Philip Schuyler to General George Washington
Albany, June 30 and July 5, 1777
Dear Sir
Should our Troops at Tyonderoga fall into the Enemy’s Hands, I fear they will be able to march where they please, unless a greater Force is sent me . . . If any Tents can be spared I beg your Excellency to order them up and whatever Cartridge paper you can, for we have next to none on this Side of Tyonderoga. . . . If any intrenching Tools can be spared, I wish to have two hundred Spades . . . we shall be in a disagreeable Situation with little else besides Militia . . . If it is possible, I wish your Excellency to order us as many Artillery men and Field pieces to this Quarter as can be spared . . .
I am Dear Sir most respectfully
Your Excellency’s obedient humble Servant.
Ph. Schuyler
“ELIZABETH! MARGARITA!”
“It’s Papa!” Eliza jumped up, dropping her needlework. “Thank God! He’s home.”
Peggy stayed rooted. Since Angelica’s elopement, their mother had banished the girls to their bedroom. Their father’s voice sounded more like cannon fire than joyous greeting.
“Margarita! Elizabeth!” he boomed again.
Eliza’s face flushed. “Do you suppose him angry?”
“Yes, I suppose him angry.” Peggy took her sister’s hand.
At the bottom of the wide, grand staircase stood their father, hands on hips, his boots and breeches splashed with mud from riding at a hard pace. Behind him, his aides carried in boxes of papers and maps to his study, just off the mansion’s back courtyard entrance. A few feet beyond was Catharine, arms crossed, fuming. Peggy could imagine easily the conversation her parents had just had. Nothing upset Catharine more than displeasing Philip.
Her father was in full uniform. Congress must have cleared him of the criticism that Philip had botched the Canadian expedition. Peggy knew her mother would be aggravated by that as well. More than once, Catharine had said she hoped her husband would just quit. Many other generals threatened to do so, insulted by Congress second-guessing their stratagems or promoting less-qualified men over them purely for political reasons.
But Philip Schuyler was stoic and loyal. He believed in duty and the personal honor it brought a man.
Peggy noted all this as she descended the stairs, and spotted the potential for a diversion. “Papa! You are in your general’s uniform—congratulations! You have been restored to command?” She smiled hopefully.
But Schuyler glared back, her flattery missing its mark. “I am. Which makes my having to deal with a betrayal within my own family in the middle of these coordinated British attacks even more egregious. General Burgoyne is reported a mere three miles from Fort Ticonderoga! We cannot lose it—Ticonderoga is like a floodgate—closed we are safe, open we drown in Redcoats. I am in desperate need of reinforcements and ammunition to hold it. But General Washington must also block a movement of British regulars out of New York City. Never have we been spread so thin!”
Peggy felt a flash of resentment for Angelica and her timing. Peggy had feared this precisely—that reprimand. God forbid their sisterly insurrection endanger America’s by distracting their papa.
“Your mother says neither of you will explain what happened or where your sister is.”
The girls remained silent. They had pledged to not divulge anything until Angelica contacted their parents herself—to give her time, so that no rescue party sent out by their father would find her before the marriage knot was tied.
Schuyler sighed. “I have no choice, then, but to separate you two for questioning, as I would any confederacy of traitors.” He took Eliza’s hand and led her toward his study. “Come in here, Eliza.” He turned to look at Peggy. “You.” He pointed to a chair against the wall between his study and the door leading to their back courtyard. “Wait there.”
Peggy sat. Closing her eyes to steady herself for her own interrogation, she turned her face up to the warmth of early morning summer sunlight spilling through the enormous window. This corner was actually one of her favorites in the house. With the window open, she could catch the scent of boxwood and flowers blooming in the formal gardens adjacent to the house and the sweet promise of recently turned earth in the vegetable gardens beyond.
She drew a large breath to pull in those delicious smells while Schuyler’s aides hurried past her, bringing in their last armload. Eliza remained just inside the door while Schuyler quickly dealt with issuing some orders. Then Peggy could hear Varick open a paper the aides had brought in and splutter with aggravation.
“What is it, Richard?” Schuyler asked.
