I have the Honor to inform Congress, that a Reduction of the British Army under the Command of Lord Cornwallis, is most happily effected. The unremitting Ardor which actuated every Officer and Soldier in the combined Army on this Occasion, has principally led to this Important Event, at an earlier period than my most sanguine Hopes had induced me to expect. . . .
I should be wanting in the feelings of Gratitude, did I not mention on this Occasion, with the warmest Sense of Acknowledgements, the very chearfull and able Assistance, which I have received in the Course of our Operations, from, his Excellency the Count de Rochambeau, and all his Officers of every Rank, in their respective Capacities. Nothing could equal this Zeal of our Allies, but the emulating Spirit of the American Officers, whose Ardor would not suffer their Exertions to be exceeded.
. . . Congress will be pleased to accept my Congratulations on this happy Event.
—General George Washington on the American victory at Yorktown
“MISS SCHUYLER, MAY I HOLD MY GODDAUGHTER?”
Peggy looked up in wonderment at the face of General George Washington. He had come to Albany to discuss securing upstate New York from continued British and Tory raids along Lake Champlain and to meet with the Oneida and Tuscarora. Even six months after his victory at Yorktown, the threats from the enemy remained very real.
Of course, Albany had greeted His Excellency with jubilation—a thirteen-gun salute, an illumination of the entire city, a parade and review of troops, and the mayor presenting him with a gold box containing a document representing freedom. Now her family was celebrating him, along with generals Lafayette, Knox, and Greene, with a ball in their mansion’s upstairs salon. Little Caty had been toddling and escaped Peggy to run headfirst into the crowd. Peggy had just crouched and crawled after her littlest sister to catch her before someone accidentally trampled her.
“O-o-of course, Your Excellency,” she stammered, rising from the floor to hand Caty over. Despite having danced with him at Morristown and his gracious greeting of her that morning, Peggy was still in nervous awe of the man. She prayed little Caty would not be fussy in His Excellency’s arms. No matter how intrepid she was physically, the toddler was at that stage where she could be fearful with strangers.
“Hello, little lady,” Washington said gently, in that oddly whispery voice of his. “It is my great honor to meet you finally. We are to be fast friends, you and I.”
At first Caty’s face puckered, but the general swayed and bobbed her, like the expert dancer he was, and she relaxed. She patted his gold epaulets and then grabbed his nose.
Washington chortled.
“Oh, sir, I am so sorry!” Peggy reached to take Caty—the general had a reputation for being standoffish regarding physical contact—but Washington stopped her.
“Do not worry, Miss Schuyler. It is a joy to hold a young child.” Caty finally released his nose, fascinated instead by all his buttons. He cocked his head to watch her a moment. “You are as beautiful as your big sister.”
“Yes, she does look like Angelica,” demurred Peggy. “And Eliza as well, for that matter.”
“I meant you, Miss Schuyler.” Washington smiled at her—that slightly mysterious tight-lipped expression of his. “I hear she is high-spirited as well. Your papa is a lucky man to have such daughters.”
“Thank you, Your Excellency.” Pleased but suddenly shy as well, Peggy couldn’t think of anything to say other than, “I hope you are enjoying your stay?”
“Very much so,” Washington answered. “I look forward to inspecting the fort and hospital, and riding to Saratoga with General Schuyler tomorrow. But I would prefer, in truth, to stay here and play a bit with your sister.” He looked over the crowd of guests coming up the stairs from dinner, gathering for dancing. “I hope you will grant me a dance again this evening? One of the highlights of Morristown was our country dance.”
He remembered! “Oh yes, please, Your Excellency; it would be my great honor.”
“You will have to save one for me. I am sure there are many lads who will duel for the opportunity to partner you.”
Ever honest, Peggy blurted out, “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that, General.” Then she wanted to clap her hand to her mouth. She shouldn’t admit such things at a polite gathering; it begged flattery or pity. But her words couldn’t be taken back. She shrugged slightly, embarrassed for herself.
Washington fixed those deep-set analytical gray eyes on hers. For someone who had fought so many battles, witnessed such pain, loss, and betrayals, and had to scrutinize the motivations of countless would-be intimates and foes, they were remarkably kind, those eyes. “Nonsense, Miss Schuyler. The situation simply wants a man of integrity and courage, who relishes a sword fight with an equal.” He smiled to reassure Peggy what he said was meant as a compliment. “Remember this—a sensible woman can never be happy with a fool.” He paused. “Particularly . . . a French one.”
