25

No Guts, No Glory

Continental Army Headquarters

Morristown, New Jersey

March 1780

The news of Angelica Schuyler’s elopement with John Barker Church made the rounds of the Morristown encampment with the magical haste of gossip. Upon hearing the news, General Washington remarked to Alex that if he could learn of British troop movements with the same speed as he learned of love affairs, he would have won the war two years ago.

In the long run, few were surprised that the marriage had finally come to pass after Mr. Church’s extended courtship. To the degree that people were familiar with the character of Miss Schuyler-that-was, she was understood to be a brilliant young woman who would only accept a husband who could gain her access to the very highest levels of society. And John Barker Church, despite the questions that remained about his past, was obviously the kind of man who could provide it.

If his bearing was not quite as martial or athletic as some other young men’s, he had the wooer’s gift of giving a girl his undivided attention—of flattery, yes, and the sorts of gifts and romance that the modern girl expects from a suitor—but also of genuine interest in the things that held a girl’s fancy. Where another man would be content to charge a lady’s maid with procuring a bolt of cloth from which a dress could be made, Mr. Church would not only pick out the fabric himself, but commission a seamstress to craft the most flattering cut for his belle. If a girl expressed an interest in Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, he would gift on her a complete set of the Englishman’s work—including even the scandalous Moll Flanders!

“They are well met,” Lafayette said to Alex when he heard the news. “He will keep her on her toes, but she will keep him honest as well. It will be a tempestuous marriage, but if they can handle each other’s tempers, I predict a successful union.”

Alex had found the news out from Eliza herself. She had written him a brief note apologizing for Angelica’s outburst at the dinner table, saying that her elder sister was feeling the pressure of the coming elopement, which had occurred that very evening. The words were obviously meant to mollify him, yet the note’s being addressed to “Colonel Hamilton” rather than to “Alex,” and signed “Yours very sincerely, Miss E. Schuyler” instead of “Yours, Eliza” left him on pins and needles. More devastating, she pointedly did not encourage him to visit her or make any mention of coming to see him. Perhaps Angelica’s words had had their effect on her?

Regardless of Angelica’s motivations for speaking so bluntly to him, Alex knew that she was right. The Schuylers would expect Eliza to marry someone rich. Indeed she, and they, deserved it. The family had worked hard for three generations to establish and increase their status as one of the first families of the northern states, and they would not grant access to their inner circle to just anyone. To be sure, the New World was a place where a man could come from nothing and become a person of great power and wealth. Look at Benjamin Franklin, who had started out a humble printer’s apprentice yet became one of the wealthiest men in America.

But Alex had not Mr. Franklin’s scientific mind. He would not invent a kind of spectacles or a type of stove, let alone discover something as momentous as electricity itself! He had only his wits—his ability to see through to the heart of a situation quickly and to render that truth persuasively in words. Such a talent boded well for a career in law or in public service, perhaps even newspapering or literature. But none of those paths was a route to quick wealth, and he could not propose to Eliza—let alone to her parents!—on the basis of some hypothetical future success.

However, Alex did have a head for numbers as well. After his mother died, he had been apprenticed as a clerk in the mercantile house of Beekman and Cruger. There he discovered a flair for keeping books and anticipating the movements of the market and knowing when to sell and buy to maximize profit. Alex had been all of fourteen at the time. To him, it was a game, but many men made careers of this kind of trading—and fortunes. It was base work, to be sure, devoid of glory, and full of questionable morality as well. What man wants to make his living peddling the vices of tobacco or alcohol to the besotted, or manipulating the price of vital goods such as grain or mutton so that he would profit greatly while his thousands of customers might lose? But if he didn’t do it, someone else would.

And yet . . . could he give up everything just for Eliza? Could he be miserable in business for the sake of a happy wife? And would she be happy, if he were miserable? It seemed to Alex that Eliza did not care for money the way her parents did, or her sisters. It might be that, as a rich girl, she had never had to worry about it, but that was selling her short. She was simply not a material individual, and if she saw Alex throw away his beliefs for the sake of buying her from her family like a piece of livestock, she would lose all respect for him.

