Philip Schuyler to Alexander Hamilton
Philadelphia, April 8th, 1780
Dear Sir
Mrs Schuyler . . . consents to Comply with your and her daughters wishes. You will see the Impropriety of taking the dernier pas [elopement] where you are. Mrs. Schuyler did not see her Eldest daughter married. That also gave me pain, and we wish not to Experience It a Second time . . . I shall probably be at Camp In a few days, when we will adjust all matters. . . . Beware of Communications to this quarter which you would not wish the world to know. This hint will prevent you from writing but by a safe hand.
I am Dr Sir sincerely Yours &c &c
Ph. Schuyler
“DO NOT WORRY, MY BOY. YOU HAVE MANY OTHER, far superior talents!” called George Washington. He tossed a leather ball up and down in his hand, waiting for his nephew to take position for a throw. Hamilton had failed to catch any of the general’s passes and given up.
“That’s right, Hammie. Such as whistling all the tunes of love,” cooed McHenry.
“Or walking on air,” teased Harrison. “Our little lion has exchanged his roar for wings.”
Hamilton flung himself down at Eliza’s feet. “Do you witness this? For you, my charmer, I endure such abuse.” He laughed as he spoke, but Peggy detected a pink glow of embarrassment on the aide’s creamy complexion as he mumbled, “It’s not as if I had time for ball games while working my mother’s store.”
Peggy was learning quickly about her soon-to-be brother-in-law. How sharp his mind, how quick he was to romanticize or to take offense, how passionate, poetic, and mercurial. He was orphaned early on the Caribbean island of Saint Croix—abandoned by his father, and his mother later dying of fever. An immigrant trying to make his own hard-won name, Hamilton was the epitome of what America promised. But Peggy hadn’t before thought about the day-to-day impact of such a harsh and lonely childhood—like not knowing how to toss a ball back and forth because no one had taken the time to simply play with him.
Hamilton noticed Peggy’s gaze. He smiled back, chagrined, recognizing she had heard his grumble.
General Washington pulled back his arm and hurled. The ball flew, fast and straight like a rifle shot. His nephew sprinted back and back, then jumped up to grasp the hurtling ball, crashing onto the ground with laughter.
“Good Lord, what a pitch His Excellency has,” exclaimed McHenry.
Martha laughed. “Don’t ever let him lure you into a game of billiards. Or a sword fight. He does both as well as he throws. Oh, and he has been known to wrestle friends to win arguments. A negotiation he learned during his time exploring and surveying the Ohio wilderness with Seneca and Delaware Indian guides.”
Washington strode over to his nephew and pulled him off the ground, clapping him on the back. “Well done!”
The aides-de-camp applauded.
“He makes it seem so easy!” Hamilton complained.
“Never mind, dear boy,” Martha said to him. “Mr. Washington is just letting off a little steam.” She looked back to her husband. “Playing catch reminds him of what we are fighting for—peace and family, home. He misses Mount Vernon horribly. He has not seen his own home for five years now.”
“Oh my, how sad,” Eliza murmured.
Martha nodded without stopping her sewing. “He’s not the only one who mourns his absence from home.” She paused, wistful, then made herself speak lightly. “Even his dogs! Lord love them, how his hounds look for him—Venus, Truelove, Madam Moose, Tippler, Vulcan. Oh, what a bad dog that Vulcan is—he stole an entire ham right off the table one time. I wanted the general to chastise him roundly and all he did was laugh.” Martha chortled. “He simply has a soft spot for children and dogs.”
“I can testify to that.” Hamilton spoke up. Rolling to a sitting position, he turned to his fellow aides. “Do you remember that ridiculous little terrier wandering between the lines during the Battle of Germantown?”
“Remember? I was the one who had to walk it back,” protested Meade.
“You made quite the sight walking under a flag of truce with that tiny, hairy dog tucked up under your arm,” Hamilton joked.
“A perfect target I was!”
“A target of ridicule most like!” Hamilton countered.
The men roared.
“Sirs, what are you talking about?” Martha asked.
