Alexander Hamilton to Eliza Schuyler
Liberty Pole, New Jersey, September 3, 1780
The little song you sent me I have read over and over. It is very pretty and contains precisely those sentiments I would wish . . . You seem by sympathy to have anticipated [my] inquiries . . . and to have answered them all by this little song . . . [B]e assured My angel it is not a diffidence of my betsey’s heart, but of a female heart, that dictated the questions. . . . Some of your sex possess every requisite to please delight, and inspire esteem friendship and affection; but there are too few of this description. . . . [A]nd though I am satisfied . . . that you are one of the exceptions, I cannot forbear having moments when I feel a disposition to make a more perfect discovery of your temper, and character. . . .
When your sister returns home, I shall try to get her in my interest and make her tell me of all your flirtations. Have you heard any thing more of what I hinted to you about Fleury? When she returns, give my love to her and tell her, I expected, she would have outstripped you in the Hymenial line.
Adieu My love
A. Hamilton
IT TOOK TWO DAYS TO TRAVEL THE SIXTY MILES from Newport to Hartford, Connecticut. Those precious forty-eight hours had been deliciously frustrating, with Fleury riding far behind Peggy’s carriage, on duty and in protective alertness. The French admiral de Ternay was ill, so Rochambeau rode with him in a carriage as well, rather than on horseback. The two vehicles jolted along side by side. The weather was mild enough that the canopies were down so the Frenchmen could enjoy the splashes of orange, gold, and red leaves that signaled the coming of autumn. It also released the smell of onions, eaten to relieve the symptoms of scurvy, that hung around de Ternay. With the carriages open Carter could regale his employers with stories and Angelica amuse them with her winsome chatter.
Peggy, on the other hand, kept looking wistfully back to Fleury. He would smile but otherwise could not acknowledge her gaze, being in such close proximity to his commanding general. Each time she squirmed and turned, Angelica elbowed her in the ribs. By the time they reached their overnight stop, her side was quite bruised.
All day, from Newport to Coventry to Voluntown to Canterbury to Scotland to Windham and finally to Andover, she had itched to say something, anything to him. But even when one of Rochambeau’s carriage wheels broke on the rutted road and they stalled unmoving for more than an hour, she was thwarted. Because he spoke enough English, Fleury was sent off to find help.
While they waited, children ran from their farm fields to touch the boots of the beautifully clad Frenchmen, sitting atop their horses. They scattered, cheering, as Fleury returned at the trot, so expert a horseman that he and his gelding appeared one magnificent creature. He had found a wheelwright.
For one beguiling moment Peggy and Fleury were near each other as he explained—with amusement—that the elderly wheelwright had refused to work through the night to repair any carriage, “not even for a hatful of guineas. Not even for the king of France. Then I told him it was to meet General Washington that we travel. Et voilà! He says it will be ready by five a.m. tomorrow.” He repeated himself in French to Rochambeau.
Rochambeau asked Fleury if Washington was truly that beloved by everyone.
“Ah oui, c’est vrai.” Fleury nodded. “Sa dignité, sa simplicité de manières, son dévouement à la campagne, son visage ouvert et son attitude de défi à l’encontre des Anglais gagnent le cœur de tous.”
In his native tongue, Fleury put it so beautifully, so poetically—Washington’s dignity, his simplicity of manners, his devotion to country, his open countenance and stubborn defiance of the British did indeed win the heart of most everyone. Why couldn’t Fleury serve as translator at the conference? Peggy pouted. Why did he have to return immediately to Newport?
Fleury explained there was a tavern nearby—the Sign of the Black Horse—where they could spend the night as the wheelwright worked. Peggy’s mood lifted with the thought that surely she and her Frenchman would be able to steal a few minutes together then. But crowded into one room with Carter plus Rochambeau’s aides-de-camp and son, Fleury was kept playing backgammon all evening. At midnight, Angelica closed and locked the door of the closet-sized bedroom she and Peggy shared. Fuming, Peggy vowed to find some way to pay back her brother-in-law for detaining Fleury all night.
Now she sat, swaying on the ferry, with Rochambeau’s party, crossing the Connecticut River to Hartford. She could see hordes of people on the other side, waving handkerchiefs and homemade flags of blue, white, and red vertical stripes to honor the French troops. How many more minutes did they have? She glanced to Fleury, who was shading his eyes against the water’s glare to look in amazement at the thousands of people.
