I rose to leave, but she caught my arm.
“Forgive me, Miss Schuyler, I beg you,” she said, her head meekly bowed and her voice so contrite that I heard the tremble of tears in it. “Please don’t leave yet. If I spoke rashly, it was from my desperate desire to assist my husband in any way that I might. Please stay, Miss Schuyler, and help me to help my husband.”
Reluctantly I sat, though I kept to the very edge of the chair. “How can I possibly help General Arnold?”
“By asking Colonel Hamilton to use his influence with General Washington on my husband’s behalf,” she begged. “All my husband desires is another command or post, another chance to serve and prove his worth. Is that so much to ask for an officer who has already given so much?”
I remembered how Papa had said that General Arnold had been so grievously injured at the Battle of Saratoga (so near to our own house) that he’d nearly lost his leg, and that he’d never fully recover from the wound to the point that he could ride or walk with ease again. That was indeed a sacrifice, and I relented.
“I can promise nothing,” I warned. “But I will share your plight with Colonel Hamilton in the event that he has the opportunity to set it before the general.”
“I cannot begin to thank you enough.” Her face relaxed, and for the first time she seemed her age, a young woman of only nineteen years cast into a difficult situation with a new baby and an absent husband. “All I can offer in return are my wishes for your own happiness and prosperity.”
“Thank you,” I said, preparing to take my leave. “You do me honor, Mrs. Arnold. I wish the same to you and your husband, and your dear little son as well.”
“Yes,” she said, her thoughts clearly elsewhere. “Yes. I can also offer you and Colonel Hamilton some hard-won advice, for you to take or not, as you please. If Colonel Hamilton can show my husband this small favor, his kindness will not be forgotten. He is most obviously a gentleman and an officer of promise, and his talents shouldn’t be squandered to his disadvantage. You have been at Morristown, Miss Schuyler. You have observed the despair and disarray of this country’s army for yourself, and the confusion of its leaders. Sometimes we ladies must see more clearly, and act to preserve the gentlemen we love.”
I thanked her one last time and departed. I did wish her well, for she seemed a lady in need of good fortune, as my father had said. It wasn’t until later that day, as I took time alone with my needlework, that I considered more closely her last little speech to me. The longer I thought upon her words, the more disturbing I found them. She wished her husband to return to active duty with the army. So why, then, had she faulted that same army? Alexander already had the highest esteem of His Excellency. Why should she say he was squandering his talents by serving his country? And what exactly was she counseling me to do?
I shared my worries the next morning at breakfast with Papa, but he swiftly brushed them aside as being of little lasting consequence.
“As you saw for yourself, she is a lady in sore need of comfort and compassion,” he said as he sipped his coffee. “Her father remains a Tory with sympathies to the Crown, and he was not pleased with her marriage to Arnold. His friends were equally surprised when he found favor with her, a wealthy lady almost half his age, and many continue to suspect her allegiances. She is caught between her loyalties to her father and her husband, poor lady, and tries to serve them both as best she can. You saw that yourself.”
“I did,” I said thoughtfully. Perhaps that was explanation enough for her curious speech; I couldn’t imagine marrying a gentleman under such difficult circumstances. “She must love General Arnold mightily.”
“I pray that she does, for she has sacrificed a great deal to be his wife,” Papa said. “Although I do not wish to raise false hopes, I am already planning to speak to His Excellency regarding a post for General Arnold as commander of our fortifications at West Point. It would be a good position for him, and it would be wise for the army to have an experienced officer so many consider a hero in command of a prominent location. Governor Livingston—your friend Kitty’s father—agrees with me, too.”
“Do you believe His Excellency will also agree?” I asked, still unsure whether I should wish him to or not.
Papa sighed, holding out his cup to the servant to be refilled. He was always unwaveringly loyal to soldiers who had served with him; I recognized the trial this must be for him.
“I do not know, Eliza,” he said. “This is not to be repeated, but I know for a fact that His Excellency was displeased by Arnold’s behavior, acquittal or not. There’s no doubt that the man was indiscreet, and took advantage of his post as military commander for his own profit.”
“So he should not have been acquitted?” I asked. “He was in fact guilty?”
Papa’s brows drew together and his expression turned as stern as granite in what my sisters and I called his “general face.”
“He was found not guilty,” he said. “That was the verdict of his fellow officers in the court-martial, and that is how it shall always stand. The verdict cannot be questioned. But the very fact that Arnold was compelled to defend himself grieved His Excellency, who expects his officers to act in a manner that is beyond reproach, as gentlemen should.”
I nodded, and my sympathy for Peggy Arnold and her husband rose. I had always found General Washington to be a daunting figure, and if I were one of his officers, I’d never have wanted to earn any measure of his displeasure.
I thought this would be the end of my father’s explanation, but to my surprise he continued.
“I have heard that His Excellency’s unhappiness is the reason he plans to issue a formal reprimand of Arnold, which will make the West Point post more difficult,” he said. “But likely Colonel Hamilton will be able to tell you far more than I.”
