whether they were British or not) off American ships and impress them as sailors in their navy. The U.S. wasn't really in any position to challenge this practice.

The heart of the novel explores what developed into a plot in 1806 to establish a nation from the Orleans Territory in addition to what was then the American West and pieces of Mexico as a counterweight to the United States. By this time, Jefferson has been re-elected to a second term and Burr is no longer Vice President. Burr has been discredited politically following the July 1804 duel he had with Alexander Hamilton --- the nation's first Treasury security and father of the country's financial system --- as a result of which Hamilton was killed. Nevin presents Burr as being the instigator of this plot or conspiracy. But it seemed to me from what I was reading that it was Wilkinson --- a really slimy, devious dude --- who was the real brains or impetus behind this conspiracy. The plot was a very elaborate undertaking (which Nevin makes plain in considerable detail), involving a wide variety of people both directly and indirectly: politicians, planters, merchants, and some moneyed interests.

Suffice it to say, the plot is betrayed, Burr is captured and is taken to Richmond (Virginia), where he is put on trial for treason in 1807.

TREASON was a terrific, drama-rich novel that kept my attention from start to finish. I recommend it to anyone who wants to lose him/herself in a good story.

[Dale · Rating 2 out of 5]

Published in 2001 by Forge (Tor).

This book has been in my to-be-read pile for a long time. I was inspired to finally read it after watching the musical Hamilton on a streaming service. As you may know, the character of Aaron Burr plays a large part and I got to wondering exactly what happened to Burr when he went west after his term as Vice President.

The problem, as the author point out, is that we don't really know exactly what Aaron Burr did. He went on trial for treason, but it was a hurried and botched trial and Burr was found not guilty.

Nevin does a solid job of explaining what Burr might have been doing. Nevin goes along with the popular theory that Burr was working with the commanding general of the U.S. Army, James Wilkinson. In 1854, letters were discovered that showed that Wilkinson was in the pay of the government of Spain and was feeding them all sorts of information.

Nevin supposes that Wilkinson gave Spain false information designed to make Spain attack the United States while Burr was bringing hundreds of men down the Ohio and Mississippi as part of a private army. Burr and Wilkinson were planning to use the Spanish attack as an excuse to initiate martial law in New Orleans, attack Mexico and combine New Orleans, Texas and Mexico into a new country, led by Burr and Wilkinson. Eventually, the states west of the Appalachians would join the new country and New England and New York would break away from the rest of the coastal states and the United States would simply cease to exist.

All of that was interesting, but David Nevin strung this book out and made all of that as boring as possible. He repeated conversations, rants, mental rants and made the pace crawl. The front cover features the Hamilton-Burr duel, but the book barely mentions it with just 6 pages out of a 545 page novel. Hamilton is basically a non-entity, which is weird because Burr is probably most remembered for the duel.

In short, this book is slow and tedious. It took me more than 6 weeks to read it. In the meantime, I read a completely different book because I thought it was more interesting. And magazines. And just goofed around on Facebook.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

[Star Merrill · Rating 5 out of 5]

If my history teachers had taught me about the country and early politics like this, I would've been glued to my seat. As it is, the only thing I knew about Aaron Burr was that he killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. I had no knowledge of his treasonous scheme. I can't wait to read the next volume.

[Gilda Felt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first of Mr. Nevin’s books I’ve had the pleasure of reading, and I definitely plan on reading more. Treason is an interesting, intriguing novel that gives a more personal look at Aaron Burr, and what may have been his reasons for doing the things he did. And more astonishingly, how he managed to get away with it all. The book begins a bit slowly, but soon pulls the reader in with its well-researched portrayals of Burr, the Madisons, Jefferson, and the many others who came and went in and out of their lives.

Up until now, pretty much all I knew of Burr was his attempt to steal the presidency and his killing of Alexander Hamilton (who doesn’t come off all that well here.) Having gotten a taste of his life here, I’m looking forward to finding out more.

[Jenni V. · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up.
Find all of my reviews at:
http://readingatrandom.blogspot.com/2...