“He didn’t tell you, madam? General Howe’s dog got loose and ran away from the British camp and ended up in ours. We wanted to keep it as a trophy to demoralize Howe—print far and wide that even his dog chose liberty over British tyranny! But your husband insisted he be returned. His Excellency took the animal to his tent, fed it, brushed it, and wrote a note to his enemy saying that the dog had accidentally fallen into our hands and that he had the pleasure of returning it to the general with his compliments.”
Martha nodded. “That sounds like my old man. And very like him not to tell of such an act of kindness.” She pulled in a long, deep breath. “Can you smell that wild rhododendron? How it reminds me of Virginia along the Potomac.”
They all breathed in together at her prompting.
It was indeed a glorious spring day, the air balmy. Pink dogwood trees wreathed the hills encircling Morristown and seemed to be popping open with perfumed jubilation before their very eyes. Overnight, meadow grasses had turned from ashen winter gray to lush emerald. Washington and his family couldn’t help being beckoned by such weather. They’d spilled out of the Ford Mansion to bask in the warm afternoon sunshine, escaping for a few hours the blizzard of dispatches that were only increasing as the roads thawed and the likelihood of British attack grew.
Washington’s mood had lightened considerably that week because he had finally received a communiqué from the Marquis de Lafayette. The gallant young French aristocrat general had returned to the French court at Washington’s request to beg assistance of the king. During one of his nightly visits to the Cochrans’ parlor, Hamilton had shared that Lafayette was safely back on American shores, having crossed the Atlantic without being captured by British ships policing the coast. He was making his way from Boston to the army’s New Jersey headquarters.
Washington had cried when he read that letter, said Hamilton, without any trace of jealousy in his voice. Peggy had noted it, impressed. So he was capable of loving a friend selflessly. Another mark in her tally in favor of her sister’s suitor.
Hearing the men laughing in the meadow like schoolboys at recess, the Schuyler sisters had come out to watch, bringing their own stitching with them. Martha had enlisted their help in producing linen shirts for foot soldiers. Now that the snows had finally melted, she had been able to find some linsey-woolsey for the task. They sat on stumps with Martha while the aides-de-camp sprawled along the ground beside them, happily chewing on new-soft blades of grass. Washington and his nephew continued tossing the ball.
Obviously flustered by Hamilton’s nearness and more accustomed to stitching decorative embroidery than utilitarian seams, Eliza pricked her finger with her needle. She gave a little yelp of pain. Hamilton pulled out his handkerchief to wrap it and kissed the tiny wound.
Peggy sighed impatiently. She was truly glad to be doing something useful for the threadbare Patriots—especially when remembering those starved sentries the night her sleigh approached Morristown. But, oh, how she itched for some task more intellectually stimulating than sewing. Her gaze wandered, catching Hamilton as he slid his hand under her sister’s hem and crept it up her shoe to gently caress Eliza’s ankle. He was trying to be secretive but Eliza certainly wasn’t helping with that. Her pretty face was crimson.
“Papa!” Eliza gasped at seeing Philip Schuyler coming up the road toward them. He had arrived in camp two weeks earlier.
Peggy bit her lip to not laugh at how far Hamilton jumped back away from Eliza’s skirt at the sight of their father. He literally landed on his backside at least a foot away.
But his friends guffawed.
“Now if you had moved with that alacrity before, you would have caught the general’s pitches,” teased McHenry.
Schuyler waved as he approached. He carried a satchel full of papers. Ironically—given the fact her papa had begged for similar supplies and reinforcements when he commanded the Northern Army—Congress had appointed Schuyler head of a committee to investigate Washington’s claims that he desperately needed more money, more food, more ammunition, more horses, more shoes, more muskets if he was to wage any kind of battle in the coming months. Congress dismissed their commanding general’s petitions as hyperbolic. Within an hour of arriving at Morristown, Schuyler had found ample evidence to send back to the delegates supporting Washington’s pleas for help—cementing the friendship that already existed between the two men.
Hamilton leapt to his feet. Schuyler had only recently agreed to his marriage proposal. He bowed low and nervously to his fiancée’s father. Washington stopped tossing the ball to lope his way over to the group.
“General,” Schuyler said, and nodded.
“General,” Washington answered, and nodded in salute as well.
