And I feared this young upstart Lafayette might be both.
We’d scarcely arrived at the barracks when a commotion erupted from the direction of the river. I turned to see a procession of sleighs carrying soldiers, their white infantry uniforms embroidered with the fleur-de-lis of French heraldry. But at their head, wearing American buff and blue, rode a lanky young officer, borne upon a majestic mount like a conquering Caesar.
This must be Lafayette, I thought. And I didn’t know whether to laugh or weep at the ridiculous sight of a baby-faced general who’d apparently traversed a wilderness in rain and snow, all while properly powdered and ornamented with gold braid and dainty lace. I confess that my first glimpse of him with one hand upon his hip, the other upon his sword in martial pose, was enough to convince me that he was exactly the young fool that Benedict Arnold supposed him to be.
But when my father moved forward to make introductions, Lafayette seemed to know him already, and snapped off a very correct salute. “Major Général Schuyler.”
The respectfulness softened me a little.
When Lafayette dismounted and greeted General Arnold as well, Papa said, “I present to you my second-eldest daughter, Elizabeth.”
Given the increasingly rigid revolutionary sentiment at the time, I was uncertain if I should curtsy to a nobleman like Lafayette lest I be thought a secret Tory. Before I could decide, Lafayette took my hand and pressed upon it an audible kiss. “Enchanté, Mademoiselle Schuyler. I am Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette.” My eyes must have widened because Lafayette laughed and added, “It is not my fault, all these names. I was baptized like a Spaniard, with the name of every conceivable saint who might offer me protection on the battlefield so that I might be invincible.”
I could not help but smile at Lafayette’s jest, though I disliked the word invincible. I’d known too many soldiers who thought themselves invincible in this war and now found themselves moldering in graves. And if Papa couldn’t talk sense to this Frenchman, he was going to put many more into the ground besides.
Before Lafayette even inquired about quarters for his half-frozen men—or meeting the mayor who was, no doubt, scurrying out of his house now at the surprise arrival—he asked my father, “Report to me, please, the conditions of the forces here at Albany and their readiness for a winter campaign.”
This was the news that we wished to broach slowly, over a good meal and in front of a warm fire, with Arnold vouching for all Papa had to say. But the Frenchman was already demanding a report, and looking to Papa to give it. Oh, how I cringed to see my father make a report to Lafayette, a now superior officer, one much his junior in age, and a foreigner at that!
Still, the important thing was that the Frenchman heard the truth. Not enough gunpowder, muskets, or bullets. Too few provisions of every kind. Men without shoes, without coats, without medicines. It was an army that could scarcely defend the river, much less mount an invasion.
Lafayette listened to all this with a half-lidded, nearly insolent gaze. It seemed to me that he didn’t believe my father, or perhaps didn’t wish to believe him. And rather than see Papa subjected to the further indignity of being dismissed, I was now eager to go.
Pretending at a chill I didn’t feel, I rubbed my hands together. “I’m quite cold, Papa.”
Knowing me to have the hardiest constitution of all his daughters, my father glanced at me with surprise, then back at Lafayette. “I should very much like to discuss this further, sir. I extend my hospitality to you and your officers for dinner this evening. And with that, General Lafayette, I take my daughter and my leave.”
But Lafayette’s gaze skimmed over the encampment of miserable soldiers, and he actually dared to arrest my father’s movement with a gloved hand tight upon his elbow. “I cannot let you go, Schuyler. For I see now that I am betrayed.”
Chapter Three
WHAT IS THIS hell of blunders, madness, and deception I find myself involved in?” Lafayette shouted, having herded us into a large tent he commandeered in the field next to the barracks.
The Frenchman removed his hat, revealing a prominent forehead, and drew my father and a hobbling Arnold toward the back, where they congregated around a table. Meanwhile I was left to warm myself near a small camp stove, quite anxious about the marquis’s demeanor.
Lafayette gesticulated wildly, shouting in French—a language I didn’t know well—and imperfect English. “It was promised me three thousand troops fit to separate Canada from Great Britain and make her our fourteenth state. Instead, I find disarray.”
