Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton
Light Camp [New York], Aug. 16. 81
I have received my beloved Betsey your letter informing me of the happy escape of your father. He showed an admirable presence of mind, and has given his friends a double pleasure arising from the manner of saving himself and his safety. Upon the whole I am glad this unsuccessful attempt has been made. It will prevent his hazarding himself hereafter as he has been accustomed to do. He is a character too valuable to be trifled with, and owes it to his country and to his family to be upon his guard.
My heart . . . felt all the horror and anguish attached to the idea of your being yourself and seeing your father in the power of ruffians as unfeeling as unprincipled; for such I dare say composed the band. I am inexpressably happy to learn that my love has suffered nothing in this disagreeable adventure . . .
You have not told me though I have asked it once or twice whether you had received my letter inclosing two others one for [Angelica] one for Peggy. . . . God bless you.
SITTING CROSS-LEGGED IN HER FAVORITE WINDOW-SEAT perch, Peggy gazed out to the Hudson—in essence standing post after the raid on the house, perhaps perpetually so now. Still in their dressing gowns, Eliza and Angelica were reading letters they’d just received from their husbands. Cornelia was on the floor playing with the little Catharine, baby Caty, and Philip. For the moment all her sisters, her niece and nephew, were at peace and safe.
Downstairs, her papa was undoubtedly worrying over reported Redcoat raids around Niagara and along Lake Champlain, Tory attempts to kidnap General Peter Gansevoort, the hero of Fort Stanwix, and the arrival of new British troops at St. John’s—all of which potentially suggested another full-scale attack from Canada, like Burgoyne’s.
That morning Peggy had written down a letter for Schuyler to his nemesis, Barry St. Leger, trying to negotiate the release of the two guards his would-be kidnappers had taken prisoner. He’d also dictated a hoax letter for Moses Harris to take directly to the British, as if the agent had intercepted it. Addressed to George Washington, Schuyler’s letter pretended to discuss plans for American forces to invade Canada from Cohoe Falls while the French fleet besieged Quebec and other Patriot units made trouble around New York City. All false and a clever ruse to shield Washington’s actual plans to head south, probably to Virginia.
How Peggy longed to tell Angelica and Eliza about their papa’s clandestine work and that she sometimes helped in it. But she knew it must be kept secret, even from her sisters. No one could know about any of it.
But Peggy did.
She smiled, satisfied.
“And what are you so pleased about over there?” Angelica asked her. “Are you expecting someone?”
“No,” she answered flatly, her smile disappearing. She searched Angelica’s face to see if her big sister had meant to take her happiness down a peg. Angelica knew about Fleury and his disappearance from Peggy’s life. But looking at her carefully told Peggy that Angelica had simply asked the question by rote. She was rubbing her very pregnant stomach, obviously uncomfortable and preoccupied.
Still, Peggy felt a flare of irritation. Would she now have to suffer comments from her sister as well as her mother about not having a suitor?
Peggy would turn twenty-three in a few days. By this point in their lives, both her mother and Angelica had given birth to two children, and Eliza was pregnant with her first. Peggy, on the other hand, was actually quite fine with not being at that place yet. As long as her papa ran a black chambers operation, she might have work vital to the Revolution to do!
Besides, Fleury had left Peggy bruised and wary of giving her heart again. And Angelica’s marriage wasn’t exactly reassuring. From what she could tell, Carter’s charms had faded into arrogance and a penchant for gambling and overdrinking. Peggy knew her brilliant eldest sister would have thrilled to know some of the things Peggy did. Angelica’s role of influencing great men over dinner, carefully cloaking her more serious thought with scintillating repartee that seemed a tragic cage to Peggy. So who was Angelica to judge her? Peggy fumed silently.
Angelica took in a sharp breath and turned pale.
“Are you all right?”
Angelica nodded, breathing deeply. “This little one must be a boy from the way he kicks. Unless, of course”—she grinned at Peggy—“it is a girl with your temperament. God help me, then!”
Peggy laughed, feeling guilty for her annoyance. She was about to offer to get Angelica some tea, when—to her amazement—Eliza stood, stamped her foot, and crumpled her letter, throwing it to the ground. She started to pace.
“What’s wrong?” Peggy and Angelica asked in unison.
Eliza stopped. “Wrong?” she asked with fury in her voice, startling her sisters. Peggy had never seen Eliza really angry, not like this. “Wrong? You tell me.”