“I am sorry to interrupt, sir, but I have just done an evaluation of your artillery.” He shook his head. “We have enough for about five minutes of fight. With your permission, I . . .”
Washington held up his hand. “Do you hear that?”
From the direction of Jockey Hollow, where the army was encamped in a thousand log huts, came the sound of a musket shot. Then another and another.
Everyone froze.
Washington cocked his head, straining to hear.
“To arms, sir?” Hamilton asked excitedly.
But Washington was smiling. “Listen.”
More shots, but also whispering over the two miles were shouts—hundreds of shouts! Huzzah! Huzzah!
“It must be the marquis,” breathed Washington. And then he grinned—ear to ear—one of the few times General George Washington would ever show that much unabashed relief and joy—or his false teeth.
Lafayette brought news as resurrecting as the spring: the French fleet was on its way to Newport, Rhode Island, bringing six thousand infantrymen under the command of Count Rochambeau to fight alongside the half-starved and bone-thin Continental Army. Wherever Lafayette walked for the next few days, hope bloomed in his wake as rampantly as the wildflower spring beauties carpeting the woods. That was especially true when he, Washington and his aides, and the family’s ladies went to Jockey Hollow for a celebration dinner with Colonel Webb, of General Stark’s brigade. Soldiers stopped whatever they were doing to cheer him as loudly as they did Washington.
“Mon Dieu, my dear Hamilton, there are so many of them!” Lafayette stood at the top of a hill looking down at the regimented rows of one thousand twelve-by-sixteen-foot log huts that had kept the Continental Army from freezing to death during the long, hard winter.
“The men had a terrible time felling the trees and stacking the walls during those January blizzards,” Hamilton answered him. “Far worse than Valley Forge.”
“C’est impossible!”
“No, it is true, my friend. This past winter . . .” He shook his head. “The men had to chop and lathe and fit those logs while thigh-deep in snowdrifts. And more snow coming down. Of course, the threat of dying in the elements will drive a man to do just about anything.” His voice was grim.
“Oh, but surely also esprit de corps, fraternité! These men, these Patriots! They have hearts énormes, oui?”
“They also have enormous—”
“Dr. Cochran!” Aunt Gertrude cut him off before he could utter another bit of anatomy, slapping his arm.
The men pressed their lips together, sniggering.
“Ah, good old Dr. Bones,” said Lafayette with his warm smile. “I would say the same of you. Did you know, my dear”—he looked down at Peggy, whom he was escorting, her hand resting in the crook of his arm—“that your uncle saved my life at Brandywine? We were in retreat. A Briton shot me in the calf. Dr. Bones carried me on his back out of the crossfire. We both nearly were captured. Then he operated on me in the middle of the battle to save my leg.”
“Aw, well, good sir”—Cochran blustered a bit—“that’s just my job. Besides, His Excellency told me to take care of you like you were his own son. I couldn’t disappoint him.”
“You are as modest as you are expert with that knife, sir. Ooh, that knife!” Lafayette held his hands out the length of a sword in jest.
“Nay, sir, it was merely a three-inch blade I needed to extract the bullet.”
“It felt like a bayonet!” Lafayette laughed.
“Had you been old enough to really drink the whiskey, you might not have felt it! French champagne does not have the same . . . errr . . . medicinal properties.”
“Ahh, mais c’est superbe! When the war is won and we are all legends, I will return to France victorious and ship a case to you, dear Dr. Bones.”
Peggy looked up into the Frenchman’s face with unaccustomed shyness, startled by a tingle of infatuation and the realization Lafayette was the kind of man she could fall in love with—courageous, mischievous, hungry to learn, sophisticated yet still excited by every new experience. Too bad he had a wife and baby back home in France. She had met him briefly two years before, when Lafayette passed through Albany and conferred with Schuyler regarding Oneida he wished to employ for scouting. Like everyone, Peggy had been completely charmed by his effusive idealism and unabashed affection for men he admired. The twenty-two-year-old was also disarmingly handsome—high forehead, wide, arched eyebrows over eyes that seemed perpetually delighted or intrigued, pronounced, round cheekbones, a dimpled chin, and full, red tulip lips.