This is not my father’s fault, I thought. And even if our soldiers had been in perfect order and well equipped, only a madman would think to assault Canada in winter. It had already been tried before and failed miserably.
Even I knew that, and I was no soldier.
I wasn’t impressed or overawed by Lafayette’s titles, or wealth, or ridiculously long list of names. He didn’t know our country, our winters, or our river. He was too young and inexperienced to know better, and I wanted desperately to say so.
“Please don’t be alarmed, Miss Schuyler,” a young officer whispered as he joined me near the stove, busying himself warming a pot of coffee. “General Lafayette—well—he can be . . . most passionate in his moods.”
The fellow attempting to soothe me was a tall, hulking soldier, with gray eyes and a dimple in his chin just like mine. He tilted his head in a quick bow beneath his frosty tricorn hat, then returned to the stove and courteously poured me a cup. “My apologies, miss,” he drawled. “It seems to be the dregs without sugar. In fact, I’m not even entirely sure it is coffee. But it’s all we have.”
I took the steaming tin cup warily as my father stood before a seething Lafayette and Arnold gingerly lowered himself into a camp chair, extending his injured leg. My drink was horribly bitter, but if it was good enough for our soldiers, I would just have to choke it down. “I appreciate it just the same, Major . . .”
“Monroe,” he whispered with the kind of shy, blushing smile that men usually gave my sisters, never me. “Major James Monroe.”
In spite of our situation, I found myself smiling a little, too. And under my breath, I said, “Have you served Lafayette long, Major Monroe?”
“Not precisely. I’m only here in my capacity as an aide to General Stirling, sent to deliver some confidential missives. It was a happy coincidence that he could send someone to accompany the French who knew the land, the language, and, well, Lafayette.”
“How did you come to know our lands?”
“I served in the Hudson Highlands last year.”
“And French?” I asked.
“My family is French Huguenot stock.”
I sipped at the coffee and tried not to make a face. “And Lafayette?”
“I was with him when he took a bullet at the Battle of the Brandywine.” Monroe smiled at a memory that should have made him frown. “He fell almost at my feet but somehow got up again to lead his men to safety. I stayed with him that night while the doctor tended him. So I know Lafayette is somewhat . . . irregular . . . but I think you’ll find that he’s brave and fair-minded.”
Eyeing Lafayette, who was still gesticulating wildly at my father to articulate some point, I was not much reassured by Monroe’s faith. A frigid wind gusted through the tent’s flap, and when the major saw me shiver—this time without exaggeration—he removed his own coat and wrapped it around my shoulders. It was a small gesture, one I should have absolutely refused, since he’d already ridden so far in the cold, but one so gallant that I was charmed.
It’s strange now, after all these years, to think how easily I was won over by James Monroe’s soft southern accent and courteous manner. Stranger still to realize that if I’d been told in that moment that one of the men in that tent would betray us, another would become my enemy, and a third would win my heart forever—I not only wouldn’t have believed it but would have guessed wrong as to which man o
n every score.
Thumping his fist on the table, Lafayette shouted, “This makes me wish I had never set foot in America or thought of an American war! All the continent knows where I am and what I am sent for. That I am to lead a great northern army. The world now has their eyes fixed on me. If I abort this campaign, men will have a right to laugh at me.”
At this, my father’s patience came to an end, and he delivered a stiff, cold defense. “I will remind you, General Lafayette, it was not my decision to send you here. I have been against it from the start.”
Lafayette tilted his head in apparent confusion. “Oui, oui. But of course.” He waved a hand. “That is what I am saying, my dear Général Schuyler. I have read your reports. I have seen what you have been forced to endure. I wish to take into my confidence you and General Arnold. Men loyal to Washington. Men I can trust.”
I was so surprised at Lafayette’s words that I nearly spilled what remained in my cup. My father appeared equally surprised and unsure how to react.