“Should I tell him how—how disloyal Mrs. Arnold was in her speech?” I asked tentatively. I had been only vaguely aware of General Arnold’s court-martial having happened in Morristown in January, shortly before I’d arrived. Alexander hadn’t mentioned it, and I hadn’t known enough to inquire for more details, or at least I hadn’t known enough until now. “How she found fault with the army and its officers?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t trouble him with it,” Papa said. “I suspect that was Mrs. Arnold’s own disappointment speaking, not any reflection of her husband’s opinions. But I leave it all to your own judgment, Eliza. You may say what you please to Hamilton when you meet him next. He knows I will be returning you to Morristown tomorrow, yes?”
I nodded, Peggy and Benedict Arnold forgotten in an instant. I’d my own problems to resolve, and I took a deep breath, my fingers anxiously pleating the damask napkin in my lap.
“I’d hoped that by now you would have given Alexander and me your consent,” I said, wishing my voice wasn’t shaking with emotion. “It’s been three weeks since he wrote to you.”
Now it was Papa’s turn to look uncomfortable. He helped himself to a slice of toasted bread from the silver rack on the table and placed it precisely in the center of his plate.
“You already know I hold Colonel Hamilton in high esteem for a young gentleman,” he said, still looking down at the toast. “He has impressed me with his initiative, courage, and resourcefulness, all important qualities for a man to possess before I would entrust him with your future welfare.”
My hope rose to giddy heights. “Then you will grant us your permission?”
“I have granted nothing as yet, daughter,” he said with maddening patience. He took his time buttering the toast, making certain the yellow butter went exactly to the crusts on four sides, and no farther. “I would prefer that the colonel had a suitable income to support a family, but I also believe he will rectify that deficit by his own talents as soon as the war is done. So long as he loves you and you love him—”
“Oh, I do, Papa!” I exclaimed. I was too anxious to eat, and I waved away the dish of shirred eggs that the servant began to place before me. “And I am
sure, very sure, that he feels the same love for me.”
Papa studied me for a long moment, the silver butter knife still in his hand.
“I have never seen this—this enthusiasm in you, Eliza,” he said. “You have always been a thoughtful child, even cautious, and this fervor is unlike you.”
“But it is like me, Papa, or the woman I have become,” I said. I felt as if he was raising unnecessary obstacles, and I couldn’t understand why. “I am still your daughter, your Elizabeth, but I long to be Colonel Hamilton’s wife as well. If I have changed, it is love, his love, that has changed me. I dare to hope that the change is for the better, too.”
If he agreed, he didn’t say. Instead he dropped a large, glistening spoonful of strawberry jam into the center of the well-buttered toast, again avoiding my gaze.
“I suppose this is how every father must feel when confronted with a beloved daughter’s marriage,” he said gruffly. “I cannot imagine our home without you in it, Eliza. You’re our shining light, our cheerful Christian soul. Your mother depends upon you so much to help with the household and other children that I can’t fathom how she will cope without you. I knew the day would come that you would leave us, but now that it has, it seems entirely too soon.”
“Oh, Papa,” I said softly. I hadn’t expected this from him, not at all. “I won’t be leaving forever. You know I’ll be back, and often.”
He smiled down at the jam, not at me. Finally he raised the toast from the plate and bit into the crust, chewing it deliberately before he replied.
“When you do return to our house,” he said, “you will be as Mrs. Hamilton.”
“I shall always be your daughter.” I rested my hand upon his arm. “That will never change, not in this life or the next.”
He grunted as he finished the toast, no real answer, yet one I understood. He’d been devastated when Angelica had eloped, and I guessed he was feeling a degree of the same sense of loss with my pending betrothal to Alexander. But I was twenty-two. I was ready to be wife and a mother as well as a daughter. I’d found a gentleman I loved beyond all others, and it was time we married and began a home of our own.
“Please, Papa,” I pleaded softly. “Won’t you give your consent? Won’t you write to Alexander?”
Self-consciously he patted my hand on his arm, and I felt sure that at last he’d agree.
But he didn’t. Instead he withdrew his arm from my hand, pushed his chair back from the table, and rose.
“You know I am in communication about Colonel Hamilton’s proposal with your mother, Eliza,” he said. “When she has made her final decision, then I shall write to him. But not before. Not before.”
I knew better than to argue, though tears of disappointment clouded my eyes as I kissed Papa’s cheek before he left for the day. Afterward I retreated to my room, and continued the letter to Alexander that I’d begun earlier. I wrote slowly, carefully, determined to give him no hint of my own misery.
My father praises your virtues daily, and speaks of the day when I shall return to Albany as Mrs. Hamilton. I whisper it, too, as often as I dare, to help make it a reality. I pray each night to be yours forever, my dear Alexander, my love, my love.
I stared down at the words as the ink dried and lost its glossy wetness, then ran my fingertip across them. I didn’t belong in Philadelphia any longer. It was time I returned to Morristown, and to Alexander.
My dear Alexander, my love, my love . . .
CHAPTER 6
My father did not write his fateful letter to Alexander until April. Though I shall never know for certain, I believe that it was my mother who finally pushed him to write, and if it had been left to Papa, I would still to this day be a spinster waiting for his blessing, he’d become that loath to part with me.