The ferry docked with a bump and an explosion of huzzahs from people on shore. Awaiting them was the governor, Carter’s partner, Colonel Wadsworth, a dozen city leaders dressed in their finest embroidered vests and purple coats, plus the governor’s foot guard, still bedecked in the opulent red and gold-trimmed dress uniforms once given them by King George’s royal governor.
BOOM! Cannon fired.
BOOM-BOOM. Thirteen rounds in salute and celebration of the thirteen United States. Peggy’s heart jumped with each deafening round.
A fife-and-drum corps struck up “Yankee Doodle,” and before she really knew what was happening, Rochambeau and de Ternay were astride beautiful warhorses and parading toward the capitol, followed by the musicians, the guard, the city officials, and all the Frenchmen, including her Fleury.
Carter took the carriage reins and struggled to control their horses amid the happily pushing throng, cheering and clapping in time to the music. From every window, on every stoop of the city, people waved and called out and applauded. Peggy could see many of them were crying—that’s how starved Americans were for help in their fight. One would have to be dead to not thrill to the euphoria, the sense of hope in all those huzzahs.
From a distance, she could see George Washington standing on the steps of the courthouse, towering over everyone around him.
“There’s Hamilton.” Angelica cupped her mouth and raised her voice so Peggy could hear her. “See him there, beside His Excellency? He truly is Washington’s most trusted man, it seems. Eliza is a lucky girl.”
Peggy nodded. She also spotted Lafayette, along with Harrison, Meade, Tilghman, and that insufferable McHenry. Carter could not get them close enough to actually hear Washington greet Rochambeau—Hamilton leaning into His Excellency to translate the French general’s response, and Lafayette doing the same into his countryman’s ear. But there were many bows and solemn smiles that made it clear the diplomatic formalities were perfectly executed.
The crowd thundered approval. The leaders got back on their horses, making ready to parade together this time.
“They must be heading to Wadsworth’s house now,” Carter shouted.
“Do you know the way?” Angelica asked.
“I assume I can follow the masses,” he answered with a laugh.
Peggy heard their exchange over the din but had kept her eyes glued to Fleury. She saw Rochambeau speak to him, saw Fleury and Hamilton kiss each other’s cheeks in the French custom of faire la bise.
As the fife and drums struck up the march “The Road to Boston,” she strained to see past the flags and handkerchiefs waving in time to the music. She thought she saw Hamilton and Fleury riding together. Then they disappeared from view. She twisted and peered. There they were! Riding straight for Peggy’s carriage.
Hamilton swept off his tricorn hat in greeting. His buff-and-blue uniform was decidedly cleaner than last time she’d seen him, and his hat’s decorative cockade fresh—a gift from Eliza. “The Schuyler sisters!” he called, grinning, and held his hat to his heart as he bowed. Peggy smiled back at his chivalrous gesture—he really must think himself a knight of the round table or something equally grand, she mused. Then she realized Fleury was spurring his horse to her side of the carriage. She caught her breath at the urgency with which he moved toward her.
Did she imagine it, or did he say, “Ma chérie”? Oh, how she wanted to scream at the multitude to quiet so she could hear.
As the people of Hartford cheered, Fleury leaned over from his saddle, clasped her waist, and pulled her to her feet so he could press his lips to her ear. “There is no time to say all. Rochambeau orders I return to Newport immediatement to report his safe arrival. I will write. I have something to explain.”
Muskets fired into the air in jubilation and Fleury’s horse spooked, half rearing and turning to look about fearfully. The carriage swayed and dipped. Peggy suddenly felt her feet dangling in the air. Fleury held her up, but if his grasp loosened, she’d fall, crushed between carriage and horse!
Fleury’s embrace tightened. And there Peggy hovered, five feet off the ground, cradled in his arm. She could feel his muscles tighten and strain as he supported her while trying to calm his horse with his other hand on the reins. She flung her arms around his neck to help, pulling herself close to his chest so they both didn’t topple over, tipped like a scale by her weight. They laughed—his rumble and her surprised, nervous giggle melding into one triumphant mutual gasp of jubilation at avoiding disaster.