When historical fiction is done well, it's one of my favorite genres. I enjoy it the most when the author takes an event/era that I have basic knowledge about and expands on it, usually through the viewpoint of a lesser known or completely forgotten historical figure.
This book definitely fit into that category. Although I was familiar with the names of Aaron Burr and James Madison, I didn't know how involved they were in U.S. expansion. Fun fact: Aaron Burr was the sitting vice-president when he killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel and he still presided over the Senate while facing murder charges in New Jersey...who knew?
The author did a great job building tension and maintaining interest even though the reader knows the outcome before starting (if the fact that Burr was unsuccessful in his attempt to start a new country is a spoiler for you, please consult a map), which is another characteristic of well written historical fiction.
This book reminded me that our founding fathers were human - they weren't always good and their instincts weren't always correct but they took many risks to keep their new country together at a very perilous time. It was also interesting to consider how a few shifts could have had dramatic results (for example, Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson technically tied in the 1800 presidential election, a loophole that was closed for future elections; how different would our country look if Burr had become president and Jefferson vice president?).
It was a slow start but picked up after a few chapters. Recommended if you like historical fiction and have an interest in U.S. history.

[Janet · Rating 2 out of 5]

Describes an interesting period of history but I wasn't a fan of the writing style. Contains long stretches of exposition and background that could have been taken straight out of an encyclopedia. Lots of repetition, as if the author doesn't trust the reader to follow along.

[Bradley Brill · Rating 3 out of 5]

The customary easy negative depiction of A Burr with shallowly researched historical novel.

[Benjamin Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Treason is a part of David Nevin's "The American Story, 1800-1860" historical novel series and takes place from the fall of 1803 through the late summer of 1807. This basically equates to the end of Thomas Jefferson's first term and his entire second term. These were important years in the history of the United States, a timeframe that included the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark expedition, and the election of James Madison.

The novel is essentially about Aaron Burr although we experience this era through the eyes of many characters, most especially Dolly Madison. At the beginning of the novel Burr is Vice President but completely marginalized by the Jefferson administration. In those days the man who came in second in the election became the vice president, not the best recipe for a cooperative management effort. Burr is prominent in New York but when he returns there to run once again for political office, he is badly beaten. His personality is one that demands satisfaction and when he becomes convinced that Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury at that time, is responsible for his defeat, Burr finds an excuse to blow an insult out of proportion and challenge Hamilton to a duel.

This is an oft-visited episode in US history. Most people know of Burr's duel with (and victory over) Hamilton but far fewer know what Burr was up to after that. None of what follows in the novel, concedes the author, is perfectly factual as Burr never admitted to it. But based on the historical record, it seems highly probable that Burr conceived of and attempted to carry out a plan to take advantage of the newly completed Louisiana Purchase by creating a whole new country. He planned to exploit New Orleans's desire to remain "French", raise an army, convince the leadership of the Western states such as Ohio, Tennessee, and Kentucky to succeed from the union and attack Mexico, using their gold to finance the new country. They would then become strong allies of Britain/Canada and limit the US to an east coast-only country, much less of a threat to the continent. This would also set up the possibility for the industrial New England states to separate from the agrarian slave-friendly South, a concept favored by Northern governors at the time.

An intriguing concept, but of course it never happened. I was amazed to read about it though and see just how widespread the whole thing was, involving a number of governors, senators, and other prominent people. It failed for a number of reasons, chiefly, that his co-conspirator, General James Wilkinson, lost his nerve and tried to pin it all on Burr. But James and Dolly Madison also uncovered the plot and convinced Jefferson to act to prevent such treason.

The book itself was intriguing albeit a bit slow in places. The author's style is to use actual historical figures as his main characters, not a fictional person who is affected by history's great events, like many historical novelists do. This requires extraordinary research, of course, not only to get the facts right on where people were when, but also to know them well enough to extrapolate how they would react to events. I think the author does this very well indeed.

I've read 4 of the 5 books in this series, missing only Meriwether so far. Mr. Nevin plans more of these novels, but the last one was published in 2005 and so I have to wonder if there will be more.

[Nola Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first chapter was very dense and slow, a total historical recap that was pretty boring, even given the fact that it had a lot of new-to-me info. But Chapter 2 really picked up, and I should be finished with the book soon, it is very engaging. Once you get past the first chapter, it becomes far more interesting.