“Sir! It is a proclamation from General Burgoyne to the people of New York.”
“And what does Gentleman Johnny puff himself up to proclaim?” Schuyler sarcastically used the affectionate nickname the British had given their aristocratic general.
Before Varick could answer, Schuyler’s personal secretary, John Lansing, joked, “It is a wonderment he took the time to write anything. Rumor has it he spends all his nights drinking champagne with his mistress. Gentleman Johnny carries thirty wagons of wine, personal possessions, and clothing—as if he was going to a ball rather than a battle!”
The aides laughed.
But Varick did not. “There is nothing gentlemanly about this proclamation. He accuses us of tyranny! Us! He claims we persecute Loyalist Tories as surely as the Spanish Inquisition! He incites them and their Iroquois allies to take up arms against us. To attack and do as they will. He threatens us—with devastation! Wrath! Famine!” Varick read a horrifying description of the hell Burgoyne planned for the Patriots, ending with the British general’s claim, “I shall stand acquitted in the Eyes of God and Men in executing this vengeance against the willful outcasts.”
Peggy heard Eliza plop down into a chair, her wide skirts ballooning around her with a little pop.
“For God’s sake, man, you’ve frightened the child.” Schuyler appeared at the study door, calling for Catharine. She bustled in, all worry and motherly care. With that, Eliza’s part in Angelica’s rebellious love affair seemed all forgotten.
That had always been the way of it with their gentle middle sister. Their parents’ ire seemed reserved for the other two, sometimes doubled in fury since what came to Angelica and Peggy included the dose that should have been for Eliza. Peggy would be in for it later. It was a good thing she loved Eliza so much, or she’d box her ears.
Sighing, Peggy stood up to gaze out the window. Outside, the family’s stablehands scurried to sponge down and get water to the winded horses Schuyler and his aides had ridden. In the midst of the hubbub, Peggy noticed a stranger wander into the courtyard. Schuyler’s guards should have challenged him. Any man could be an assassin these days.
Muttering to herself about incompetence, Peggy went to the door and eyed him.
The man was lean, his face gaunt and smudged, his clothes soiled and patched. Thirtyish, Peggy estimated. He had taken off his frayed hat and was nervously clutching it to his breast as he stared up at the mansion, tracing its breadth with his eyes, his mouth slightly ajar. Peggy had seen that look of awe in many a tradesman who had approached her home for the first time. He was obviously no assassin.
“May I help you, sir?”
The man startled and brought his gaze down to her. He blushed as he saw her face.
Peggy smiled, touched—she preferred such unspoken compliments to the flowery pronouncements of men like Carter. She bobbed a curtsy appropriate for a more aristocratic visitor, and as she performed the feminine bow with its prescribed downcast look, she noticed that his toes had broken through his worn shoes and were bloody from his journey. But she knew better than to embarrass him. “You look as if you have traveled far, sir; may I offer you some water?”
“Aye, miss, please. But I think I best speak to the general first.”
“He is with his staff right now. But in a bit I am sure he will be glad to speak to you.”
“Begging your pardon, miss, but truly someone needs to look at these right away.” He pulled from his dirty brown jacket a packet of crisp, sealed letters, emblazoned with sweeping writing.
Peggy gasped as he laid them in her outstretched hand. They were addressed to Sir Guy Carleton, the royal governor of Canada—official British communiqués! “Where did you come by these?” she asked in astonishment.
“Well, miss, I reenlisted upon hearing of the Danbury raid.” He drew himself up taller, as if at attention and reporting for duty. “’Tis my fourth enlistment, so they made me a sergeant. In the Sixth Dutchess County Regiment. Sergeant Moses Harris, that’s me.” He tapped his chest with his thumb. “Anyway, Major Brinton Paine—you must know him, miss?”
Peggy twitched with impatience, but she knew she needed to honor the pride of this simple man who had risked his life so many times already for the cause while richer Patriots sat in their warm houses, wearing soft slippers, and opined. “No, sir, I have not had the pleasure of knowing Major Paine. That county is a good bit south from here.”
“Aye, miss, on the Hudson just above West Point.” He pointed south.
