My Dear Hamilton

by Stephanie Dray

  For we stood amidst the real encampment of the Continental army.

  Four miles away from the orderly streets of Morristown, where Washington and his officers conducted the business of war and hosted glittering winter’s balls, the ten thousand unwashed, unclothed, veteran soldiers lived in a wilderness city of log huts, made only of notched oak logs sealed with mud and straw.

  Trapped by snow. And starving.

  I’d seen soldiers in hard times before. In Albany, I’d seen undisciplined Yankee riflemen, untrained Negro boys sent as fodder, and soldiers with neither tents to shelter them nor hats to cover their heads. But that was three years ago.

  This was a gaunt ghost of an army now made up of scarecrow men whose hollowed, haunted eyes left me to wonder how they were alive at all. They were so hungry they had resorted to boiling their old leather shoes. Shoes they needed, lest they stand upon the snow in bare feet and frostbite deaden their toes, a fate they avoided by wrapping them in rags.

  I didn’t know that while I’d donned heels and danced and drank rum punch with officers, ordinary soldiers were sleeping twelve to each log hut, living on half-rations, and wearing what only laughingly could be called a uniform. And now that I did know it, I wanted to retch up every morsel I’d eaten for the shame of it.

  “Betsy,” my uncle said, softly, trying to draw me to follow him. But his efforts were to no avail, because in the swirl of my horror, I’d noticed a man hanging by one arm on a picket, tied to one of the few remaining trees, red blood flowing from his shivering ribs, his bare back laid open in gory gashes that revealed bone. And it looked as if his shoulder had dislocated.

  “Dear God, he needs help,” I said, starting for the poor fellow, my petticoats dragging in the snow.

  My uncle caught me by the arm. “It’s a military matter, Betsy.”

  As a general’s daughter, I’d known soldiers forced to run the gauntlet and slashed by their fellows. But the sorts of punishment meted out by the British army—a thousand lashes like to make a man die—I’d never seen in ours. And this man’s suffering seemed an utter barbarity. So I broke away from my uncle and rushed to the bloody soldier.

  What I would have done for him, I didn’t know. Untie him. Bandage him. Give him my cloak?

  I only knew that I must do something until the miserable fellow looked up at me from his bindings and croaked, “Listen to good Dr. Bones, lass.” His words slurred. “There’s nothing you can do. I was caught robbing the town folks.”

  “You’ve been punished for it, amply,” I said. “By whose orders are you left here to—”

  “I was d-deserting,” explained the half-frozen miscreant, his eyes glassy and his teeth chattering against the cold and the pain. “Better than the imbecility in staying and starving for a country that cares nothing for us. They’re likely to shoot or hang me c-come morning. So be an angel of mercy and pray for me to die.”

  A startled sob caught in my throat.

  “Elizabeth!” my uncle barked. This time, he brooked no resistance, pulling me away by the arm and taking such long strides that I was forced to take two steps for his every one.

  “He can’t be left there in agony, Uncle.”

  “The officers will decide that. I thought your father would have taught you this. I’d never have brought you with me if I thought otherwise.”

  As a general, my father, too, must have ordered men flogged or maybe even hanged. I’d never questioned Papa’s decisions, or his wisdom, or his mercy. But to torture a man—to torture all these men . . .

  “This is no place for ladies,” my uncle was saying. Yet I spotted women everywhere. Some even with children, also gaunt and starved. Camp followers, we called them, intimating they were prostitutes. Some were, but more were wives of the soldiers who, having been burned out of their homes by the British, had nowhere else to go. The women boiled water. They sewed. They cleaned clothes. And I was shamed at myself for not bearing up better when so many of them managed to.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, to my uncle. “I will better conduct myself.”

  But he’d thought better of my presence entirely. “What you’ll do is go to the Wick House until I fetch you. General St. Claire has his headquarters there.”

  If he’d been the officer to order a man lashed to the bone, I didn’t think I could face him.

  Sensing my reluctance, my uncle said, “Don’t keep me from tending the men.”

  Sorry for giving my uncle trouble, I nodded and grabbed up my skirts, then marched up a snowy path marked with blood from barefooted soldiers. I knocked upon the door of the little wooden farmhouse, but it wasn’t St. Claire who answered.

  It was Alexander Hamilton.

  Somewhat dazed, I asked, “Is General St. Claire here?”