She waited for him to drop her back into the carriage. But he didn’t. Suspended together, Fleury kissed her. Kissed her good-bye with bittersweet urgency, pushing his soul into hers for a fleeting, rapturous breath, a promise of possibilities, of life stolen from catastrophe as the horse danced beneath them.
Then he swung Peggy back into the carriage. She made herself let go. With a gentle caress of her face, a brush of his fingertips on her cheek, Fleury rode away.
The fife and drums played on.
Later that night, after dinner, Hamilton teased Peggy. “Well, that good-bye was certainly impressive, little sister. I can hardly wait to tell Lafayette that he is as good as Cupid.”
Peggy smiled absentmindedly. She really hadn’t been paying much attention to any comment or anyone that evening. The candlelit parlor, the polite repartee, the women tittering, the men boasting; it all seemed so tepid.
“I admire your . . . abandon.”
At that, Peggy was all attention. Her eyebrow shot up, suspecting disapproval.
“No, truly.” Hamilton had caught her expression of concern. “Such zest for life, in a woman, is exquisite, intoxicating to behold. And such independence; shall I even say initiative?” He grinned at her. “Remarkable. Mythic. Very like Diana, the huntress goddess who breaks so many hearts.”
Peggy ignored the banter in the compliment. This night, after that kiss, she was only interested in honesty. She shrugged. “Playing games, now, during a war, just . . .” Peggy hesitated. She was slipping into unusually frank and rather taboo conversation with a man. But he was to be her brother, wasn’t he? “I just am not particularly interested in flirtation as other girls are taught to be. I never was very good at it anyway.”
“Is your sister?”
“Eliza?” She laughed gently. “No.” She turned her head to look at him reassuringly, and realized Hamilton was gazing away from her. She followed his eyes and saw that he was looking at Angelica.
Which sister had he meant? What was it between him and Angelica? Was Hamilton falling under her spell as well? Peggy reached out and put her hand on his arm. “Sincerity is the best kind of love, don’t you think . . . brother?”
Hamilton’s pretty face turned that peach color Peggy had come to recognize occurred when he was embarrassed or caught in a thought. But he decided to follow her lead and be direct: “I just wish Eliza would write me more often. The infrequency of her letters makes me worry someone else is courting her. You must report to me any man who approaches her from now on. Agreed?” He ended on a jaunty tone, but Peggy could tell there was an undercurrent of seriousness in what Hamilton said.
“She’s not like that, Alexander. You must trust her. She is a Penelope.”
“Well, let’s hope I am not an Odysseus, at war for a decade and then unable to find his way home for another. And those sirens! Calypso!” Peggy didn’t take the literary bait of Odysseus’s temptations, so Hamilton turned thoughtful. “Tilghman calls her ‘the little saint.’”
“Ha!” Peggy nodded. “Well . . . she’s not.”
“But her letters . . . My letters are . . . hers are . . .”
Peggy laughed at him. She couldn’t help it. For such a preening verbal peacock, he was almost childlike in such moments.
Much—Peggy suddenly realized—as she must sound sometimes in her own insecurities, her little-sister competitiveness, her worry that when compared to Angelica and Eliza she came up short, inferior. She hesitated before speaking again. She might have quite a bit in common personality-wise with Hamilton.
But Peggy drew herself back to the point at hand. It was vitally important that Eliza’s future husband understand and appreciate her still waters. “Eliza is not a confident writer, Alexander. That’s all. She is self-conscious about it since letter writing is deemed a skill that’s proof of a lady’s sophistication. But you could not be blessed with a better, more devoted and thoughtful wife than my middle sister.”
Glancing toward Angelica, who had a ring of men about her, Peggy continued, “It can be hard to be the younger sister of a learned and witty and captivating woman. Out of fear of being compared and found wanting, it is safer sometimes to remain quiet. Eliza’s choice of words can be simpler than Angelica’s, but the ocean of her feeling is vast and deep. Far more lasting than any surface ripples of witticisms or clever turns of phrase.”
Hamilton sighed. Nodded. Then he almost whispered, “I worry Eliza does not fully realize that she could be shackling herself to a poor man. I have no property. No personal victory in battle to make my name and my future. Your lover Fleury understands this—it is why he joined the army, why he came to America, to find glory and thus elevate himself.”
At this Peggy frowned. Fleury had come because he believed in liberty, the cause. Hadn’t he? What did her soon-to-be brother know of the Frenchman she had fallen in love with? “Alexander . . . ,” she began to ask.