She couldn’t help smiling. “Yes, sir, I know the area. And these letters?”
“Oh, right-o. You see, Major Paine sent me on a scout. I, by accident, all of a sudden like, fell into a party of exhausted Loyalists. They were lying beside the cascades at Wappinger Creek, fast asleep. That’s why I didn’t notice them at first; the grasses were up around them.” He shook his head. “A fool I was. They could have killed me sure.”
“And . . . these letters?”
“Of course, miss. I am trying to explain the way of it. Them Tories jumped up—like crickets when you almost step on them. One grabbed me by the throat. But I talked a good game, no worries there. I learned that from dealing with my accursed Loyalist uncle—a Gilbert Harris by name. He owns the Thousand Appletree Farm, what he stole from my pa back when—”
“Sergeant Harris,” Peggy interrupted. “The letters?”
He nodded but persisted in telling his story in the manner he wanted: “I learned to pretend with my uncle that I agreed with his cur-like opinion of the Crown, figuring someday he might drop unsuspecting a bit of information we Patriots might need. So I convinced those blokes that I was a Loyalist like them were. We sat back in the grass. I revived them with a bit of peach brandy I had on me. That’s when they told me our patrols had been giving them good chase. They were afeard of going farther. They had been on their way here, to Albany. They were to give those letters to a traitor in the city, who was to get them to the lobsterbacks in Canada.
“So I told them I was heading this way already and would gladly undo your father, the general, and his damned rebels by delivering their missives for them.” He grinned. “So here I stand, miss.”
Peggy grinned back. No fool, this rustic man. “Come with me.” Carrying the letters like a sacred chalice, she and Harris approached Schuyler’s study.
Inside, Eliza sat penitent, in a Windsor chair tucked in a corner. Her frightened face was almost the color of the green brocade wallpaper. Their papa was surrounded by several aides, Varick, and Lansing. Studying a map laid out across a table, Schuyler was placing pieces of his favorite backgammon set to trace what he suspected would be Burgoyne’s next moves toward Ticonderoga.
“Really, sir, I think Burgoyne’s outrageous proclamation needs to be publicly rebuked so the citizenry do not panic,” Varick was saying, pounding the table and rattling the backgammon disks. “The last thing Albany needs is a flood of terrified refugees from the country, looking for protection within the city walls. We have no food or shelter to spare.”
“Perhaps we can confiscate houses for them from suspected Loyalists,” Lansing suggested.
“Papa?”
Schuyler looked up with a scowl. “I do not have time now, daughter. I will speak with you later.”
“But Papa”—she held out the letters—“this man has intercepted British communiqués. Sergeant Harris,” she prompted him. Harris was again looking up, gaping at the mansion’s ornate dentil crown molding and all the books in Schuyler’s library. She cleared her throat loudly. “Sergeant Harris!”
He jumped a bit.
Schuyler straightened. “What have you there, Sergeant?”
Harris snapped into duty mode, saluted, and told his story again, this time mercifully trimmed. “I thought the letters urgent, sir,” Harris concluded, “since they risked three couriers on the same errand.” He shook his head. “There’s sure to be mischief in those letters you need to know of, General.”
Quickly, Schuyler rounded the table, took the letters from Peggy, and turned them over. “Good man,” he murmured to Harris. “You have not broken the seal.”
“No, sir. T’wouldn’t have done me no good or changed my mind about getting them to you. I cannot read.”
Schuyler clapped him on the back. “Sir, you have more good sense than half the Continental Army’s senior officers. You are absolutely certain your deception held? The Tories were convinced you’d deliver these letters for them?”
“Oh, yes, sir.”
“And so you shall, then. If you have the courage for it?”
“Sir?”
Peggy could see immediately what her father planned. If Schuyler could open those letters, read them, but then reseal them and get them delivered so the British would never suspect he knew their plans, he could prepare for their attack, perhaps even set up an ambush of his own.
Schuyler explained as much to Harris.
Harris grinned. “That would stick it to ’em, sir.”
“Indeed.” Schuyler smiled back. “It would mean you would have to continue pretending to be a Loyalist. If they figure you out, you will be hanged as a spy.”