Peggy flamed red. If Hamilton had told His Excellency about Fleury she would strangle him. Instinctively, she looked to the corner where he and Eliza were chatting happily with General Greene. Hamilton had gained the glory he sought at Yorktown, leading a do-or-die bayonet charge into a well-fortified redoubt, clearing the field for Lafayette’s full attack. Eliza had safely given birth to a boy, another Philip in honor of their papa. Hamilton was settling into reading the law. But he had a lot to learn about protecting his clients’ secrets—if he had indeed betrayed her confidence by telling George Washington, of all people!
Washington noticed her gaze and said, “A general must be observant of those around him, not just relying on reports of trusted junior officers.” Then he kept talking, addressing his words to Caty in that overly emphatic, storytelling happy voice adults use for babies, but clearly meaning in message for Peggy. “A beautiful and accomplished lady will turn the heads and set the circle in which she moves on fire. But once the torch bursts into a blaze with a particular gentleman, the lady must ask herself several important questions.” He made a face at Caty, as if he expected the child to respond. Her little face dimpled with glee at the game.
“The lady must ask herself: Who exactly is this invader? Have I competent knowledge of him?” Washington continued as if singing a nursery rhyme. Caty giggled.
“Is he a man of good character, a man of sense? Or is he a gambler, a spendthrift, or a drunkard?” He drew out the last words with a growl. Caty laughed outright.
“Do my friends have no reasonable objection to him?” Washington made his eyes big and his face look surprised, and Caty clapped her hands in delight.
“If these questions are satisfactorily answered, there remains but one more to be asked. Are his affections engaged by me and me alone? If my passion is not reciprocated, the man is not worthy of me. Isn’t that right, Miss Caty?” He tickled Caty’s belly and she squealed with laughter.
Then the general turned to Peggy with all earnestness to say, “A lady of character deserves a man who looks nowhere but at her.” He leaned closer and added quietly, “Like the lad who has been reclining against the door and watching you this entire time.”
Washington handed Caty to Moll, who had come to watch the baby so Peggy could enjoy the dancing that was about to begin. He bowed to Peggy. “I look forward to our dance, Miss Schuyler.”
Then General George Washington strode into the crowd and a siege of questions: What are we to do about the Redcoats still occupying New York City? Where do our peace talks stand? How will Congress pay all the back wages of the Continental Army? What does land in the Ohio territory look like and when can we Patriots take ownership of it? Pleas of “Your Excellency, sir” echoed over and over throughout the salon.
Peggy watched him disappear into his supplicants and then slowly turned her eyes to the doorframe he mentioned. There stood Aaron Burr, the young Continental Army officer Schuyler was also allowing to use his library to study the law. Burr was talking with dear old Richard Varick. Peggy smiled. Thanks to her father, Washington was now employing Varick as his personal secretary. As such, Varick had arrived with the general’s entourage. It was the first she had seen him since Benedict Arnold’s betrayal.
Earlier that day he had told her, with great apologies, that he was in love and had an understanding with a woman he’d grown up with. Peggy had been proud of herself for not laughing outright at him, but feigning instead slight disappointment and wishing him well. There would be hell to pay later with her mother, but she’d think on that another time. What lad was Washington talking about?
Shifting her gaze slightly to the left, through a gaggle of locals ogling the military dignitaries, she caught a partial view of a young man, indeed leaning against the door. As she looked, he tilted his face so she could see him better—clearly he’d been watching and waiting for her glance to reach him. A mop of soft black curls fell over his eyes with the movement. It was her distant cousin, the one who had been away at Harvard for the year. Last time she had seen Stephen Van Rensselaer he was a beautiful, slight youth. What a difference a year could make in a boy—he was still slender, still with a peachy hue on that smooth, heart-shaped face. But he obviously shaved now and must have grown two inches taller. As Stephen straightened, pulled himself away from the doorjamb, and strode toward her, Peggy felt herself blush. He had become rather devastatingly handsome—if she cared about that kind of thing.
“Miss Peggy,” he said, and bowed, his voice far deeper than before. “I am glad to see you have recovered your strength since last we met.”
“Master Stephen.” She curtsied. Peggy knew he meant well to ask after her health. After all, she’d almost fainted in front of him, thinking Fleury had come to visit given Moses Harris’s ruse that he was a suitor of hers. But she hardly wished to remember or discuss that sudden mixture of gut-wrenching hope and despairing disappointment. She shifted the subject. “How is Harvard?”
“Wonderful,” answered Stephen, just as the musicians began to play. They both turned to watch the dance floor. “Ah, His Excellency has chosen your mama as his partner for the first minuet.”
Standing on tiptoe, Peggy could see over people’s shoulders to Catharine, who was absolutely radiant at the honor being done her by General Washington. Peggy caught her breath—she had forgotten how beautiful her mother could look. Catharine wore a crisp cream satin gown, brocaded with delicate vertical trellises of rosebuds that cleverly thinned her slightly round figure. Beautifully scalloped, pinked ruffles cascaded from her elbows as Catharine held out her arms in a floaty arc, making her a pretty echo of the young, happy, elegant woman captured in her portrait as a bride.