“In coming here,” Lafayette explained, “I go very slowly, sometimes pierced by rain, sometimes covered with snow, and not thinking many handsome thoughts about the projected incursion into Canada. I think now this is a scheme to have me out of the way.”
Papa took a moment to recover.
Benedict Arnold was quicker. “A scheme?”
“This plan is too stupid to be anything else,” the marquis insisted. “I have seen such machinations in a royal court. It is an unmistakable pattern, no?” When no one answered, Lafayette went on, “It is a plot against Washington or to replace him. You cannot strike a powerful man until you first remove his allies. This is why his rivals must discredit you, Schuyler. And it is why they send me to perish on some icy ledge.”
Even with all the plotting against Papa, I was loath to believe anything so diabolical could have been envisioned. But Lafayette was a nobleman from the most sophisticated court in the world, and possibly wiser in the ways of backstabbing politics than any of us.
So I believed him when he said, “Without Washington, there is nobody who could keep the army and the revolution for six months. We must give him a victory to bring back to the Board of War. If not in Canada, then somewhere else.”
Papa agreed, renewing his invitation to dinner where a plan could be devised with the other officers. Lafayette accepted this invitation, but cautioned against speaking too freely, even with the others in his entourage, explaining why he’d taken us into the privacy of the tent in the first place. “I wish for the happiness and liberty of this country, but now I fear that she could be lost by her own sons. My friends, I fear a traitor amongst us.”
* * *
You know Monroe to be a man of honor, a sensible man, and a soldier.
—LIEUTENANT COLONEL ALEXANDER HAMILTON TO LIEUTENANT COLONEL JOHN LAURENS
We’d endured British officers in our house, but now we made ready to welcome the French.
“I worried Mama wouldn’t leave us time to dress,” Peggy complained, throwing herself down upon the damasked canopied bed we shared.
For our mother had not been warned to expect guests—much less a French general and twenty officers. If my father had a blind spot, it was his assumption that my mother was always ready to graciously entertain at a moment’s notice. Even when noticeably pregnant, as she was now. Papa had, unwittingly, thrown her into a frenzy of preparation. With keys jingling at her hip, she marched from kitchen to larder to washhouse and back again, issuing orders to the servants and to us until the very last moment.
While I hurried to dress, Peggy propped herself up on her elbows to ask, “Are any of these French officers handsome, Betsy? Because if not, I’ll wear my old flowered frock and leave my best brocaded gown for a better occasion.”
“Wear the brocade.” Then, a little guiltily, I added, “And please sit next to Benedict Arnold tonight.”
Peggy groaned. “Why can’t you? I’d rather sit near someone who isn’t twice my age.”
I dared not meet her eyes, especially as I scarcely acknowledged to myself that I wished to sit beside Major Monroe. Slipping into dainty blue heels with bright rose ribbons, I confessed, “I told Arnold that you asked after him.”
“I only asked after his recovery,” Peggy grumbled, rising from the bed so that Jenny could brush her curls up into a tall coiffure.
“Well, don’t say anything to him about his slow recovery or his leg,” I told her, because Peggy was the sort who needed to be told such things. Sometimes more than once. “Arnold is very sensitive.”
Peggy merely shrugged in answer.
Fastening the blue paste earbobs, I was reminded again of my older sister. “We’ve still had no letter from Angelica in Boston . . .”
Sighing, Peggy nodded. “I suppose someday we’ll become accustomed to not having word from her.”
I didn’t think so. I could never add up all the ways in which our painful separation imposed its scars on me. A part of me felt guilty for feeling this way when I had yet another sister at my side, but I sometimes thought I could never be happy without Angelica’s protectiveness and the way she’d made me feel a needed part of her schemes. For as long as I could remember, we’d had a bond based on sharing confidences and sisterly advice. But my relationship with Peggy had never run as deep. I had fun with Peggy, and she made me laugh. But without Angelica I was left to figure out who I was—as a woman and a sister.
And since her elopement, I’d begun to think of myself differently.