“We all will hang if we don’t win this fight, won’t we, sir?”
Schuyler nodded and considered Harris for a moment. Peggy could tell her papa admired the sergeant’s grit. “Perhaps we should stir the pot a bit, Sergeant. I’d like to send along a little feint that might pull some British troops out of Burgoyne’s invasion force—thus lowering his numbers a bit to our advantage.”
He paced, holding the precious letters. “I shall compose a letter to General Washington, proposing I send General Stark’s brigade north to invade Canada. Everyone is afraid of John Stark. The man is insane—terrifying in the best way. We can hope Governor Carleton will panic and recall some of Burgoyne’s men to defend Montreal and Quebec.”
“But didn’t Papa already try going into Canada?” Eliza whispered nervously to Peggy. “It didn’t go well.”
“It’s a ruse,” Peggy murmured into her sister’s ear, as her father continued pacing.
“Oh.” Eliza looked at Peggy with gratitude. “Of course it is.”
Schuyler abruptly turned to face Harris. “You will need to claim that you came upon a Patriot courier when you were on your way to Albany to deliver these letters the Loyalists gave you. Say you managed to convince that Patriot courier you would deliver his messages. To me. But that you went straight to the Loyalist agent instead so that the British would know what we ‘rebels’”—Schuyler made little quotation marks in the air on the last word—“were plotting. Does that make sense?”
“Aye, sir.” Harris nodded.
“It makes you a bit of a double agent, Sergeant. Is that too confusing for you to keep straight under”—Schuyler hesitated—“under stringent questioning?”
Harris snorted. “No, sir.”
“Good man! All right, then.” That agreed upon, Schuyler could continue. “I have Oneida scouts, and a few friendly watchers in Canada, but I have been hoping for just such an agent like you, Sergeant Harris. To intercept British messages. Such intelligence gathering could be the trick that saves us.
“You see, sir, General Washington now plans a purely defensive war, engaging the enemy only in small hit-and-run skirmishes. Full-out battles are suicide. The British regulars and Hessians are professional soldiers. They outnumber us. They outgun us. So, we will seek to disrupt and perplex them. We’ll cut their supply lines. Raid their outposts at night. Take what we need, then disappear, using our forests and rivers as shields. Like we did at Trenton. We’ll wear them down by forcing them to maneuver constantly, trying to locate us.
“But all this will only work if we have solid intelligence of where the British are and what they are planning. I have been building networks to do that. Reliable couriers, that’s the key.”
Schuyler glanced down at the letters again. Each was closed tightly by red wax that had been pressed with a heavy seal, ornamented with the Crown’s distinctive emblem. Any break in the impressed image would tell the recipient the letter’s contents were compromised—opened and read along its delivery route.
“The design of these crests is more intricate than what I have seen before,” Schuyler muttered. “I don’t have time to re-create it today. I must open them without breaking the seal.”
He unlocked his writing desk, folded down the tabletop, and reached for a long, thin knife in one of its slots. “Colonel Varick, light that candle. I suspect we haven’t a moment to lose.”
Schuyler was so intent on finding out what was inside those communiqués, he didn’t waste time shooing his daughters out of the room. Fascinated, Peggy watched him roll the flat, razor-like blade in the candle’s flame, heating its steel.
She knew exactly what he was doing. When the knife was hot enough, it would actually melt the wax as it sliced under, so that the seal would lift without breaking. The motion had to be quick and confident, though. The slightest jostle would crack the wax. Resealing it had to be done carefully as well—by holding the letter close to the flame to soften the wax enough that it would stick again when pressed. But not so soft that the wax bled a telltale trickle. A sure hand was paramount to it all working.
Peggy winced seeing her papa’s hand shaking, making the candle flame dance. Sometimes he trembled like that during attacks of gout.
When the knife glowed, Schuyler tucked it underneath the letter’s folded flap, up against the red seal. But he paused. “Damn,” he cursed, pulling it back out again. He rubbed his hands together.
He looked toward Varick for help, but before the Dutchman could move, Peggy stepped forward. “Let me do that for you, Papa.” Without thinking about how surprising her actions were, she reheated the blade for just a moment and then with a graceful flick of her wrist, swiped the hot steel underneath the seal, popping it open—perfectly intact.