There was one other way, but it was uncertain and dangerous to boot. In all the world, for all of history, there has always been—for men, at least—one aspect of their character worth more than money, and that was glory. The kind of glory that only valor on the battlefield can gain. Horses churning beneath a soldier’s body as swords flash and rifles sound and bullets cut the air. To risk one’s life for a worthy cause—and what cause was more worthy than democracy?—was the kind of endeavor that made a man beloved of his fellow countrymen, and granted him influence in the highest circles, whether it be government or industry or society. Glory brought fortune more surely than an investment in gold bullion or Barbados rum. And unlike those other endeavors, it brought respect, too. The kind of respect that even the Schuylers must surely acknowledge.

And though Laurens and Lafayette liked to tease him for clerking away the war while other men his age risked his life, Alex had been on the battlefield. As General Washington’s chief aide-de-camp, he was never more than a few feet away from the center of command. But a modern general did not ride into the fray like a medieval king. He stood apart, usually on a hill or other prominence, observing the action and directing its course, and his secretaries were likewise sidelined. Alex had been present at battles on a half-dozen occasions, but in every instance save one he had never drawn his sword or fired his weapon. He had instead taken notes—of General Washington’s orders, of the enemy’s troop movements and the Americans’ response, of request for aid or supplies. The rules of engagement prohibited firing on commanding officers (although that didn’t prevent the occasional “mis-aimed” cannon from coming dangerously close), but Alex’s only real taste of combat had come at the Battle of Monmouth in 1778. When it seemed like Cornwallis’s forces would overcome the Americans, General Washington had ridden into battle and Alex had thrown aside his pen and paper and ridden after him. Together they had rallied the American troops and saved the day, and if the battle ultimately ended in a draw, the result was far better than the rout it could have been. Indeed, it was the first time that American troops had met the British counterparts on an equal basis and held their own, and reports of their bravery had inspired other battalions up and down the line.

Alex remembered little about the day save that it had been unbearably hot. Later it was discovered that more than half the men who lay dead on the battlefield were not wounded—they had died not of bullets or bayonets but of the heat itself. General Washington’s own horse, a magnificent white charger given to him by the governor of New Jersey, William Livingston, had died of heat stroke, and Alex’s own horse had fallen beneath him, from a bullet that could have just as easily killed Alex. The fall knocked him unconscious. His leg and arm had both been badly sprained, though by some miracle neither was broken. When he awakened, he found he had been dragged from the field. His clothes had been soaked in blood, though whether it came from his horse or the enemy he couldn’t have told you. His sword was also bloodstained, but he had no memory of running anyone through. He had been brave, yes, but no stories would be told about a man whose own horse had been the one to remove him from battle.

He needed to prove himself once and for all. For himself. For his country.

But above all, for Eliza.

It was just after two o’clock in the afternoon when Alex knocked on the door of the first-floor rear parlor that General Washington had taken as his private office, and let himself in.

“Your Excellency.”

Even seated, the blue-coated figure at the square, paper-covered desk cut an imposing figure, with his erect posture and broad shoulders and thick hair heavily dusted with powder. He did not look up immediately but continued with his writing for some minutes while Alex waited patiently.

At last the commander in chief of the Continental army placed his quill back in its holder. He sifted a little ash over the sheet of parchment in front of him to soak up any excess ink, then blew the ash to the floor and folded the parchment into thirds. On the outside of the letter he wrote a simple large M, and then, finally, he looked up at Alex with the letter in his outstretched hand.

“For Mrs. Washington,” he said.

Alex had already known to whom the letter was intended. The only correspondent to whom General Washington himself wrote was his wife.

General Washington turned back to his desk and reached for a passel of letters when he noticed that Alex had not left the room.

“Yes, Colonel? Have I overlooked something?”

“No, Your Excellency,” Alex said. “That is, I was hoping that I might have a word with you.”

General Washington paused a moment, considering Alex’s question as seriously as if he had been asked for a loan of a thousand shillings, or his decision on whether or not to execute an enemy soldier. At length, he said, “Tell me what is on your mind, Colonel.”

Alex would have liked to sit down, but General Washington was the kind of man who grew only more formal with those whom he spent the most time. There was a joke—a very private joke—that the M he wrote on the outside of letters to his wife was not for Martha but for Mrs., which was the only name by which anyone had ever heard him refer to her. Alex took a calming breath before addressing his general.

“It is about a matter we discussed last fall. You said that I should bring it up with you this spring.

