_McGee keeps Tavern at Pt. Bodet and a Ferry down the Lake._ _There is a Ferry from Coteau to Pt. Bodet._ MAP OF THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE AND ADJACENT COUNTRY From Williamsburg to Montreal. FROM AN ORIGINAL DRAWING IN THE WAR DEPARTMENT. MILITARY AND TOPOGRAPHICAL ATLAS BY JOHN MELISH, 1815. STRUTHERS & CO., ENGR’S, N.Y. ] Wilkinson at New Orleans received Armstrong’s letter of March 10 only May 19,[214] and started, June 10, for Washington, where he arrived July 31, having consumed the greater part of the summer in the journey. On arriving at Washington, he found that Dearborn had been removed, and that he was himself by seniority in command of the Ninth Military District.[215] This result of Dearborn’s removal was incalculably mischievous, for if its effect on Wilkinson’s vanity was unfortunate, its influence on the army was fatal. Almost every respectable officer of the old service regarded Wilkinson with antipathy or contempt. Armstrong’s ill-fortune obliged him also to place in the position of next importance Wilkinson’s pronounced enemy, Wade Hampton. A major-general was required to take command on Lake Champlain, and but one officer of that rank claimed employment or could be employed; and Wade Hampton was accordingly ordered to Plattsburg.[216] Of all the major-generals Hampton was probably the best; but his faults were serious. Proud and sensitive even for a South Carolinian; irritable, often harsh, sometimes unjust, but the soul of honor,[217] Hampton was rendered wholly intractable wherever Wilkinson was concerned, by the long-standing feud which had made the two generals for years the heads of hostile sections in the army.[218] Hampton loathed Wilkinson. At the time of his appointment to command on Lake Champlain he had no reason to expect that Wilkinson would be his superior; but though willing and even wishing to serve under Dearborn, he accepted only on the express understanding that his was a distinct and separate command,[219] and that his orders were to come directly from the War Department. Only in case of a combined movement uniting different armies, was he to yield to the rule of seniority. With that agreement he left Washington, June 15, and assumed command, July 3, on Lake Champlain.