WE RETURN TO THE WINTER OF 1780
AND HAMILTON’S FIRST LETTER TO PEGGY:
Alexander Hamilton to Margarita Schuyler (continued):
Morristown, New Jersey, February 1780
There are several of my friends, philosophers who railed at love as a weakness, men of the world who laughed at it . . . whom your sister has presumptuously and daringly compelled to acknowlege its power . . . I am myself of the number. She has . . . overset all the wise resolutions I had been framing . . . and from a rational sort of being and a professed contemner of Cupid has in a trice metamorphosed me into the veriest inamorato you perhaps ever saw.
. . . It is essential to the safety of the state and to the tranquillity of the army that one of two things take place; either that she be immediately removed from our neighbourhood, or that some other nymph qualified to maintain an equal sway come into it.
SOME OTHER NYMPH. PEGGY SAT UP ABRUPTLY. THE shawls she had snuggled into as she sat cross-legged in the armchair fell back. The frigid predawn air of her bedroom cut into her being—even though her hearth had been roaring for the past half hour as she reread the letter from her sister’s new suitor, this aide-de-camp named Alexander Hamilton, this man who hoped to solicit Peggy’s aid in his courtship of Eliza.
“Nymph!” she repeated aloud, her breath fogging, a cloudy echo puff of her voice. The word lit an alarm beacon.
Peggy stood and paced. Hamilton’s letter had prompted her to remember so many things that had happened since the war began and Angelica ran off with John Carter, shattering the world Peggy had known and loved. Now this single word triggered the memory of her visit to the wounded General Arnold in Albany’s hospital, after the Battle of Saratoga, two years prior.
Eliza’s new suitor was the aide-de-camp who had interrupted their conversation!
Peggy had been struck then by the aide’s flirtatious tone, his flowery, Arcadia-poetic language in a hospital, a place of pain and harsh realities. But she’d been so irate at his not taking the time to pay respects to her father in person that she’d buried his identity as not worthy of remembering.
Peggy’s eyebrow rose in appreciation, recalling Hamilton’s enormous violet-blue eyes, their piercing, searching scrutiny. Typically, so handsome a man would be completely monopolized by Angelica. Well, good for Eliza! Maybe now that Angelica was married, Eliza’s more subtle beauty and gentle heart would be the Schuyler nectar drawing suitors. Then perhaps it would be Peggy’s turn.
Because surely it was her turn, wasn’t it? Peggy had survived the terrors of Burgoyne’s invasion. She’d witnessed their father’s humiliation when General Gates replaced him just in time to win a battle that Schuyler had prepared the Northern Army to fight. She’d cared for him as he grieved the attacks on his honor and sank into ill health. She had helped nurse the tiny baby brother who was born and struggled for each breath, his little body shivering and twitching. And she’d comforted her mother when that baby died five months later.
Why did Peggy always have to be the responsible one among the three Schuyler sisters? Pacing once more—feeling smothered, snuffed—Peggy reread Hamilton’s last line about Eliza: By dividing her empire it will be weakened and she will be much less dangerous when she has a rival equal in charms to dispute the prize with her. I solicit your aid.
That was an invitation. Backhanded, to be sure, but an invitation nonetheless. To the winter headquarters of the Continental Army. To the intimate circle surrounding General George Washington, to the subscription balls and banter his officers reveled in as tonic to the deprivations and disasters, the forebodings of the war. To experience those evenings and camaraderie firsthand, not just vicariously through letters.
She had held the fort at home long enough. Peggy was going to join Eliza at the house their aunt and uncle were renting near this year’s winter encampment. They wouldn’t mind another niece. Dr. John Cochran was always up for merriment and family gatherings.
Peggy fairly danced in her moccasins to the window. Its drawn curtains glowed as sunrise seeped in around its edges. She yanked back the damask brocade to gaze out at a horizon of frozen white, glinting in the dawn’s golden rays. Snowbanks started glittering one after another in a wave of jewel-like sparkle as the sun climbed, spreading out light across the Hudson River toward her, until the earth beneath her window was blinding in reflected, mirrored luster. Shading her eyes, Peggy scanned the fairy-tale-beautiful world, awash herself in morning light and a sense of adventure.
But her smile began to fade as she surveyed the unrelenting view of snow, some of the drifts higher than a horse’s head. The Hudson River was solid ice many feet thick. Had been for weeks and weeks since late November. There were reports that all harbors, bays, and rivers, both saltwater and fresh, from North Carolina to Maine, were frozen over. No ships were sailing anywhere. Her father’s spies had told him that Loyalists in New York City were actually skating and driving ox carts across the harbor to and from Staten Island.
The heavy snows had been nonstop, starting in November—four of them—and followed by seven more in December. One blizzard, right after the new year, had lasted days, packing gale-force winds that collapsed houses and dumped four feet of fresh snow on what was already piled knee-deep on the ground.
The trek to Morristown, New Jersey, would take three dangerously long days pushing a pair of horses to draw a sleigh atop the snow at top speed. The temperatures could be killing for them, for her. No raiding parties were out given the below-freezing cold. Even so, she would have to pass close to enemy camps and hunkered-down sentries.
Eliza had made it through safely, Peggy reassured herself. Although her big sister had been incredibly lucky that one of January’s six snowstorms had not hit as she traveled. Peggy glanced to the heavens—gray clouds, thick, muscular, glowering, menacing. Was she so starved for witty conversation, ballroom flirtations, and her sister’s company to risk potentially dying in a snowdrift somewhere?
Peggy drew in a deep breath as she also considered the fact Philip Schuyler had just left for Philadelphia. No longer a battle commander, he had been elected to the Continental Congress by New York—people who knew and trusted him, unlike the New Englanders who had assassinated his character. Catharine could certainly run the house without Peggy, but what if her mother had to join Schuyler? What about the boys and Cornelia? John was almost fifteen, but he was usually at the center of whatever mischief the boys drummed up.
Wavering, Peggy weighed Hamilton’s letter. She pushed her mind back again to her meeting him. How much sisterly protection did Eliza really need from this man? She closed her eyes to repaint the scene. There was poor, broken General Arnold in his bed, clearly in terrible pain. But he had snapped to military alertness as soon as Hamilton mentioned he needed General Washington’s advice. Before that moment . . . hmm . . . before that there had been a bit of good-natured teasing about . . . about . . .
Peggy gasped, remembering Arnold playfully telling her to beware Hamilton! He is famous for his love affairs. Or infamous?
Was this man trifling with Eliza’s trusting heart? Lord knew he had been quick to flirt with Peggy.
In a flash as quick as gunpowder, she was at her bedroom door. Peggy didn’t care whom she woke. She shouted down the stairs for Prince, who basically ran the mansion and negotiated the worries and chores of the ten other enslaved servants when her papa was not there. Given the chaos of the war, the threat of Tory Rangers, food shortages, the constant in and out of soldiers, Prince had become a guardian, really. They all had come to rely on his judgment as much as Schuyler did.
Until a few weeks ago, she could have called on the faithful Richard Varick to help her. He had just returned to Hackensack, his New Jersey hometown—after an embarrassing good-bye. Peggy had hustled the man out the door for fear of his asking a question she didn’t want to answer. He could have arranged Peggy’s passage and a safe military escort to Morristown easily and eagerly. But perhaps it was just as well. He probably would have insisted on coming along to protect her. Blushing and spluttering all the way.
No, with Prince’s advice she would figure out how she could make this journey. She was going to Morristown. Eliza needed her.