While she pirouetted lightly on her toes, guided expertly by His Excellency, Schuyler beheld Catharine with an adoration that made Peggy’s eyes well up. Her papa looked like he might burst with pride in his beloved Kitty. After twenty-five years of marriage, thirteen pregnancies, war’s losses and victories, public praise and ridicule, illness and disappointments, fear and jubilation, they were still in love, still partners.
“My word, they are an inspiring pair,” murmured Stephen.
Peggy nodded. “His Excellency is the most chivalrous of dancers.”
“Actually, I meant your mother and father.” Stephen nodded toward Schuyler. “I mean, look at the way he gazes at her—in rapture.” He cleared his throat self-consciously. “I suppose I notice it since my father died when I was so young. I never saw him with my mother. I hope to be that in love with my wife when I am that age.”
Peggy dared a sideways glance at him. He seemed totally sincere. Stephen felt her scrutiny and turned from watching the dance to smile at her. “Not even Molière, who can satirize anything, would be able to touch them.”
“Ahhh.” Slowly, she smiled, remembering. “So you read the plays I suggested you take from Papa’s library.”
“I did indeed. I have to admit that I prefer Shakespeare to Molière’s rather biting wit.”
So this young man was the earnest type. “Julius Caesar, I would guess?”
“Yes, of course. But I also like the comedies.”
“Really?” She felt her eyebrow arch. “Which is your favorite?”
“I’d say Twelfth Night.”
Peggy eyed him suspiciously. “I suppose you enjoy what fools the lovers become, especially Olivia.” Peggy felt particular pity for that character, a lady who unwittingly fell in love with a fantasy—a young man who was poetic and courageous. But not what he seemed. Like Fleury. Little did Olivia know that the kind, thoughtful youth was actually a girl pretending to be a young man. And the audience was in on the joke. If Stephen laughed, Peggy would know to put him in the McHenry category. She waited.
“Not really,” he said.
“No?”
“No.” He grinned at her as General Greene asked Angelica to dance the minuet.
“So what do you enjoy most about Twelfth Night?” Peggy asked as she watched her eldest sister circle the Quaker general, gliding smooth, calm, like a lily floating along a quiet pond.
“Viola.”
Peggy turned back to gape at him—incredulous. “The girl who protects herself after being shipwrecked by dressing and acting like a boy?”
“Indeed yes,” Stephen answered. “She is so full of life, pluck, resourcefulness, wit. But what I really like is what she says about love.”
Peggy just stared at him. Was this boy real?
“How does Shakespeare put it?” Stephen paused a moment, closed his eyes, and recited, “That a lover should write loyal cantons of contemned love and sing them loud even in the dead of night. And that he should ‘halloo’ his lover’s name to the reverberate hills and make the babbling gossip of the air cry out her name until she takes pity on him.” He smiled down at Peggy, and shrugged. “I am too much of a romantic, I know. I suppose I shall be weaned from it when I leave university.”
“Oh, I hope not,” said Peggy, shaking her head. “What’s the point of loving, if you don’t feel it utterly?”
They fell silent, watching Hamilton stride onto the dance floor with Eliza. Peggy was flooded with the memory of their minuet at Morristown, when she had witnessed her sister give her loyal heart to him. There it was again—that look of insecure hunger from Hamilton, Eliza’s answer of shy acceptance and loving reassurance, the urgency of their touch, the bittersweetness of their turns away from each other.
Peggy sighed.
“Now that is courtship,” Stephen breathed, “as mellifluous as poetry.”
She nodded.
As Hamilton and Eliza left the dance floor and walked, arm in arm, toward them, Stephen bowed to her. “Miss Peggy, would you do me the great honor?”
Surprised, she looked up into that beautiful face, unsure why she hesitated, annoyed that she felt fear.
Stephen smiled, bashful, curious, hopeful all at once. “If music be the food of love . . .”
Peggy caught Hamilton’s eye as he and Eliza approached, a few feet behind Stephen. Instantly, looking into her face, Peggy’s brother-in-law sized up the situation. Hamilton smiled encouragingly and nodded at her in a fond, unspoken way: “Your turn, little sister.” Peggy’s turn to sweep out into the center of those blue-coated, battle-tested, idealistic Patriots. Her turn to partake in the Revolution’s victory, to have all eyes on her—just for a moment.
If music be the food of love?
Taking a deep breath, Peggy put her hand in Stephen’s, and whispered to complete the quote: “Play on.”