Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler
Teaneck, New Jersey, August
Impatiently My Dearest have I been expecting . . . a letter from my charmer . . . She will there I hope paint me her feelings without reserve—even in those tender moments of pillowed retirement, when her soul abstracted from every other object, delivers itself up to Love and to me. . . . I would this moment give the world to be near you only to kiss your sweet hand. Believe what I say to be truth and imagine what are my feelings when I say it. Let it awake your sympathy and let our hearts melt in a prayer to be soon united.
Dobbs Ferry, New York, August 8
[W]hy do you not write to me oftener? . . . I write you at least three letters for your one, though I am immersed in public business and you have nothing to do but to think of me. . . . Love me I conjure you.
Teaneck, New Jersey, August 31
You will think me unkind if I do not come. How will you have the presumption to think me unkind you saucy little charmer? . . . Should I not gain more by it, should I not enjoy more pleasure, feast upon more beauties sweetnesses, and charms?. . . Yet my love I could not with decency or honor leave the army during the campaign. . . .
Kiss my little sister for me when she comes. I am happy on all accounts she is sent for.
A Hamilton
PEGGY DROPPED HER BOOK TO THE FLOOR AS SHE popped up out of her chair. “What do you mean I am sent for?”
Angelica looked up from the letter she had just received from Albany, from their father. “Papa is suffering another bad round of his gout. He had to leave Congress to convalesce.”
“Why can’t Eliza help Mama care for him? She’s home in Albany.”
“Because Mama is ill herself. Her legs are horribly swollen, so she is mostly bedridden.” Angelica skimmed more of the letter. “This pregnancy is a hard one, evidently.”
“Pregnancy?” Peggy flounced back down into the chair, stunned. “Again?”
“Yes. Papa says she will deliver in January—if all goes well.”
“Eeeeewww!” She couldn’t help it. The thought of her parents being intimate always made her uncomfortable. “Mama is almost fifty!”
Angelica laughed at her.
“But Angelica, she’s a grandmother. This child will be younger than your children! And besides, her last baby—oh, you didn’t see, Angelica, that baby boy suffered so much before he died. Why would she try again?”
Peggy resisted adding what was really bothering her. It would sound so selfish. But she didn’t want to leave Rhode Island. Not now! Not now that there was Fleury.
But Angelica knew. She swept to Peggy’s side to kneel and embrace her. “Now is a good time for you to leave, little sister. Trust me. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, as they say. Sometimes it is precisely what a courtship needs.”
Peggy’s eyebrow shot up. “Really?” She drew out the word sarcastically. “What idiot says that?”
Angelica laughed lightly again. “Hundreds of poets. And I know it’s true. Look at Hamilton for our sweet Eliza. She says his letters ache with love and loneliness for her. Let’s see what Fleury writes to you.”
“But Eliza and Hamilton were already betrothed when she returned to Albany!” Peggy wailed. And Fleury had not yet spoken of love. Not even after Peggy’s impetuous kiss. What did that mean? Had Fleury found her kiss too forward, or even repulsive?
“Yes, it was quick between them,” Angelica murmured, pushing Peggy’s ever unruly hair back from her forehead. “Perhaps it would have been better if Eliza and Alexander had come to know each other more before they were engaged. It was only a month’s courtship. Eliza definitely leapt before she really looked.”
Peggy searched her big sister’s face. “Like you did?” she whispered.
Angelica turned away, as if Peggy had slapped her.
“I . . . I’m sorry,” Peggy apologized. “I just . . . You seem . . .”
Angelica stood and went to the window, not acknowledging Peggy’s question, and said, “I don’t think Eliza realizes what she might have gotten herself into. I warned her about Hamilton’s prospects after the war. They are . . . questionable. He has no family, no backing, just that . . . that mind of his. Of course, if our Revolution succeeds, we will become a society where effort and intelligence will be what matters most. If we succeed.” She paused, reflecting on that concept a moment. “Frankly, I sense that Eliza is a bit frightened sometimes by Hamilton’s insistence, his intensity, his ardor. Papa hints in this letter that she is succumbing to that nervousness of hers.”