Angelica rose from her seat. “You must calm down, Eliza, it’s not good for the baby. Whatever is troubling you, Peggy and I can help, surely.”
“Unless you are the cause.”
“What?”
“What?” Eliza mocked Angelica.
Peggy was stunned. That was the kind of snide thing she might have said and done as a child but Eliza never had. The snipe was so unlike her, Peggy knew whatever distressed her cut Eliza to her core. Her stomach churned, suspecting the cause. She looked back and forth between her older sisters. Should she have said something before about her questions regarding Hamilton and Angelica? Either way, Peggy felt like she was betraying a sister.
“What is between you and Alexander?” Eliza demanded.
“Wh-what?” Angelica, fell back into her chair. “Nothing!”
“Then why is he so worried about whether you received a letter he sent you?”
“Eliza, dearest, I do not know what you are talking about.”
Eliza scooped her mangled letter from the floor and pulled it open, her hands shaking. “He scolds me in this, saying he has asked me twice whether you received a letter that was enclosed in the one he addressed to me. Why does it matter so much to him? Why? Why does he talk to you about politics and battles?”
Peggy looked to Angelica. She always talked those subjects with men, greedy for knowledge and intellectual discourse. It was her nature. But being the sister of such a sharp-witted and beautiful woman was almost unbearably hard. Peggy had felt inferior and jealous of Angelica, too. But she’d never questioned her own intellect, the way poor Eliza seemed to undercut herself—which was a travesty.
Angelica said nothing.
Her silence was making everything worse, so Peggy spoke up. “Eliza, she engages that way with all men, out of interest in the world. You and I have always known that—since we were little girls. That’s all it is.” Peggy resolved to tell Angelica later about Eliza’s insecurities and how Alexander unwittingly fueled them. Surely, Angelica didn’t know, or she’d be more careful in the way she related with Hamilton.
“Why do you defend her?” wailed Eliza. “I thought you’d be on my side.”
“Eliza, I . . . ,” Peggy began.
“He sent you a letter, too. What was that about?”
“I’m sure it was about taking care of you in his absence.” Peggy’s answer came quickly because it was honest. “I promised I would. He’s concerned that your unease about his safety might make you sick.”
Eliza faltered a bit in her anger but continued to glare at Angelica.
“Angelica, say something,” Peggy prompted.
“I never received a letter,” Angelica said icily.
What was she doing? That wasn’t Eliza’s question.
“Not the letter he references, no, you wouldn’t have.” Eliza was going toe to toe with Angelica in attitude. That was new, too. Peggy was impressed. Squaring off with Angelica took courage. “And you know why? Because I burned it.”
Angelica gasped. “How dare you burn a letter for me!”
“How dare you expect a letter from my husband!”
“What did it say?” Angelica demanded.
“I have no idea. I didn’t read it. It wasn’t addressed to me.”
“Oh, Eliza.” Peggy couldn’t help but laugh ruefully. How like Eliza to respect the privacy of someone else’s letter, even if its existence infuriated her. Peggy certainly would not have shown that control. Burning it, though, that was pretty audacious! Peggy was quickly coming to learn that where Hamilton was concerned, Eliza was fiery and territorial, stronger and braver than in any other aspect of her life.
Angelica, however, was not amused or forgiving. “Shame on you!” Her typically silky voice grated.
“Shame on me?” Eliza stomped toward Angelica. “Me? When are you going to stop showing off for men?”
Peggy gasped—the same question had rattled around in her mind, but to say it aloud was so . . . so harsh, so disloyal. “Eliza, don’t,” she cautioned.
Angelica turned pale.
“What, no clever retort? No dazzling dance away from the question or from responsibility for your actions?” Eliza was now standing over the seated Angelica. Her entire small being was shaking. “I am sorry you are so unhappy. But Alexander is my husband. Mine. And he may die in this battle. He may . . .” Eliza was growing hysterical. “How . . . how could you encourage him to request a battle command? Why is it your business? When will you recognize that it is time to stop being the famed ‘thief of hearts’? On your fourth baby?”
“Eliza, stop! You are making yourself ill,” Peggy said, horrified. She climbed off the window seat, wading through the little children. They had silenced and were watching Eliza fearfully.
Eliza flung one more accusatory question. “Why does he listen to you?”
Angelica stood, rising to her full height and authority. “Because you do not speak to his ambitions. In that regard, sister, you do not meet his needs.”