  “I’m awaiting his return.” Hamilton frowned. “What the devil are you doing here?” At the moment, I was so shaken, I wasn’t sure. And when I didn’t answer, Hamilton guided me into the small space before a roaring fire, herbs drying from the rafters and copper pots hanging on the wall. And though it was clear he wasn’t pleased to see me, concern crept into his voice. “Miss Schuyler?”

  “Is it right to torture a soldier like that?”

  Realizing what I must’ve seen, he pinched at the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t give that order.”

  My lower lip quivered. “I only asked if it was right.”

  “Miss Schuyler, we must hold the army together.”

  It was a coldhearted answer. And he must’ve known that I thought so. Because he couldn’t meet my eyes. He stared at his boots. And I stared at him, hoping he would use his influence, if he could, to remedy the situation.

  Instead, at length, he said, “This morning I had the occasion to pass a private talking to his mates over a campfire. An Irishman, I gather. Not a wealthy soldier. Nor a learned one. Nor a statesman. Neither were his fellows. Indeed, they were a motley group of Yankees, Irishmen, Negroes, Buckskins, and whatnot. And do you know what they were discussing?”

  I shook my head. “I couldn’t guess.”

  “They were debating whether it was right to kill the Hessians on Christmas Day all those years ago. The men still feel sorrow over it because, they said, those Hessians had no choice to fight us. They were sent by a king.”

  I just stared, wondering what point he meant to make.

  “Remember. Not wealthy. Not learned. Not statesmen. And yet they came to the conclusion that they were fighting for the Hessians, too. They said they were fighting so that no one might ever again be sent to die as a slave instead of a free man.”

  At those words, I took a sharp breath, much affected.

  Hamilton came closer. “If we cannot hold this army together until springtime, that’s the end. We lose the war. We bow to the king. And every soldier who has fought and died in this war will have fought and died in vain. Our sacred rights erased from this earth.”

  “You wrote that our sacred rights could never be erased by mortal power.”

  Hamilton looked startled that I should remember the lines my sister recited, then made a dismissive sound at the back of his throat. “Well, I was an idealistic fool when I wrote that.”

  “No,” I whispered, my eyes blurring with tears. I didn’t believe it. He was brave to write those words. Even if the army fell apart and we lost this war and those ideas perished from the earth, I would always believe he was right to express them.

  At the visible evidence of my distress, Hamilton reached into his coat as if to retrieve a kerchief, and finding none, took the liberty of drawing me into his embrace.

  I found unexpected comfort in his strong arms, and we stood like that for a long time, awash in sadness. Eventually, he murmured into my hair, “You are going to be the ruin of me, Betsy Schuyler.”

  Still teary, I spoke words muffled by our closeness. “Why would you say so?”

  “When last we spoke, I returned to headquarters so distracted I couldn’t remember the watchword.”

  I could scar
cely believe him or understand how it might be my fault. “And you lay that at my feet?”

  “I’ve behaved very badly toward you,” he said, his arms still around me, warm and protective. “I am sorry for it. The truth is, Miss Schuyler, by some odd contrivance, you’ve found the secret of interesting me in everything that concerns you.”

  Interesting him? “But you’ve been avoiding me.”

  “Not enough, it would seem.” He stared at me so long I thought I’d beg him to go on, and then he did. “You aren’t the only good-hearted young lady of gentle breeding in Morristown, but you’re the only one who would ever come here. Which proves you deserve all I think of you and more, even if it’s become extremely inconvenient for me.”

  “Inconvenient?” I asked, searching those blue eyes in an effort to understand the meaningful tone of his voice.

  He sighed. “Extremely. You see, our little military family is the only family I’ve ever known. And because Tilghman is besotted with you, I ought never to have looked in your direction. But now I cannot stop looking.”

  With those words, he turned my world on its axis.

  And while it was still spinning, he gave an exasperated little laugh. “Oh, banish those stars in your beautiful black eyes, Miss Schuyler. Even were it not for Tench, I fear we are playing a comedy of all in the wrong and should correct the mistake before we begin to act the tragedy. I’m no fit suitor for you.”

  That he’d given thought to such a thing awakened something in me. “Because you’re an enemy of marriage?”

  “Because I have no fortune. I have no family. And I’m a sinner.”

  “Three things that can all be remedied by the right woman,” I said. It was, perhaps, the quickest answer I’d ever given in my life. And it seemed to take him off guard.