Angelica shook her head and concluded, “It will do Eliza good to have you at her side. You are far more patient with her than I.”
“Oh, Angelica, when does it get to be my turn? I infuriated Mama by helping you elope and she has never really forgiven me or trusted me since then. Now I am to give up on my own chance at romance to hold Eliza’s hand and reassure her about her wedding night? Something I—unlike you—know nothing about? And may never be given the chance to if all of you have your way!”
Laughter bubbled up out of Angelica. “Little sister, I want nothing more for you than happiness, believe me. I have always loved your passion. But it is a double-edged sword. You will learn that.”
“Stop laughing at me!” Peggy shouted. “I am not a child anymore. I am the age you were when you ran off with your husband. Come to think of it, remember that awful poem that silly woman who taught us needlework used to make us recite: At sixteen years come on and woo, and take of kisses plenty . . .”
Angelica ruefully joined in: “At eighteen years full grown and ripe, they’re ready to content ye. At nineteen sly and mischievous . . .”
Grinning at each other, the two sisters ended loudly, rebelliously: “But the Devil at one and twenty!”
“That’s you, sister, twenty-one, the devil,” teased Angelica. “Ready to dole out all manner of hell! And I would hope so,” she added fondly. Then she shook her head, her mirth subsiding, and murmured, more to herself than to Peggy, “And to think that I was so worried about becoming an old maid!”
“Good Lord, imagine!” Carter strode into the room. “The beauteous Angelica a spinster? That would never have happened. There would have been a legion of gallants courting you, my dear, had I not materialized.” He kissed his wife on her cheek. She did not smile until he added, softly, with his lips lingering in her swept-high hair, “I am the lucky one to have beat them to the treasure of your heart.”
He sat and leaned back in his chair. As soon as he spoke, he revealed that he had been listening to their conversation. She could be accused of being nosy herself, but somehow Carter’s eavesdropping felt sinister. “Here is a proposal that might make you happy, Peggy. Rochambeau travels to Hartford to confer with Washington in a few days. I go with them, as the conference will be held in my commissary partner’s home estate there. Come along. There will be festivities for ladies to enjoy after the meetings. Hartford is halfway to Albany and you will be safe to travel home from there.” He seemed to speak with genuine big-brotherly concern.
But then he ruined the moment by adding, “Do not worry, sprightly Peggy, you will have no trouble with your wedding night, I am sure.” He paused. “Your . . . heart . . . will tell you what to do.”
Peggy felt like vomiting. For all his patina of British courtliness, the man could be incredibly vulgar. Then came a worse thought—could Fleury have gossiped to Carter about her kiss?
Excusing herself with as much dignity as she could muster, Peggy fled the room. She and Fleury had arranged to take a stroll together that afternoon. She needed to think how to tell him—without bursting into tears—that she soon would be leaving.
The air was cool and salty as she and Fleury wandered along streets overlooking the three-mile-wide harbor and the French fleet’s thirty-plus ships that bobbed up and down, anchored in it. Peggy had come to be quite fond of the seaside city, the smell of the ocean winds, the push-pull of the tides. It was so unlike the mountains and forests of upstate New York. The waves carried such a sense of freedom as they crashed onshore and then rushed back out to the Atlantic—uncontainable.
She had also relished conversations with the inhabitants. They seemed so open to divergent ideas and philosophies. Rhode Island had been established specifically for religious freedom, breaking off from the more stringent tenets of Massachusetts Puritanism. As a result the city included Quakers, Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Moravians, and Jews. It was a refreshing change from Albany’s Dutch Reformed Church strictness. She’d been pleased also by Fleury’s liberal response to the religious diversity, especially considering his native land was devoutly Catholic and often persecuted Protestant dissenters. America and her philosophical freedoms were taking hold in him, clearly.
For several minutes now, Fleury and Peggy had walked in silence. Perhaps unsure of his English, the marquis rarely initiated conversation. As he requested, she stuck primarily to English, so he could practice using the language.