Eliza burst into tears.
“Angelica!” Peggy stepped between them, gathering up Eliza, who now crumpled, murmuring, “He could die, he could die, and never see our child.”
“You both must stop,” demanded Peggy. “You both must apologize. Our bond as sisters is more important than any letter. Or a man, for that matter! Please, we . . .” Peggy stopped abruptly, seeing Angelica’s face. “What is it?”
Angelica looked down, and then bent over in agony, as if punched in her gut. The bottom half of her linen shift was streaked with blood.
“Haaste je! Lift her to the bed!”
Angelica bit back a scream of pain as Peggy and Catharine got her onto the mattress. “Eliza,” she cried, “take the children away. Please! I don’t want them to see me like this.”
Eliza shook her head, frozen in her spot. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she repeated over and over.
Angelica groaned and writhed. “Please,” she whimpered.
“Elizabeth, do as Angelica says,” Catharine commanded. “Peggy, fetch Libby. Tell her to boil water and bring towels. As quickly as possible.”
Eliza gathered the children, who now were wailing. For them, she found that soothing voice of hers as she shepherded them out the door. “Come, my dears, let us see what the big boys are doing. Philip, wouldn’t you like to play checkers with your uncle Rensselaer?”
Peggy raced to the staircase and shouted down it to Libby, the enslaved woman who had probably saved Catharine’s life repeatedly during childbirth. She’d make it all right, she’d help Angelica. “Libby! Libby! Make haste! Angelica needs you. Please come!”
Dashing back to the bedroom, she took Angelica’s hand. It was hot, trembling, and sweaty. The sheets under her were already soaked in blood. “Mama, what does the blood mean?”
Catharine was grim as she answered, “The baby’s placenta has torn from the womb.” She stroked Angelica’s forehead and pushed her hair back from that beautiful face, now contorted with pain. “Engeltje, there is no time to waste. To breathe the baby must be born. Right away. Push, daughter. Duwen.”
Angelica nodded, focusing her eyes on her mother’s face for comfort, for strength. “Mama,” she murmured, “what if . . .”
“It’s all right, child. I am here. Your sister is here.” Catharine turned to Peggy. “Margarita, take her arm, help lift her and brace her.”
Together, they hauled Angelica up to a semi-squat. Peggy could see her sister’s belly rippling and contracting violently.
“Oh my God,” Angelica whimpered, and then closed her eyes and tensed, pushing with all her strength.
“Goed. Goed. Duw nu hard,” Catharine coaxed.
Angelica strained, hard, and then gasped, her eyes flying open, her head falling back as she shrieked with pain.
Peggy wept at her sister’s torment, but held fast to her arm.
“Again, child,” her mother urged.
Angelica pulled herself up, held her breath, and bore down again.
“Goed! Goed! I see the head!” cried Catharine. “Again!”
Again, Angelica held fast to Peggy, and pushed with all her being, screaming, before collapsing.
Libby hurried into the room with a bucket of steaming water. Eliza was behind her, carrying towels.
“Once more, Engeltje,” Catharine ordered. “A long, hard push, daughter.”
Angelica was limp, her head wagging back and forth, as if she was trying to keep herself awake. “I can’t, Mama.”
“You must!”
“Peggy,” she whimpered.
“I’m here.”
“Tell Eliza,” she murmured, “tell her . . .”
Peggy turned to Eliza. “Come! Angelica needs to see you.”
Eliza hesitated. Her sweet face was scarred with fear and regret.
Angelica’s belly wrinkled and puckered again. She moaned and tried to lift herself, but fell back, her eyes rolling and shutting.
“Now, Eliza!” Peggy urged.
Eliza clambered up onto the bed to kneel in front of the three women fighting together to bring a live baby into the world. “Angelica, my dearest, I am here. Look at me.”
Angelica eyes fluttered, open then shut.
“Angelica, Eliza is here. Right by me. She loves you. I love you. We need you. You must push now,” Peggy pleaded. “For the baby. For us.”
Her eyes still closed, Angelica managed to nod. Peggy and Catharine pulled her up, her head bobbing up and down, loose like a rag doll’s, until she opened her eyes and saw Eliza.
Eliza smiled.
Weakly, Angelica smiled back.
“Now, Angelica,” Peggy whispered into her ear. “We are all together.”
“Duwen!” the women cried in one voice, willing Angelica to push with all she had. “Duwen!”