“Ah,” Washington said, turning to the window. He gazed out over the snow-spotted boughs of an ash tree, and from thence to the fire in the hearth behind him that barely kept the outside chill at bay. “It does not look like spring to me.”

“It is the second of March, Your Excellency. The ice is cracking in the Passaic and Hudson Rivers. The war will resume sooner rather than later.”

“Indeed,” General Washington assented. “I wonder that you are so eager for the resumption of fighting. Most men would avoid it as long as possible.”

“I am eager to fight only in as much as the sooner we fight, the sooner we win, and free ourselves from having to fight again.”

“Indeed,” General Washington repeated. He looked at Alex. “May I assume that you are resuming your petition for a command of your own?”

“I am, Your Excellency.”

“You have never commanded a battalion before. Why do you think you are up to the responsibility?”

“As a youthful country, many of our battlefield commanders have assumed their duties with little or no previous experience. I have learned what I know about war from the best of them all.”

Something close to a smile flickered over General Washington’s lips. “I would disagree with you, but that would mean admitting that I am not the best of our men, which would smack of false modesty.”

The story went that the general was a mirthless man, but this was not entirely true. The general’s teeth were notoriously rotten, and he was afraid his dentures would fall from his mouth if he smiled too widely, let alone laughed aloud. Certainly no one had ever seen the general laugh aloud. But Alex suspected the general had just made a joke, though whether at Alex’s or his own expense, he couldn’t be sure.

“I have been present at some of our most contested battles,” Alex said now. “I know the enemy’s tactics and again, if I may make bold, I know yours as well, not the least of which is your ability to inspire troops with your words and your bravery.”

“I could not disagree with the first part of that statement,” General Washington said, “since many of my most inspiring words were written by you. But I will say that there is a fine line between bravery and recklessness. A commander of an army cannot be so fearless that he unnecessarily jeopardizes his own life.”

“You are referring to Monmouth, Your Excellency?”

“It is not I who refer to Monmouth, but other soldiers and officers who saw you on the field. None would dispute your bravery, but many would question your ardor.”

Alex was about to defend himself when General Washington spoke over him. “Many would, but I do not. Monmouth was a messy affair, and at the end of the day, only one thing saved us from defeat, and that was the fighting spirit of our men. I was very proud of you that day.”

“Thank you, sir,” Alex said humbly.

“But it is difficult for me to conceive of my own role—of this office—without you by my side. Quite simply, you are too good at your job. You make me a better commander, and that is good for our army and our country.”

“You flatter me, Your Excellency.”

“I think you know that I have never flattered anyone in my life, nor, as I have already indicated, am I much impressed by false modesty.”

“Then allow me to speak immodestly, Your Excellency. For as valuable as my services are to you as a clerk, a hundred times more valuable will they be to you on the battlefield, where I can fire off not letters but bullets, and finish off our enemy the only way he will ever truly be vanquished, which is not with ink but with blood. Other men can craft pretty sentences that persuade men to surrender their money or their supplies, but only a few men can persuade men to give up their lives. I believe I am one of those men, and for the sake of my country I would like the chance to prove it.”

“Your eloquence is persuasive, Colonel Hamilton, yet it also works against you, for true eloquence is far more rare than bravery. I am not convinced that I could replace you and, more to the point, I do not want to.”

Alex felt his heart sink, but he pressed on. “Your Excellency,” he said urgently, “would you call yourself a soldier if you had never set foot on the field of battle, but only directed men from a protected promontory? Would you feel that you had served a country as great as this one if you had only written letters like a tradesman, ordering troops about like so many bales of cotton or hay? I know you, sir. I have seen you wade into the thick of the action like an enlisted man, and I know that this experience has made you a better general, because you know what is at stake when you give an order.

“Your Excellency,” he continued, “this nation has the potential to be something that no other country has been, a beacon of freedom and opportunity. But it is as yet very far from realizing those goals, and it never will realize those goals if its men cower behind desks and windows. The war is being fought out there,” Alex wound up, “and out there is where I need to be.”

General Washington absorbed all of this without giving away a clue as to how it was affecting him. He must be a formidable opponent at the card tables, Alex thought.

At length the general turned back to his letters. “I make no promises,” he said. “But I will consider it.”

“Your Excellency,” Alex said, bowing low, then retreating from the room. He knew he would get no more that day.