No longer the middle sister, trying to mimic and falling short. Now, as the eldest daughter in the household, I felt a greater responsibility and confidence. So I pushed away the notion that the dazzling jewelry didn’t suit me and made for my father’s table.
Downstairs, beneath the chandelier and gilded portraits of my ancestors, Lafayette supped at one end of the glittering table next to my father. My mother presided at the other end near Baron de Kalb. Peggy squeezed between General Arnold and Major Monroe, which led to the happy circumstance of a space next to the latter for me.
It was surprisingly restorative to have friendly soldiers again in our home, and I listened intently for anything else Lafayette might reveal either about a plot against Washington or a suspected traitor amongst us. My attentions were so riveted on the Frenchman, in fact, that Peggy felt the need to twit me. “I thought perhaps a certain British Lieutenant André had already captured your affection,” she whispered. “Or have you finally set your cap for a French nobleman?”
I forced down a swallow to keep from choking on my buttered bread and embarrassment. If she’d been closer, I’d have kicked her beneath the table. As Major Monroe was sitting between us, he only stopped shoveling food into his mouth long enough to interject, “Alas, the marquis already has a wife. I’m afraid you ladies will have to aim a little lower.”
Peggy laughed. “To you?”
Reluctantly slowing his efforts to wolf down what might have been the first good meal he’d had in ages, Monroe blushed. “That would be more than a little lower. When it comes to marriage prospects, from the marquis to me, is a drop from a cliff.”
I smiled at the major’s self-deprecating nature.
Meanwhile, Peggy mused, “Lafayette is so young to be a general . . .”
“A year older than me,” Monroe replied, loyally. “And in any case, I think we’re better off under rising young officers than we are under Granny Gates.”
Granny Gates! It was a highly insubordinate thing for a junior officer to say of a general. We should have upbraided Monroe for it. And yet I don’t think he could have found any words that would have sounded sweeter to the daughters of Philip Schuyler.
I liked Monroe. I liked him very much. And that was even before Prince served our dessert course, when I noticed Monroe wincing as he rubbed at his shoulder.
“Are you injured, Major?” I asked.
“I was. It’s all healed up now.”
“Whatever happened to you?” Peggy
batted her eyelashes at him.
Monroe flushed. “I was foolish enough to get myself shot at the Battle of Trenton.”
We’d read newspaper accounts of that battle, and Peggy all but squealed. “Are you the one who seized the cannon shouting Victory or Death?”
With endearing humility, Monroe swirled a silver fork upon Mama’s floral china plate. “Well, I don’t remember what I shouted. All I heard was the whiz of a ball as it grazed my chest.”
Now this was entirely too much humility. “Grazed!” I exclaimed. “Why, I read that it hit an artery and blood bubbled up like a geyser through your uniform. Or wasn’t that you?”
Peggy’s pallor turned a little sickly green at my vivid description and Monroe’s eyebrow shot up, as if he couldn’t fathom that a lady might say such a thing at the dinner table. He stammered, “That—that was me . . .”
I started to explain that I took a keen interest in medicine but was saved from myself when Peggy raised a glass, as if it were proper for her to propose a toast. “To the Hero of Trenton!”
I started to raise my glass, but in catching the darkening jealous gaze of Benedict Arnold, I quickly added, “And the Hero of Saratoga!”
Mama frowned at our antics from her end of the table. But from the other, Lafayette raised his glass, too. “While we remember our worthy brothers-in-arms, I toast Mrs. General Schuyler, our gracious hostess, whose husband must soon be acquitted of these ridiculous charges made by stupid men who, without knowing a single word about war, undertake to judge.”
A more temperate man might have hedged his support, but Lafayette threw in for my father with his whole heart. And it thrilled me even as I looked round the table for those who might disagree.
My father nodded gratefully, as if humbled.
Then Lafayette stood and addressed me and Peggy. “Ladies, I am sad to abandon you now so I may hear wise advice from your papa and General Arnold.”
My Dear Hamilton Page 4