And the baby was born in a flood of blood and with a lusty bawl.
“It’s a boy!” cried Eliza, holding him as Libby hastened to wrap him in a warm, clean cloth and Catharine cut his umbilical cord with the scissors hanging at her chatelaine, ever-ready.
Peggy turned her eyes from the infant to his mother. “Oh, Angelica, he’s beau—” She broke off. “Angelica!” she cried.
Her sister was unconscious.
“No! Nee, nee!” Catharine shook Angelica. “Wakker worden!”
Nothing.
“Towels, quickly!” Catharine commanded. They packed them around Angelica, stanching the bleeding.
“Now what?” Peggy asked.
“We watch. We pray. It could just be exhaustion.” Catharine spoke in practicalities, but with palpable worry. Suddenly, their mother looked old. “Libby,” she added, “ask Mr. Schuyler to send for the doctor. He might be at the hospital.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Libby headed for the door, hurrying past Eliza, who held her new nephew, mewing healthily.
Catharine sat back, stricken.
Hospital. Looking at Eliza, Peggy was suddenly struck with a memory—of the first time she had met Hamilton. At the hospital. And right after seeing Dr. Thacher clean and drain a head wound.
“Mama, all this blood. We need to strip the bed and wash Angelica.” She put her hand on Catharine’s arm to rally her. “Mama!”
“Yes,” answered Catharine, nodding, reenergized. “You are right, child. We need clean towels, soaked in wine as antiseptic. Quickly!”
The doctor came and went. Angelica did not wake. Peggy and Eliza kept vigil through the night. Through the next day. Checking their sister’s breathing. Wiping her down with a cool cloth. Holding their wrists against her forehead to assess her temperature. Each hour that passed without a fever brought them hope.
On the third day, a courier brought several letters for Eliza. The mail routes had become so dangerous letters could arrive out of order, or many at a time, even though written weeks apart.
Anxiously, Eliza opened them, stepping away from Angelica’s bedside.
Peggy watched her sister’s face, gauging her brother-in-law’s words by her reactions.
“He says they are embarking for Yorktown.” Eliza looked up. “Where is that?”
Peggy frowned. As hungry as she was to know what was happening, Hamilton should not be revealing such specific troop movements! What if the letter had been intercepted? “It’s on the Chesapeake Bay,” she answered as she stood and crossed the room to her sister. “Eliza, dearest, may I see that, please?”
“Why?” Eliza’s suspicions flared.
“Just the back. I want to look at that wax seal.”
“Oh.” She sighed. “Of course. I love how my husband says what he thinks and feels—without reservation. But I am learning I must help him temper himself. Alexander shouldn’t have said where he was going, should he?”
Peggy shook her head.
Eliza handed her the letter. “Can you tell if the seal was previously broken as you might do it?”
Peggy looked at Eliza with surprise.
“I was there as you opened a letter when Papa’s hands were bothering him, remember? I know you’ve been helping Papa with”—she paused—“many things. I have been glad of it since I have been away. It was easier for me, knowing you were here for him.”
“Really?” Peggy asked. No jealousy?
“Really.” Eliza reached out and squeezed Peggy’s hand. “Does the seal look all right?”
“I think so. Hopefully it will not matter in any case. Surely our troops are well on their way now.”
She handed the letter back to Eliza. “Does he say things that reassure you how much he loves you?”
“Listen and see what you think.” Shyly she read aloud: “What a world will soon be between us! To support the idea, all my fortitude is insufficient. What must be the case with you, who have the most female of female hearts? I sink at the perspective of your distress, and I look to heaven to be your guardian and supporter.”
“There, you see,” Peggy interrupted. “That was precisely his concern when he left and what he asked of me right before he rode away. What does he say about the campaign?”
“That they have received news that assures him of success and that he shall be home by November.”
“November! They must have intelligence that makes them confident. That is good, Eliza!”
She nodded. “And he promises me to renounce public life after the war.” Pleased, she read, “Let others waste their time and their tranquillity in a vain pursuit of power and glory; be it my object to be happy in a quiet retreat with my better angel.”
“Oh my, such words he writes you. You cannot doubt his love. And he is right, Eliza. You are indeed his better angel.” Peggy just hoped Hamilton would stick to his statement that Eliza would be more important to him than power or glory. That was yet to be proven, and would require Hamilton to fight against his very nature.