Their meal over, the party was walking through the log-hut city, greeting soldiers. It was a steep climb up and down the hills for the petite Mrs. Washington, and she begged a rest, sitting down on a log in the shade. “Forgive me, sirs, I am not blessed with legs as long as yours!” She motioned for the Schuyler sisters to join her. “Do tell us more of your stories, Colonel Webb, as we catch our breath. You had me in amazement over dinner about that silver bullet. How could a man swallow a musket ball?”
Just like her father’s spy, Moses Harris, had warned! Peggy leaned forward to hear every detail.
“Well, ma’am, it just goes to prove that sometimes luck plays as much of a part in our fight as good stratagem, begging Your Excellency’s pardon, of course.”
Washington laughed gently. “It’s true, Colonel; sometimes our fate is left to Providence or to our dearest friends.” He nodded toward Lafayette, who beamed, standing behind Peggy.
Webb began his story: “We came into some important intelligence purely because of mistaken identity given two men having the same name. When the British sailed up the Hudson River from New York City with the plan of joining Burgoyne to take Albany, those grenadiers were under the command of Sir Henry Clinton. We, of course, were answering to our Governor George Clinton. A few of my men were out on a scout and fell in with a man dressed in civilian clothes. He asked who their commander was. When told ‘Clinton,’ he requested an audience—saying he had important information. But when he stood before the governor, his face turned white and he blustered that he had been confused, this was not the man he was looking for, and then hastily swallowed something! Given his strange behavior, we questioned him, and after a bit of persuasion and a potion to make him vomit, we found the ball. It was hollow with a top that screwed off, and it contained a tiny message from Burgoyne.”
“My goodness,” murmured Martha. “What a marvel. What will these spies think of next?”
Washington smiled ever so slightly. Oh, how Peggy longed to tell him that she had opened British communiqués and conferred with a spy herself. Peggy sat back, thinking. Her papa would return to Philadelphia and Congress after his work requisitioning supplies for the Continental Army was concluded. Someone needed to be in Albany in case Moses Harris showed up again. She hadn’t considered that before; she’d been so happy with her sisters and listening to the convivial sparring among the aides-de-camp. That would end, of course, when fighting renewed. She should go home. Good-bye sewing, at least.
“Tell again about the little fifer,” Martha prompted Webb.
“He is here, Lady Washington. Would you like to meet him?”
“Oh yes. Yes indeed! What pluck that child has,” she said to Eliza, who sat next to her. “Wait till you hear this story.”
Webb sent one of his lieutenants for the boy, asking he bring along his fife to play for the Washingtons. Then he began his story: “My men were given the task of destroying lumber stacked on the east end of Long Island that the Redcoats would use to build their winter barracks. Anything to slow them up and give them a bit of discomfort, right, General?”
Washington nodded.
“It was a daring raid,” Webb continued, “considering all the Redcoats we were trying to slip by. I and two dozen of my men were captured. Including the lad. He was only ten years old at the time, and much afraid.”
Only ten, thought Peggy. Two years younger than her brother Jeremiah, who was such an innocent. Was their cause that desperate that they had to take such a young child into battle, risking his capture and imprisonment? Peggy felt herself frown in anxiety for the boy and what Webb would relate happened to him.
Webb rubbed his face, remembering it. “I have to say, Your Excellency, this abated my hatred of the lobsterbacks a bit. Some of them anyway. Seeing the lad’s youth, our British captor asked him who he was.” Webb chuckled. “And our little hero, his name is Dick, ma’am, straightened himself up to his full four feet and answered proudly that he was one of John Hancock’s men and fought for General Washington.
“Impressed with his hardiness in such circumstances, the colonel sent the boy outside, where he would be given food. Within moments, we heard quite a row. A British drummer boy, many years older and twice Dick’s size, had evidently insulted His Excellency. Even in the camp of our enemies, young Dick felt he had to defend his commander. He’d pinned the boy to the dirt and the Briton was crying mercy: ‘Get off, rebel, get off!’”
Webb chuckled. “In deference for his stout heart, the colonel set our boy free. I, on the other hand, had to wait for a prisoner exchange! Ah, here the lad comes now.”
