Colonel Richard Varick to General Schuyler
Camp near Headquarters, ½ mile west of Saratoga,
September 1777
Dear General,
Burgoyne now gives out that he intends to attack us . . . I should bless my stars and think myself completely happy were you at the head of this army but . . . I am resolved . . . Every man’s countenance seems to bespeak courage . . . we trust ourselves to Providence and make our Dependence on the Disposer of all Events Whose Intention it never was or can be to subjugate a free and Loyal people . . . God bless you, my best wishes ever attend you and your family. I am with respects to Mrs. Schuyler and Miss Peggy, as ever dear general your most affectionate humble servant.
Rich. Varick
“MARGARITA!” SCHUYLER CALLED.
Peggy was roosting in her favorite spot—one of the wide window seats of the upstairs hall, where she was watching eagles skate the winds along the opposite shore of the Hudson and trying to capture their gliding freedom in her sketch pad. Alarmed by her papa’s shout, she dropped it to the floor and hurried down the stairs.
Schuyler was pacing the parlor, skimming a letter, agitated. But what frightened her most was the fact Catharine was in tears. Her mother never cried. “What is it?” Peggy asked anxiously. “Is it Colonel Varick?” She didn’t realize that her mother had become so fond of him.
“The British have burned our house at Saratoga,” Catharine wailed.
“What?” Peggy looked to her father for confirmation.
He nodded, grim.
“According to Colonel Varick,” Catharine began, fighting off little sobs, “the rascals first tore down our fencing to corduroy the roads. Then they stripped our fields. Ground our corn into meal in our gristmill for their horses. Stole our ox and pigs. Then their Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne”—she said the nickname with outrage—“after guzzling champagne and cavorting with his mistress through our home, he torched our entire estate—our beautiful house, all the barns, the smithy, and the mills!”
“He left one of the sawmills standing, at least, my dear,” Philip murmured, preoccupied with the letter he held.
“Oh yes, and the necessary. Do you not see the message in leaving your outhouse standing?”
Schuyler looked up from the paper, taken aback by his wife’s bitterness. “My dear, you will upset yourself. Margarita, I called you to help calm your mama. She will make herself ill. I must respond to this quickly.”
He sat down at a writing desk and dipped a quill in ink, thinking aloud: “Varick must ride with all haste to salvage whatever iron scraps he can from the charred remains. Nails, barrel rings, blacksmith tools. Whatever grasses remain uncut must be hayed. I hope the British didn’t think to dig up the turnips and potatoes.”
Peggy sat and took her mother’s hand and patted it soothingly. But Catharine would not be comforted. “Oh, I left behind all that lovely green tea we imported before all this fighting started. And the pineapples and coconuts.” She looked at Peggy and cried, “Why didn’t you remind me, daughter, to retrieve those from the cellar?”
Who cared about coconuts when their entire world was burned to the ground? What was wrong with Catharine? This was entirely unlike her. Her mother only acted like this in the early stages of pregnancy—when she was all anxiety and vomit. Wait. Peggy suddenly remembered hearing Catharine retching a few nights ago. She’d just figured her mother was suffering from the unsalted meat. They all had far more stomachaches than they used to because of the war’s shortage of salt that preserved and kept their food edible. Could she be pregnant yet again? Peggy slid back a bit, realizing that if her conjecture were true, this was exactly the kind of moment that might unleash her mother’s nausea.
Schuyler sealed his letter and limped to the entry to call for a courier. He was not well. This flare of gout had infected his foot and crept up his calf, making each step an agony for him. But he stood tall as he said, “Kitty, we must bear this heavy loss as best we can. But it sits quite easy on me, my dear. Truly. Because we won the battle. Burgoyne surrendered!”
Peggy leapt to her feet. “Papa! Why didn’t you say so? We won?”
“Yes! We held the field at the second engagement. The losses are many, and the war goes on, but the British forces are reduced by five thousand Redcoats and Saratoga . . .” He finally broke into a smile—a big one. “Saratoga is our victory. Our first large battle won! General Washington is hoping that we have now proven to the French that we can fight and survive so that they will join us in this war against the British empire.”
Peggy flung herself into a hug with her father. Now she was crying—tears of joy, exultation, relief. For months they had lived in terror of the Redcoats attacking and burning Albany to the ground, and dragging Schuyler off in chains, or worse. “Congratulations, Papa!”
“Little thanks your father will receive,” Catharine whimpered. “Even though Gates didn’t leave his tent once during the battles, that usurper will be credited.”
“And General Arnold, my dear,” Schuyler countered. “Benedict is the one who rallied the troops for the charge that broke the British lines. Although our hero is badly injured. He may lose his leg.” He straightened his cravat. “I must pack. I ride at dawn.”
“Where are you going?” Catharine demanded.