“Eliza,” Peggy began, and then paused a moment to collect her thoughts. She knew she had to help her Eliza come to terms with Angelica. Peggy had learned a great deal from helping their papa and watching his mind at work as he negotiated truces and alliances among hot-blooded revolutionists. First compliment, then explain the other side’s point of view, and conclude with the need for reconciliation. “Angelica is intoxicating but she is not sustenance, not for Hamilton. You must try to see their conversation as the kind of discourse I imagine happens at a college. But you are his home, Eliza. When Hamilton asked me to look after you, he admitted something I hadn’t thought about before.”
“What is that?”
“Your husband has never really had a family. His mother died when he was very young. Correct?”
Eliza nodded, adding, “His father ran off.”
“I don’t think he knows yet how to be part of a family. He’ll learn that with you. With us.” Peggy laughed. “It’s hard to avoid with all of us; we will beat it into him by sheer number.”
Eliza giggled.
“Hamilton speaks his heart in his letters. Trust that. And he should come to understand our sisterhood, how close we all are, and that to drive a wedge in it is cruel.”
They both glanced toward the bed. “What if Angelica dies?” whispered Eliza. “It will be my fault.”
“Oh no, Eliza, it . . . it just happened.” Peggy put her arm around Eliza and sat them both down in the window seat.
Sighing, Eliza leaned her head on Peggy’s shoulder. “I know Angelica is not happy. It breaks my heart for her.” She took in a deep breath. “If such conversations keep her spirited nature alive, I will try not to be alarmed by them.” Eliza folded the letter, content. “Thank you for reassuring me, Peggy. I know I can be . . .” She hesitated. “A little anxious sometimes. I am lucky to have you as a sister.”
The two sat quietly for a few minutes, while Peggy wondered if she ever really wanted to marry, thinking of how disappointed and limited Angelica obviously felt and how frightened Eliza was of losing Hamilton’s love. If Peggy ever married, it would have to be a man who respected and yearned for her as an equal in mind and strength of personality. A next-to-impossible demand in king-ruled colonies, but perhaps possible in a new Republic, a meritocracy that valued individual mettle and common sense.
Suddenly Eliza put her hand to her side and whispered in amazement, “I think I just felt the baby kick!” She grimaced and then giggled. “Oh my, it’s strong!”
“That’s just the beginning, dearest,” came a wan voice from the bed.
“Angelica!” Peggy and Eliza cried. They nearly knocked each other down in their scramble to take her hand, one in each of theirs.
“How are you feeling?” asked Peggy.
“Weak. How is my baby?”
“Absolutely fine. He seems a lusty little fellow. The wet nurse is keeping him happy until you are well.”
Angelica nodded slowly, relieved. Her eyes closed, then opened. “I have you two to thank for his life. And mine.”
Tears on her face, Eliza hastened to kiss Angelica, and rest her cheek against her big sister’s, as Angelica cried as well—an unspoken apology and forgiveness between them.
“I don’t know what I would do without you two,” Angelica whispered, then added with a feeble laugh, “We are a powerful coven.”
“Witches?” Eliza teased her. “Surely not?”
“No,” Peggy said thoughtfully, thinking on the way Hamilton had greeted her at the Morristown ball. “No, we are the three Graces.”
Once Peggy had thought of their trio like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, none of their images clear without being linked to the other two. At least that had been how she had seen herself, defined according to comparison or by her relationship to her older sisters—and Peggy. But now that she had found her own role, her own identity, Peggy could see that each Schuyler sister had her own talents and personality—they were simply more potent in affecting their individual fates when joined together in purpose.
Yes, the three Graces.
“That makes you Aglaea, then,” murmured Angelica.
“The goddess of brightness,” added Eliza.
Angelica looked at her with a bit of astonishment.
Eliza grinned back. “I listen to what you two quote from your reading.”
“Oh yes.” Peggy nodded at Angelica. “That one is full of surprises. Or perhaps we just didn’t recognize all her talents before.”
“Ah, that is often the way with quiet ones,” Angelica answered. She squeezed Eliza’s hand.
“And with the youngest ones,” said Eliza, looking toward Peggy.
They had come a long way, the three of them, in their Revolution.
The Schuyler sisters hugged—tight, hearing one another’s breath, feeling one another’s heartbeats. Just as they had done when they were little and jumped into the sweet-cool lake by their Saratoga country home. Just as they had embraced the night Angelica eloped, when the first of them broke away to pursue her own life. Just as they would until the day one of them died.