A cherubic boy, blond hair flying, cheeks flushed, darted up the hill, to stand gaping at George Washington.
The general smiled warmly, and took off his cocked hat in salute. “I believe we have the honor of meeting perhaps the youngest, nay even bravest, soldier of the Revolution. Your name, sir?” he asked gently.
“R-R-R-Richard Lord Jones, Your Excellency,” he squeaked.
“An honor to make your acquaintance, Fifer Jones.” Washington approached the boy and bent over to address him. “May I ask the favor of a song for my dearest wife?”
The boy nodded his head furiously.
Peggy worried the poor lad might faint, he was so overawed at meeting Washington. But he closed his eyes to concentrate, and as soon as the first notes of the American version of England’s anthem lilted from his little soul, Fifer Richard Lord Jones was transformed, his voice angelic.
“God save great Washington, Fair Freedom’s chosen son;
Long to command.
Next in our Song shall be, Guardian of Liberty,
Louis the King
Terrible god of war.”
Lafayette sprung to his feet. “Vive la France! Vivez l’Amérique! Vive George Washington!” He rushed to the lad and, kissing him on both cheeks, exclaimed, “Quand tu seras grand, mon garçon, tu dois venir à Paris en ambassadeur!”
The boy drew back, chewing on his lower lip—a nervous habit Peggy’s youngest brother had when he worried he was in trouble with adults. Peggy realized that the torrent of French had left the fifer afraid he might have displeased the important entourage somehow. She hastened to translate for the boy. “General Lafayette is so touched by your praising his homeland and king that his native tongue overcomes him. He says that someday you could be an excellent ambassador to France.” She rose to whisper in his ear, “You did very well. Smile now.”
The boy heaved a sigh and gave a trembling smile.
Martha Washington couldn’t help herself and swept up the little soldier into a tight embrace. Then, remembering the dignity demanded by a young boy, she let him go and pulled from her pocket a three-dollar bill printed by the United Colonies, July 22, 1776. “Thank you, sir fifer. That was better entertainment than any theater the general and I have seen. Even Cato,” she added with a mischievous look at her husband. Cato—a play about a Roman senator who gave up everything for love of country—was the favorite of all good Patriots, especially George Washington.
The boy’s mouth dropped open and he took the paper money as if it were a sacrament.
The marquis remained overcome. “After this war is done, you must come to France. Je vais te présenter au directeur musical de l’Opéra de Paris!”
The boy frowned. “I don’t want to go to France,” he whispered to Peggy. “I follow His Excellency. He’s my man.”
Peggy smiled at him reassuringly. “Mine, too. The marquis was only complimenting your voice, saying it was as lyrical as professional opera singers in Paris.”
“Oh, that’s all right, then,” he murmured.
Lafayette held out his hand to shake American-style, and in his palm shone three English shillings. “Merci, mon frère. I am indebted to you.”
The fifer stared. Peggy assumed it was out of awe once again—sterling British money was like treasure since Continental paper dollars had collapsed in value—it cost $400 to buy a hat, for instance, if it could be found. But little Richard Lord Jones shook his head.
Lafayette frowned, his feelings clearly hurt.
“Go ahead,” Peggy prompted. “The general makes you a generous gift.”
The boy turned his earnest eyes toward Peggy. “Them’s devil bobs.”
“Oh no.” She shook her head and couldn’t help laughing. “You show no disloyalty taking them.” Knowing Lafayette wouldn’t know the slang term bob for shillings, Peggy quickly explained to Lafayette the fifer’s worry that he would be showing disloyalty to their Revolution by taking British money: “Il ne manqué pas de respect, Général, il a peur que l’argent britannique semblerait déloyal.”
The misunderstanding cleared up, the boy took his money and Lafayette saluted him.
Now Lafayette gaped—at her! “Mon Dieu! You must forgive me, mademoiselle. I had forgotten your command of French.”
Now it was Hamilton’s turn, with Eliza on his arm, to laugh. “It seems many of us have made the mistake of not remembering our first meeting with Peggy. That surely would not happen today!” He winked at her.
“Our Peggy is brilliant,” murmured Eliza with sincerity, but her face begged Peggy to not expose her clumsiness with French.