Peggy tried to reassure herself that it wasn’t disinterest that kept him quiet, since he always answered her questions enthusiastically—mixing French with English. With enough prodding, she had learned he came from a fairly remote southern area of France called Saint-Hippolyte-le-Graveyron. Following family tradition, he had joined the infantry when he was nineteen years old, and eight years later he sailed to America to offer his services to the Revolution. At first Congress didn’t want to commission him or the other French officers who arrived in 1776. So Fleury volunteered. Washington quickly recognized the worth of his experience and promoted Fleury to be a captain with the engineers. Before Stony Point, he had been wounded twice, at Brandywine and during the horrifying siege of Fort Mifflin, where he took command after all his superior officers were wounded or killed.
But so much about Fleury remained a mystery. And now Peggy had so little time to find out more.
He was staring out to the ocean in the growing twilight.
“Do you miss France?” she asked.
“Hmm. Yes et no. Life is a struggle there. We are of noble blood, but is difficile to find security of money. Our lands are rocky for farming. I do not have title enough to find employment in King Louis’s court. So I join the army, like my father and his father. I not see my home pour . . . mmm . . . ten years.” He smiled at her, wistful.
Tell me you want to show it to me someday, she thought. Say you have found happiness here, in America. That you will never leave its shores. But all Peggy could manage was, “Do you like America?”
“Mais bien sûr! The country is beautiful. And the women . . .” He pressed his fingers together and kissed them, popping them apart as if throwing the caress into the air in that odd French exclamation of something being perfect.
Silence again.
How Peggy wished Lafayette were still in Newport. He had been recalled almost immediately to Washington’s headquarters after the dinner party at Angelica’s. Fleury had hinted that his friend’s youth and enthusiasms had grated on Rochambeau, that French officers were jealous of the twenty-three-year-old’s rank as general. Peggy searched her memory of Lafayette’s suggestion in Morristown of arranging a romance between her and Fleury for a hint of what to say next to keep their conversation going.
“Oh!” She blushed as her audible exclamation made Fleury look at her quizzically. Lafayette had said Fleury would be impressed with a woman being interested in his inventions. “There is something I would love to know more of.” Peggy hesitated. “But I know it is probably a guarded secret. May I still ask?”
He nodded.
Even though nothing was nearby but seagulls, she lowered her voice, so no one would overhear information about his engineering marvel. “Is it true you were hoping to design self-propelled boats that could blow up British ships? Is such a thing feasible?”
Fleury frowned.
“I . . . I . . .” Peggy decided to be truthful. She didn’t want the marquis to think her papa had divulged secret plans. “I know I shouldn’t have been eavesdropping. But I heard you describe a rocket boat to Papa. It sounded so interesting, I couldn’t help but listen. How do they work? They must be a marvel.”
“Paahh.” Fleury snorted. “They would have been! I had saltpeter and powder, but I never receive the flat-bottom boats I need. My plan was to fill a chest, a very strong one, with powder. The deck covered with bombs. The direction and velocity will be given to the boat by a strong rocket, like fireworks. A mast sank in the water, horizontal to the stern, bound in a sail, will support the boat and hinder the current to drive it out the wrong way. The head we arm with a strong spur of iron, so it will pierce the British ship and stick. We set the British fleet on fire when the powder blows up from sparks of the rocket—BOOM!”
Fleury waved his arms on boom, making Peggy jump.
“Oh! Non, non!” Fleury reflexively lowered his hands to her shoulders to apologize for frightening her: “Pardonnez-moi, je ne veux pas vous effrayer!”
He didn’t drop his hands. Peggy did not pull back. Slowly, his eyes traveled from her eyes to her lips.
Oh please, she thought. Prove to me you feel something of what I do. Peggy nodded ever so slightly, trembling, to give him permission.
Fleury leaned toward her, looked in her eyes again, and then cocked his chiseled face so their lips would meet perfectly, like pieces of a puzzle. Peggy closed her eyes, waiting for the touch of bliss.
CRRRACK!
Peggy and Fleury flinched and fell away from each other at the sound of musket fire. “Damn,” breathed Peggy as Fleury pushed her behind him and drew his sword.
“Arrêtez! Arrêtez!”
“This is my town, you stupid frog!” a surly voice shouted down by the water.
Peggy peeped out from behind Fleury to see a sentry squared off with a local fisherman.
“Identifiez-vous!” The French soldier challenged the man to identify himself.