“To the surrender ceremony. I wish to see Burgoyne give up his sword.”
Catharine finally pulled herself together. “But Philip, my dearest love,” she began gently. “It will not be to you.”
“No,” Philip said flatly. “But I will see it done. And thank my . . . the men.” He called up the stairs again, this time for his sons.
When told the news, the three boys whooped and danced. “HUZZAH!!!” they shouted again and again.
Schuyler put his hand upon the shoulder of twelve-year-old John to stop his cavorting. “You will come with me, son. You should witness this.”
“What?” The word just jumped out of Peggy’s mouth. “Why John?”
Because he was the oldest boy? She was the one who had helped open British communiqués, survived insult and threat by deserters to bring supplies safely home on a road thronging with panicked refugees. She had helped open sealed enemy letters and proved she could keep war secrets, and even met with a spy! Why should her obnoxious little brother get to see this hard-won and costly moment of triumph?
Peggy took a deep breath to keep from saying what she was really thinking and, with as much politeness as she could muster, asked: “Please, Papa, might I go, too?”
Schuyler looked at her as if she had demanded he pluck the moon from the sky to hand her. “I need you here, Margarita.” He shifted his glance to Catharine and then back to Peggy, clearly indicating he was worried about his wife’s condition.
So she was with child—again! “Oh, Papa, for pity’s sake, she’s already birthed thirteen babies. She doesn’t need me.” As soon as she said it, Peggy’s hands clapped to her mouth, as if she could stuff the offensive, insensitive words back in. “Papa, I’m sorry,” she whispered through her fingers. “I . . . I . . .” She thought she would collapse under his glare. “Mama.” She turned to Catharine. But her mother was staring out the window, a few tears still sliding down her cheeks. Had she heard? Or was Catharine caught up enough in her sorrow and anger about her house to have not really taken in Peggy’s words?
Ashamed, Peggy froze. Her eyes cast down and her face burning, she waited. But Schuyler didn’t answer her outburst. When she finally dared to meet his gaze again, she saw the most profound and damning disappointment with her. Being struck with a horsewhip would not have affected Peggy more. Her knees went wobbly.
Without a word, Schuyler strode from the room and up the stairs to pack.
But John took the opportunity to stick his tongue out at her before he turned to follow their father.
Schuyler didn’t speak to her that night, either. But the next morning, as Schuyler swung himself onto the back of his favorite white charger, he took a moment to cup Peggy’s upturned face in his leather-gloved hand. “I know you will take good care of all my concerns here, Peggy. I depend upon you.” He kissed her forehead.
Only when he rode away did Peggy realize that General Philip Schuyler had stripped himself of his military dignity and right to claim glory for a battle victory by dressing himself in civilian clothes.
Two days later, Peggy and Catharine stood on their marble stoop with Rensselaer and Jeremiah, who held little Cornelia’s hands as she unsteadily tiptoed about, still learning to walk. They were all clad in their best afternoon receiving clothes. Despite her morning sickness, Catharine looked quite lovely in a quilted pale-yellow skirt and long blossom-embroidered jacket. She’d draped a sheer, ruffled neck-handkerchief artfully over the top of what Peggy now recognized was her expanding torso. Peggy fidgeted in her lavender gown—its skirts looped up à la Polonaise in puffs of stiff silk taffeta. Her bodice was lined with the finest ruffled linen peeking out of her neckline, and a row of petite black satin bows marched down its front. The dress itched. Horribly.
They were awaiting the arrival of Burgoyne and his entourage. The Patriot Northern Army was marching the defeated British and Hessian troops into Albany—where their surrendered five thousand soldiers would be imprisoned while arrangements were made to transport them south to prisoner-of-war camps or to Boston, from whence they’d be deported to Britain. But Burgoyne and his staff, the Hessian commander and his German officers? Philip Schuyler had invited them all—all!—to stay at their mansion.
Peggy had been flabbergasted when Catharine told her. How did Papa expect his wife to entertain Burgoyne without throttling him? Papa wasn’t even coming to help. He remained in Saratoga, with John, to rebuild their country house before winter set in. Peggy couldn’t get past the cruel irony that while Schuyler would freeze in a tent to reconstruct his estate, the man who had torched it would be sleeping in her papa’s warm feather bed.
Peggy heard fife and drums announcing the approaching parade. She spotted American officers riding abreast with their British counterparts, dingy blue and buff juxtaposed with bloodred and gold. Weary Continental infantrymen marched behind, shouldering their heavy Brown Bess muskets.
“Are we to provide for the guard as well, Mama?” Peggy asked, stunned.
“Yes. They will encamp on our back pastures to prevent Burgoyne escaping.” She hmpfed. “I cannot imagine the man making such an attempt since he will be enjoying our bed and our wines. More likely, our soldiers will need to watch against the poor, wretched refugees who crowd Albany, who have lost everything to British attacks. They might decide to revenge themselves on Gentleman Johnny.”