The contents of the letter were simple enough—that he and my mother had accepted Alexander’s offer to me of marriage—but my life, and Alexander’s, were changed forever. With the weather and the roads improving, my mother made the journey from Albany to Morristown, and took up residence in the house Papa had rented. I was pleased that they wished to know Alexander better, and I was equally pleased that he in turn wished to know them as well. Having no family of his own, he was eager to become part of mine, and as often as he could be spared from headquarters he came to our little house. With his usual charm, quick wit, and perspicacity, Alexander discussed military matters with Papa and household economies with Mamma, and won them both so thoroughly that they became as happy to see him at our door as I was.
Best of all was the glowing happiness that came with being betrothed to Alexander. My parents insisted on us marrying at our home in Albany, and we all hoped that Alexander would be able to procure leave to do so before the summer campaigns began. Our joy in one another was boundless, and whenever we were together, we planned and plotted our shared future together as husband and wife, and dreamed of the children we would have and the house where we’d live.
But the unhappy truth was that we had increasingly less time to spend in each other’s company. It was not from lack of interest, of course, but on account of Alexander’s duties. By now he had become for all purposes the general’s chief of staff, and was as indispensable as any single officer in the army could be. I do not believe there was anyone that His Excellency trusted more. As can be imagined, I was thoroughly proud of Alexander, but his role meant that he was constantly either at the general’s side, or away executing a mission or order on his behalf.
Privately I thought the general took advantage of Alexander’s great energy and ability to subsist on little sleep. Whenever he’d steal away a few moments to call upon me, he often looked weary, with circles of exhaustion beneath his eyes, and I thought he’d grown thinner, too, which he could ill afford. He could become preoccupied, his gaze turning blank in the middle of a conversation as his thoughts began to churn some problem or another. It was obvious he’d much on his mind, and I worried at the toll it was taking upon him. Yet I could hardly protest, since the very survival of our new country was at risk.
For even as spring was returning and the fields around Morristown were turning green with new growth and optimism, the Continental Army was foundering; nor had I needed Peggy Arnold to tell me so, either. Most of us in Morristown were aware of it, and that knowledge hung like a forbidding cloud over the entire encampment.
No one had expected the war to continue as long as it had, with seemingly so little achieved. There had been hints of mutiny in the snow-covered cabins of Jockey Hollow, from muted grumbling to out-and-out insubordination. Many of the men had enlisted in 1777 for a term of service of three years, and were well aware that their duty would be finished at the end of April.
“Already the men are beginning to drift away,” Alexander said. It was early evening, and we were sitting side by side on a rough plank bench in the small yard behind my parents’ house, where we’d have a measure of privacy, if few comforts. Whatever cheer the sun had given earlier in the afternoon was gone, and I’d wrapped myself in a thick woolen shawl, with Alexander’s arm around me for extra warmth. Small ghostly patches of old snow still lingered in the shadows, dirty and tattered like worn lace, but at last the first shoots of green were beginning to appear in the sticky, muddy ground.
Yet the way Alexander was explaining it, spring was bringing little cheer to General Washington.
“Each morning’s muster shows more men have vanished overnight,” he continued. “Their guns are gone and their other belongings with them. They’ve had their fill of soldiering, and all that matters to them are new crops to be planted and sweethearts to kiss. Staying here another few weeks makes no difference to them, nor can I fault them for it.”
“But if they’re captured, they’ll be charged as deserters, won’t they?” As a soldier’s daughter, I knew the unequivocal sentence for desertion—the most grievous sin in any army—was death.
“The general will have no choice if he wants to maintain discipline,” Alexander s
aid. “Yet most who flee are young, younger than I, and eager to return to homes they left as boys. They haven’t been paid in months, at least not in money that has any value to it. Many are sick, and all are near to starving from the poor rations. They believe Congress and the populace despise them, and they’re justified in that. And yet . . .”
He let the words drift off unfinished, but I could complete them as well as he.
“You’ve stayed,” I said, tightening my fingers into his. “You’re here.”
“I’m an officer, Betsey,” he said, “and on my honor as a gentleman I’m bound to be part of this until the end of the war.”
I leaned my head against his shoulder. “It’s more than that for you.”
He sighed deeply. “I believe in this, all of this. The war, our country, our future, the men who have died in battle beside me and the children I hope to have one day with you. To abandon it now would be madness, and cowardice besides.”
“That’s why I love you,” I said softly. “Wrapped there in a single sentence.”
“It was three sentences, actually,” he said wryly, “but the sentiment is the same nonetheless.”
“You spoke it as one.” Only he would parse the syntax of a passionate declaration, and how endearing I found it, too. “The rumors among the ladies are that a thousand men are set to quit the army by the end of April.”
“If only that were all,” he said. “The last report that I wrote for the general to Congress estimated that at least two thousand eight hundred will be gone as surely as the last of the snow. That’s more than a quarter of our regular army. Yet Congress urges the general to send more troops south to Charleston, heedless of how we’d then be helpless to stop the British here in the north. How can we send what we don’t to spare? There’s little doubt that given the opportunity, the British would overrun New Jersey, and likely take back Philadelphia as well.”
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