But Carter sauntered up and interrupted them. “Wadsworth has brought out the grog, my friend. As scintillating as I know our Peggy is, we men have want of you, Hammie, before the dancing begins.” The way he pulled out the word scintillating made it sound like a sneer. But looking at him more carefully, Peggy quickly realized Carter was tipsy and just beginning to slur his words.
Hamilton stood. What he said next made Peggy like him all the more.
“I have actually been wanting to speak with you as well, sir. This month, the Continental Army has received only four or five days’ rations of meal. This distress at such a stage of the campaign sours the soldiery. We lost the port of Charleston in May mainly from the want of a sufficient supply of provisions. And last month, Gates, puffed up with arrogance, foolishly attacked the British in Camden, paying no attention to the fact his troops were ravaged with dysentery for lack of proper food and medicines. As a result, he lost that battle and two thousand Patriots to death or capture by the Redcoats. Our men are beyond dispirited. They need supplies, Mr. Carter!”
Carter was clearly taken aback. “I work for the French army now, mon ami,” he blustered.
Materializing from thin air, it seemed, came Angelica, a fluttering rush of Patriot-blue satin and French perfume. Peggy suddenly realized that her big sister’s tendency to flit about a party from group to group might have more to do with saving her husband from embarrassment and fights than with entertaining herself. Oh, Angelica, what a waste of your magnificence, Peggy thought sadly.
“Gentlemen.” Angelica flipped open her ivory-carved fan and swept it back and forth, back and forth, hypnotic. “Governor Trumbull and I were just discussing Thomas Paine and his latest call to action. Have you read it, Colonel Hamilton? He feels the fall of Charleston has called forth a spirit akin to the flame of 1776. That the valor of a country is best learned from the bravery of its soldiery.” She smiled. “Surely the men in this room represent that as well as the best and noblest cause that ever a country engaged in.”
“Certainly it is among the soldiers that I place my hopes,” Hamilton answered.
A stiff silence fell.
“Oh dear.” Angelica’s throaty laugh sounded like a quick-dazzle run of notes on a harpsichord. “I must have interrupted a serious conversation. I beg your forgiveness.” She bowed her head slightly, holding her open fan to her lips—a well-known invitation to kiss someone in the language of fans.
Both men stared at her. Then Hamilton shook his head as if to throw off a daydream. He found his manners. “The truth is I am an unlucky honest man,” he apologized, “that speaks my sentiments to all and with emphasis. I was letting my emotions override my manners. Forgive me, Mr. Carter. I hope you will not charge me with vanity.” He added with boyish angst and humorous self-deprecation: “I hate Congress—I hate the army—I hate the world—I hate myself. The whole is a mass of fools and knaves.”
They all laughed with him.
“But the truth is we are in dire financial straits,” Hamilton continued, “even with the French army arriving. The old man will despair if we cannot prod Rochambeau to battle soon, to try to conclude this war as soon as possible. The army is bankrupt. Congress is bankrupt. The country is bankrupt. Washington has exhausted his private resources. He had to borrow money from various persons for us to afford the trip here. I do not know how we will reckon with the bill at the various taverns in which we lodge at Hartford for this conference.”
His face clouded with a raw embarrassment at the thought of having to go a-begging for his dinner funds. Peggy’s instinct was to hug him, in sympathy and understanding, but could tell that would be the worst possible affront to his sense of honor.
Angelica thought a moment and then glanced toward the governor. “Excuse me,” she said, and regally glided toward Connecticut’s top politicians, her fan sweeping the air seductively about her gorgeous face.
Within an hour, Governor Trumbull announced his state would be picking up the bill for the Patriots’ historic talks with the French. All of them.
That’s when Hamilton asked Angelica to dance. Somehow during the effervescent circles and sashays of a cotillion, one of Angelica’s garters slipped from her leg and appeared on the floor. Alexander Hamilton swept it up and presented it to her on bended knee, to the applause of fellow dancers. He lingered over the kiss he pressed to her hand as she took the garter from him.
“My knight of the garter,” Angelica quipped.
A would-be knight of the bedchamber, thought Peggy. She was being separated from her own lover and sent home in part to assuage Eliza’s growing anxieties. How in the world was she to prepare sweet, steady Eliza for such an enrapturing but quicksilver man?