Hosting people they loathed, making their house vulnerable to a totally justifiable attack by the victims of those guests? Peggy couldn’t help asking, “Tell me again, Mama, why we must do this?”
Catharine sighed. “That is what your father wishes. So that is what we shall do.”
From the tone of Catharine’s voice, Peggy knew better than to ask how she felt about those orders. Peggy wondered how her forthright mother would hold her tongue with Burgoyne, the man who had destroyed so much of what she loved. How would Peggy?
With courtly flourish General Burgoyne bounded up the stairs and bowed low to Catharine, taking her hand and kissing it. He was, as reported, handsome and elegant. Burgoyne was a playwright as well as a soldier. Looking at him now, Peggy could more easily imagine him in a London opera house balcony than on a battlefield. Although, by all accounts, he had stayed with his troops throughout the cannonade and bloodletting—his hat pierced by a Patriot sharpshooter. Even so, Peggy was not impressed with the man.
She was more interested in eyeing the Hessian, Baron von Riedesel. German mercenaries were feared as cold, calculating killers. The baron’s attire certainly presented him as a menacing would-be conqueror with polished above-the-knee boots and a tall peaked brass miter helmet, pressed with a rearing lion crest for his Hesse-Kassel king. But his intimidating aura was diluted by what came behind him—a young, doll-pretty woman with blue eyes, golden hair, and two cherubic little girls clinging to her skirts. She cradled a baby with a halo of duck-down soft curls.
“My wife,” the baron introduced her, “Baroness Frederika Charlotte Louise von Massow, and my daughters Augusta, Frederika, and Caroline.” The baroness curtsied with distinctly aristocratic grace in her elaborately trimmed riding costume.
Peggy was floored. How could a woman drag such wee babes onto the battlefield? For love? Peggy assessed her German husband again—handsome, commanding surely. There must be gentle affection somewhere in his soul to warrant this noblewoman endangering her little ones. For a moment, Peggy’s visceral dislike and fear of Hessians softened.
But then Augusta, the oldest child—perhaps six years old, Peggy speculated—chirped: “Ooh, Mutter, is this the palace Vater was to have when we defeated the damned rebels?”
At dinner that night, the baroness worked hard to make up for her daughter’s rude question. “Your husband is the kindest man I have ever met, madame,” she said to Catharine, “even at court.”
Peggy bristled at the condescending “even at court.” Laid before this German woman, her brood of children, and close to twenty officers who had ordered atrocities against her fellow Americans, was a meal fit for any king’s court. Quail with chestnut stuffing, oranges, pasty of venison, roast beef, spiced peaches in brandy, plum pudding. Foods Peggy and her siblings had not seen for months, and certainly the Patriot foot soldiers out back guarding them may never have tasted in their entire lives.
“The day of the surrender,” the baroness continued, “General Schuyler embraced my girls, and told them not to cry, then escorted me to my husband—oh, I was so relieved to see him alive! He was safe with General Burgoyne.” She gestured to Gentleman Johnny, who was cutting his mutton on the tabletop, seemingly oblivious to the gashes he was leaving in the mahogany.
“We witnessed such horrors,” she murmured, her delicate hand trembling as she reached for her wine. “Not to discuss during such a lovely dinner.” She took a sip for fortification. “Your husband, understanding that I would be embarrassed to eat with so many gentlemen, invited me and my daughters to his tent for dinner.”
Catharine was about to take a bite but put down her fork abruptly to ask, “Do you mean to say that General Gates did not include my husband—the general who had raised the troops for this battle—that General Gates excluded my husband from the official surrender dinner?”
She looked from face to face for an answer.
Peggy burned with the same indignation for her father. Oh, if she could ever get Gates in a room alone! But then she remembered Schuyler’s parting words as he left for Saratoga—that he depended on Peggy to take good care of all his concerns. Her papa’s honor was everything to him. He would want this meal marinated in old-world etiquette, as proof of American diplomacy, and that Patriots were not backwoods ruffians.
Peggy forced herself to say something to alleviate the tension. “I imagine, Mama, that in his infinite graciousness, Papa would decline any invitation from General Gates in favor of saving this lady and her children discomfort.”
The baroness seemed to recognize Peggy’s stratagem. “Yes, surely, madame. It is clear your husband is first a gentleman and a father.”
Catharine forced a smile. “He is that.”
“Indeed, madam, he is beyond gracious,” interjected Gentleman Johnny. “When we met I expressed my regret at the event which had happened, and the reasons which had occasioned it and . . .”
Event? Peggy couldn’t let him get away with reducing the burning of her home to a pleasant euphemism. “What event, sir? Do you mean the torching of our home and barns and mills and storehouses?” She did at least manage to wrap her comment in a vaguely subdued tone she knew Eliza would use. What would Angelica say? Peggy wondered. Her eldest sister would likely tear Burgoyne apart with her wit—or flirt brazenly with him.