She handed him the communiqué.
Schuyler and all the other men stared at her, stunned. “How did you know how to do that, child?” he asked.
Oh Lord. Peggy froze. She hadn’t thought about having to explain that she’d perfected that trick as a youngster to snoop on Angelica. She’d been left behind as being too young when Angelica and Eliza first attended balls. Furious, Peggy started opening and then resealing ardent letters from Angelica’s swarm of new admirers. Peggy had outgrown that bit of little sister tomfoolery long ago. But that probably wouldn’t matter now, considering she was already in trouble for helping Angelica elope.
Now everyone would think her devious, unworthy of trust. She opened her mouth to find some quip to defend herself. But nothing came out.
Schuyler frowned. “Colonel Varick, have you been gossiping?”
“Indeed not, sir. On my life!”
“Margarita, have you been prying about my study? What happens in this room is the business of the Continental Army.”
Peggy felt the color drain from her face.
It was Eliza who saved her. “Oh, Papa,” she said, rising and brushing off her skirts. “Our Peggy is a wonderment. She has read almost everything here in your library and probably knows almost as much as you do.” With careful nonchalance, she swept toward her sister, and put her arm through Peggy’s. “Hadn’t you better see what the letter says, Papa?”
Eliza was right. Peggy had underestimated her.
Schuyler shook his head slightly. “Yes. Yes. What am I thinking?” He read greedily as Peggy gave Eliza’s arm a squeeze in thanks.
“Good God,” he breathed. “Burgoyne is planning a three-pronged attack. As he marches down from Canada, and the British in New York City sail up the Hudson, he orders a Colonel Barry St. Leger to invade western New York at the same time! Leger will attack Fort Stanwix from Lake Ontario to gain control of the Mohawk River. And then lay waste to all the villages along it on his way to Albany.”
Schuyler dropped the letter to the table. “I don’t have enough troops or guns to fight on three fronts at the same time. We will be crushed.”
A horrified silence filled the room.
“Quick, man.” Schuyler waved Lansing to the table. “Pen and paper. At all costs we must hold Fort Stanwix. It’s guarded right now by a handful of ill-trained lads. Order two hundred soldiers to reinforce them immediately. Now, we must copy these British communiqués and get them to General Washington so he knows what I am about.”
He turned to Sergeant Harris. “Go to the kitchens, sir, and tell them to give you a good meal. You will need sustenance before you continue on to deliver these letters to the Loyalist agent in town. The couriers told you where to find him?”
“Aye, sir, that they did.”
“Did they divulge his name?”
“Aye, the trusting bastards.” He laughed. “His name is William Shepherd.”
“Shepherd!” blustered Varick. “I know the man! Let us go arrest the traitorous cur!”
“No, you mustn’t,” Peggy blurted out. “He must think all is safe, so we can continue using him, Colonel Varick, without his realizing that he is to play our fool.”
Harris nodded. “This one a smart’un, sir.”
About time someone noticed, thought Peggy.
“Indeed, so I am learning, Sergeant.” A slow smile spread on Schuyler’s face as he looked at Peggy. “Now, daughter, can you open these remaining two? My hands are unsteady today.”
Oh, the sudden pride Peggy felt.
Their papa had always favored Angelica with his conversation about politics, not Peggy. Could this moment change that? The night she eloped, Angelica said she hoped her marriage would allow her to participate in the Revolution in a tangible way—influencing her husband’s dinner guests and visiting foreign dignitaries. Was it possible that Peggy’s tendency to nosiness, her capacity for shrewd observation—which many dismissed as sarcasm or as inappropriate for a woman—could actually help her serve the cause of liberty?
Hushed at the possibility, Peggy held out her hand to receive responsibility.
But just as her papa passed the letters to Peggy, an express rider rushed into the room, red-faced, soaked in sweat.
“General Schuyler, sir!” he shouted breathlessly. “Ticonderoga has fallen. Without a shot fired. And our troops—all three thousand of them—disappeared. Without a trace!”