Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 3.djvu/304

292 had Captain Bissell received any instructions from Washington.

The proclamation, dated November 27, and sent immediately to the West, reached Pittsburg December 2, and should, with ordinary haste, have reached Fort Massac—the most important point between Pittsburg and Natchez—before December 15. The orders which accompanied it ought to have prevented any failure of understanding on the part of Captain Bissell. Bissell's reply to Jackson, dated January 5, reached Nashville January 8, and was forwarded by Jackson to Jefferson, who sent it to Congress with a message dated January 28. Twenty-three days were sufficient for the unimportant reply; forty days or more had been taken for the orders to reach Massac, although they had only to float down the river. That some gross negligence or connivance could alone explain this shortcoming was evident; but the subject was never thought to need investigation by President or Congress. The responsibility for Burr's escape was so equally distributed between the President himself, the War Department, and the many accomplices or dupes of Burr in Kentucky and Tennessee, that any investigation must have led to unpleasant results.

Burr for the moment escaped, and everything depended on the action of Wilkinson. Dayton and