She glanced at Catharine, expecting a look of reprimand, but Catharine simply smiled at her. Was that a rare encouragement of Peggy’s cheekiness? Was this her chance to finally duel with one of her father’s enemies, to fight with her wit, the one weapon allowed her? She couldn’t get to Congress or the Adams brothers, and had been too outnumbered and threatened by the deserters on the Saratoga road to beat down their slanders of Schuyler. But here she was in her own home, with the chance to parry with this arrogant Brit.
Like Carter had been the night of the card game, Burgoyne seemed more amused than insulted by Peggy. She would make Gentleman Johnny pay for that, too, she swore.
“Why, yes, Miss Peggy,” Burgoyne answered. “Your father desired me to think no more about it. He said that the occasion justified my orders. You see, the buildings were being used as protective barricades and shields by the Colonials and—”
“You mean our American troops?” she interrupted.
Burgoyne laughed. “Yes, Miss Peggy, quite right. The soldiers of the American Army were firing upon us from the protection of buildings on your father’s estate. To protect my men, your father’s buildings had to be removed. General Schuyler, with great courteousness and understanding of military matters, said that according to the rules and principles of war, he would have done the same.”
“Really?” Peggy asked, feeling her eyebrow shoot up archly and hoping it revealed that what she was about to say was sarcastic, no matter how polite the words. “How magnanimous Papa is. We all try to emulate his largesse.”
Burgoyne’s answering smile was wry, and his eyes twinkled; clearly he caught Peggy’s jab. He stood and raised his glass, playing along. “To the Honorable General Schuyler and his gracious family.”
Mirroring their commander, the officers stood and thumped the table as they said, “Hear, hear.”
At least Peggy had managed that hit for her papa’s honor.
“I have been most impressed by the mercy of all the Americans,” the baroness said, continuing the thread of conversation. “During the battle, when a terrible bombardment trapped us in a house with many wounded, we desperately needed water. Nobody wanted to risk going to fetch some, because the rebel enemy . . . forgive me . . . because the Americans shot every man who went near the river. We are much in awe of your marksmen, madame.”
“That would be Daniel Morgan’s riflemen, probably,” Peggy offered. “They are quite legendary.” Peggy was fully aware that Morgan’s line, shooting from treetop roosts, had taken down a dozen Redcoat officers. She knew she was being rude, callous even, but the fact of their being at her table and treated to such deferential entertainment considering their swath of destruction and cruelty to Patriot New Yorkers was too insufferable for her to simply smile and offer them more baked rolls.
But the baroness went on, “Finally a soldier’s wife offered to go. The reb . . . the Americans did not hurt her. We would have perished had we not had that water.” She cleared her throat. “I must add that when I rode into your camp, after our army’s capitulation, I feared jeering, or . . . or worse.” She hesitated. “But not one American glanced at us insultingly. In fact, your soldiers bowed to me. Some even looked with pity to see a woman with small children there. I . . . I am afraid that might not have been the scenario had the reverse been true and your men were our prisoners of war.”
Peggy’s instantaneous reaction popped out of her mouth: “And that, Baroness, is why we fight against you.”
Silence fell around the table. Several officers froze, forks midway to their lips.
Peggy turned defiantly to her mother, expecting to be sent to her room.
But all Catharine said was, “More wine, anyone?”
Peggy took a big gulp herself to keep from laughing out loud in triumph.
Burgoyne and his entourage finally vacated, a week later—after Catharine had emptied their cellars to feed them and the encamped American guard had plundered their chicken coops, dug up their root vegetables, torn down fencing for shelter, and milked their cows dry in the night. Gentleman Johnny did not apologize for the wreckage, but he did leave behind a beautiful pair of shoe buckles ornamented with lines of brilliant diamond-like paste baubles—for Miss Peggy, he said, “a most spirited and delightful child.”
Child! So Burgoyne got the final cut in their verbal swordplay.
As Catharine handed them to her, she said, “What a tribute to the fine hostess you have become, my dear. I will be sure to tell your papa.”
Peggy eyed her mother, trying to gauge if there was a double and disapproving meaning to her words. Catharine had never said anything about Peggy’s impertinence at dinner. Nor had she punished Peggy for egging on her little brothers—nine-year-old Jeremiah and four-year-old Rensselaer—to charge through their bedroom, where a dozen British officers were billeted, and to shout, “You are our prisoners!” before dashing out and slamming the door behind them.
“Mama?” Peggy began.
Catharine just patted Peggy’s cheek and said, “Pack those in a bit of silk and keep them as souvenirs to show your own children someday—all that’s left of Gentleman Johnny here in America.”