Most of the problems I had with this novel had more to do with aesthetics than writing. A map of the United States at the time the novel was set, for instance, would have done me wonders. I kept trying to imagine the country as it was, but since it has been about fifteen years since my high school history class (where they made me label something like twenty different maps), the details were fuzzy. I felt like a map could easily have been added to the front and/or rear endpage.

Also, like most novels of historical fiction, I was left wondering just how much was fact and how much was fiction. I would have loved some footnotes or, at a minimum, a quick authors note at the end. Even a list of sources would've been great. As it was, I am left wondering, did Aaron Burr really try to steal the presidency and the Louisiana Purchase, or was this a very detailed "what if"? I'm guessing it is more historical, but I would love to not have to guess.

The writing was good, although a few main points were very obviously repeated. Yes, yes, so Burr lost his parents - especially his mother - at a very young age. And by the fifth repetition of the fact that Burr was a victim of his own actions, author of his own downfall, I think I grasped the point; no need to beat me another four or five times with it.

Overall, however, I enjoyed this story. It made me think about history, and brought some of the Founding Fathers - and in the case of Dolly Madison, Founding Mothers - to life, and it made me want to investigate American History more thoroughly.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great narrative of history. Vice President Aaron Burr challenges Alexander Hamilton to a duel over his remarks that in today's environment would be just “politics as usual.” The story reveals that he had deeper, more devious reasons. He was acquitted for murder. Much of the story is through the eyes of Dolley Madison as Burr then hatches up an additional plot to advance his own political goals and get rich too! He leads a wild life, getting into bed with a number of different prominent females – but NOT with Dolley Madison. Nevin is a good story teller, keeps the reader's interest and provides insight to Burr's place in history.

[Howard Anders · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as Mr. Nevin's "1812" or "Dream West", but the subject matter was fascinating: the (former) VP of the US, and the commander of the US Army, in a conspiracy to create a break-away republic. Sounds almost too fanciful to be true; but, it was true! Oddly enough, I found the villains, Aaron Burr and James Wilkinson, to be rather flat, with most of the others, real and fictional, to be more developed. I would have been more interested in finding out more about Wilkinson and Burr, instead of digressing on one of the fictional characters love-life. Still, all-in-all, not bad!

[Kristen Weller · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars would be more accurate. Positives: lots of interesting parts of American history that I knew nothing about, finally Aaron Burr is more than just the guy that shot Alexander Hamilton. Negatives: wordy and dense. I am just a YA fan at heart I guess.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another in the gret David Nevin groups. Well written and informative. Glad I read it.

[Denise Kearney · Rating 4 out of 5]

PBB

[Michael Biever · Rating 4 out of 5]

We look and review our current political history in both wonder and concern. But history doesn't always change. Sometimes it is simply the era of the story we hear that is changed. The election of 1800 was a decisive moment for a new and upcoming nation like the United States. There was a division of political partisanship that threatened to spoil the dream. The Federalists had been replaced with the ascending Democratic-Republicans. But this change in power, triggered political conspiracy and a most interesting period of American history. Aaron Burr, an ambitious political figure of the time, blamed Alexander Hamilton for his not being named President; Hamilton having cast the deciding tie-breaker vote between Burr and Thomas Jefferson each having received 73 electoral votes in the election of 1800. Political revenge boiled in Burr's blood; eventually leading Burr to the duel against Hamilton and Hamilton's death days later, Burr had shot and killed Hamilton and was outcast in political Washington. As the United States expanded its reach and ambition, Jefferson's leadership of an emerging nation and the acquisition of the Louisiana territory was a pre-requisite to the growth and evolving strength of the United States expansion. Yet, it was also a vulnerable time for a new nation. Loyalties were not specifically guaranteed. Political divide remained. In concert with Louisiana Territory governor and officer of the United States Army James Wilkinson and a cabal of landowners, local politicians, army personnel and sympathizers, Aaron Burr set about organizing and motivating a plan to take control of the southwest territory. It was to be a coup de 'etat take-over and the origination of a new nation. It was treason.