“Let me about my business, or you and all your fancy-dress, wig-wearing fops will starve, ye will!”
CRRACK. The sentry fired another shot into the air as two more French guards came running. “Arrêtez-le! Peut-être que c’est un espion!”
Clearly the fisherman didn’t understand that the sentry suspected he could be a Tory spy. His response was to drop his basket of cod and pull out his short club that all boatmen carried to twist rope.
“Oh dear,” murmured Peggy. As the French soldiers lowered their muskets to aim at the fisherman’s chest and other boatmen jumped from their sloops to help their friend, Peggy grabbed Fleury’s hand. “Come on!”
This could turn into a brawl. She knew that the locals were increasingly annoyed by having to navigate around all the French vessels and the officers crowding their homes and streets—no matter how much they welcomed their presence.
As the men closed in on one another, weapons or fists ready, Peggy ran toward the wharf, pulling Fleury with her.
“Stop! Arrêtez!” she cried out.
The men all froze, surprised by her sudden appearance, her face red, her bonnet fallen, her hair disheveled from her dash down the hill to the waterside. They stayed squared off, at the ready.
“Good sirs, you misunderstand the French soldiers,” she said breathlessly to the fishermen. “The sentry simply asked, ‘Who is there?’ so that you could identify yourself to him. There are spies everywhere, you know that. The sentry’s challenge is simply to keep Newport safe.”
The men stuck their lower lips out and nodded, one snarling, “Why didn’t the jackass say so, then?”
Peggy turned to the French soldiers. She explained in their language that the boatmen fished the coast and would be coming in and out of the harbor every day.
The sentry insisted the fishermen still needed to answer his question. He had his orders, he told Peggy, straight from Count Rochambeau.
“But you must say it in English so the boatmen could understand.” She repeated herself in French, adding, “Dites, ‘Who is there?’”
“Ou is dair?” the Frenchman repeated.
She laughed. “Simple, non?”
The French sentinels nodded, repeating “Ou is dair?”
“Will this do, gentlemen?” she asked the Rhode Islanders.
They shrugged and grumbled about being interrupted in hauling up their catch, and stomped back to their boats.
Well, Peggy thought, not as important a diplomatic moment as Martha Washington had hoped, but a fistfight, or worse, averted at least. She smiled with some pride and turned to Fleury.
He was beaming. “Extraordinaire, mademoiselle. You could translate to General Rochambeau when he meets His Excellency, General Washington. I would be honored, like a knight, to have on my arm such a woman.”
“Oh, they have Alexander Hamilton for translating,” she demurred. But her heart thrilled to hear Fleury say he felt ennobled by being with her. She hoped he knew what he implied by the English words he was choosing—that he felt admiration, perhaps even love, for her.
Peggy took a deep breath. “Marquis, I must tell you something.”
“And I must tell you something.” His voice was warm and he took a step closer. “Mais . . . ladies first.”
Peggy hesitated. “You, sir.” She gestured for him to speak.
But he refused, insisting on polite formality.
Carefully watching what his reaction would be, she said, “My parents have sent for me. Both are ill. I must return to Albany.”
Fleury stiffened.
“But,” Peggy rushed on, “I will travel to Hartford first with my brother-in-law, who goes to facilitate the meeting and to procure supplies for your army. Is there any chance you might . . .” She trailed off, realizing that no matter how daring she might be in revealing her feelings to him, she had no right to push Fleury to request Rochambeau include him in a conference with Washington. Fleury had experienced the same kind of envy Lafayette had from the other French officers. Given his prior service in America, he entered Rochambeau’s forces as a major—receiving a rank many men who had been with the Saintonge Regiment for years had hoped for and were denied by his elevation. She knew from her father’s hurtful experiences with Congress that Fleury being chosen as one of a handful of French envoys to Washington could cause even more grousing about him.
Peggy sighed. Men and rank; it created such discord among them. “What were you going to say?” she asked.
Fleury hesitated, then shook his head. “I will ask to ride in the escort to Hartford. And so, I protect you on the road.” He took her hand and threaded it through his arm. “I will tell what I wish to say when we arrive—before you are taken from me.”