Peggy shifted the compliment and the language. “I have simply grown up, that is all. Much like our beloved Eliza.”
“You should have more admirers than Colonel Hamilton and myself, mademoiselle! Hmm.” Lafayette thought a moment. “Ah, oui! I have the perfect match. Do you remember my countryman Colonel de Fleury? He was with me on that journey to Albany.”
“Oh, you will remember him,” said Hamilton. “He . . .”
But Peggy recalled. “He was the man hoping to sink Britain’s navy with little self-propelled boats that would explode when they bumped up against its ships.”
Hamilton frowned. Peggy realized from his reaction that she shouldn’t know about the boats. She’d be sure not to tell him, then, that she had overheard it, lingering on the stairs outside her father’s study, eavesdropping.
Lafayette seemed to have no such concerns, however. “Oui, oui, incroyable! Few ladies are truly interested in his military inventions. You must come to Newport, Mademoiselle Peggy! Fleury returned home as I did to convince our countrymen to support America. Now he sails to Rhode Island with Rochambeau. There they will revitalize before we march into glorious victory together!”
Smiling with infectious delight, Lafayette added, “Fleury has yet to find love. My own marriage to my beauteous Adrienne was arranged. I wager we can contrive a romance to rival my brother Alexander’s with your sister! N’est pas?” He looked to Hamilton and then exulted, “Merveilleux!”
Peggy shook her head. She had reveled in her time in Morristown, it was true—the balls, the revolutionary talk—but now she was resolved to return to Albany to watch for spies.
“Now that—my soon-to-be little sister—is a perfect match for you! Far more appropriate than old Captain Beebe.”
Peggy started to ask—with a new defensiveness and embarrassment at not having attracted more interesting suitors—why Hamilton was so interested in her love life, when Martha Washington pulled her aside.
“My dear, I will consider it a favor to me if you would travel to Newport as another pair of ears.” Martha lowered her voice. “Listening to you a moment ago so deftly undo misunderstandings prompts me to ask it.”
Martha pulled them a little farther away and continued, “The general cannot speak French, a deficit he feels keenly. Given his father’s early death, he was not granted a college education. What my husband knows he taught himself. There was no time for French. That is one of the many reasons he is so dependent upon your sister’s fiancé.” She nodded toward Eliza. “Colonel Hamilton’s eloquence and fluency makes such a difference for my husband. The general will keep him close by his elbow through talks with Rochambeau, who I gather speaks no English.
“Accuracy of translation can be a matter of life or death, peace or war, success or disaster in moments of history like this. That is the power of words. My husband learned this in the most tragic of ways. Many people, in fact, blame him for starting the French and Indian War because of it.”
Peggy looked at her quizzically. How could one person possibly be blamed for an entire war?
Reading her mind, Martha nodded. “It’s true. Before the war was formally declared, George was in a terrible fight at Fort Necessity. He was young. It was his first command. He positioned his men badly. Many were killed. He had to surrender.” She sighed. “The terms were written in French, badly translated to English by one of his junior officers, who did not understand the paper claimed that in a previous skirmish, in which a French officer had been killed, my George knowingly assassinated a French nobleman, an official of King Louis’s court. To the French, that was a barbarous insult, requiring retribution and all-out war.”
She took both Peggy’s hands and waited until Peggy met her gaze before continuing. “Colonel Hamilton will be by the general’s side during these strategy talks. But there will be many other conversations among French officers that might bear important nuances. And certainly social connections and comfort always make for tighter alliances, my dear. I heard my old man say that Mrs. Carter’s husband will be the commissary for the French army. She will want to join him, surely, at Newport. So you could travel to Rhode Island with your sister. I would ask Mrs. Carter my favor, but”—Martha paused—“I think in her effervescence she might not notice the littler comments that sometimes bear the most fruit.” She squeezed Peggy’s hands. “May I enlist your help?”
“Almost like a spy?” Peggy whispered eagerly.
Martha’s return smile was warm and motherly. “Let’s say as a lovely female of diplomacy with a good memory for conversation and a wise eye for recognizing implications.”
Peggy smiled, feeling her eyebrow shoot up. Far better than sewing!