  “I hadn’t considered it that way.” I wasn’t sure I believed him. He was the sort of man who seemed to think about all sides of everything. But the next thing he said made me realize that perhaps, in matters of the heart, he didn’t allow himself. Releasing me from his embrace, his face reddening with chagrin, he held me at an arm’s length. “I’m afraid there remains yet one defect in my character that cannot be wiped away. I was born on the wrong side of the blanket and have no right to my name. I am a bastard,” he said, his lips curling with contempt of the word, or himself, I could not say. “Undeserving of a lady of your pedigree.”

  I would never have guessed it of him. He seemed every inch the cultivated gentleman. “I—I’d heard rumor you were descended of Scots nobility.”

  “Oh, I have better pretensions than most in this country who plume themselves with ancestry. I am the grandson of the Laird of Grange. Unfortunately, my mother was a divorced woman when she married my father. Unluckily, her divorce was later deemed to be unlawful.”

  He’d said this soberly and swiftly. And there was good reason for it. Divorce was nearly unheard of. Certainly scandalous. And yet, I said what I believed to be the plain truth. “Colonel Hamilton, no matter the circumstances of your birth, anyone with eyes can see your merit. Why, the blemish upon your birth is merely a wrinkle in the law.”

  Hamilton’s guarded expression softened. “You’re kind to cast it in that light. Others are not so generous.”

  “Perhaps they envy you, since your story unmasks you as an aristocrat with a family coat of arms.”

  I thought I said this very handsomely, but was rewarded only with dark amusement. “One with only lint in his pockets and alone in the world. Nothing to envy.”

  “You haven’t any family?” I asked.

  His fingers wrapped around mine, tentatively, then tighter and tighter as if he feared I would pull away when he went on to explain that in the West Indies he had a brother, and an estranged half-brother, but that his father abandoned the family and that his mother died when he was only twelve.

  My heart pounded in an agony of sympathy for him, wondering how he’d made his way, a veritable orphan, left to fend for himself. I couldn’t fathom it. In no circumstance, either prosperity or wreck, would my own long-suffering father leave us to the vagaries of fate. And I realized anew how fortunate I was.

  “You must pardon me, Miss Schuyler. I do not speak of these things often. And in such specificity, never. It dredges up . . .” He didn’t finish but seemed to sense my welling pity. “I do not mean to paint a picture of me as a barefooted street urchin. Before my mother died, we had books, a silver tea set, and a covered bed.” How miserable an inventory he felt compelled to make. “What you must think . . .”

  “I think that I wish to know you better.”

  He smiled softly. “A saintly answer from a saintly girl.”

  For no reason I could understand, I was desperate to disabuse him of this notion. And between what I’d seen outside that camp and all that Hamilton had just revealed, I felt nearly overwhelmed with an urgent mix of emotion. Sadness, helplessness, pity, attraction, and desire. Obeying an impulse I could scarcely comprehend, I leaned forward to kiss him.

  He actually startled, his hands grasping at my wrists as if he meant to push me away. As if he was the sort of man who never allowed an intimacy that he didn’t initiate. But then his grip on my wrists tightened and held me fast. It was as if my boldness had thrown a spark that Hamilton ignited into an all-consuming fire, for his mouth claimed mine and demanded to be claimed in return.

  It was no tender kiss we shared, happy and sweet. It was a kiss that tasted of grief and desperation. But also, unmistakably and forcefully, ardor. I forgot the cold. I forgot the soot and darkness of the cabin. I forgot the rank smell of the camp. Everything vanished except for that kiss and the stark terror of realizing that I was falling in love.

  At length, we broke apart, and Hamilton traced my lower lip, a little dazed. “Not a saint, it would seem, but an angel . . .”

  “Colonel Hamilton—”

  “Alexander,” he insisted. “I do believe we are on a footing for Christian names now . . .”

  “Alexander,” I said, enjoying the sound of it in my mouth. “You should know something about me and Colonel Tilghman.”

  He frowned, deeply. “Tell me.”

  “In all the years your friend allegedly harbored feelings for me, he never confessed them to me. And I never felt more than friendship in return. He has no prior claim to my affections.”

  “Then to the devil with Tench Tilghman,” Hamilton said, stroking his knuckles along my cheek. “For I have serious designs upon your heart, Miss Schuyler, and I flatter myself that I am no bad marksman.”

  After that, Hamilton was nearly every evening in my uncle’s parlor, with conversations that lasted so late into the night that my uncle groused about wishing to take his ease upon the settee and my aunt was forced to all but oust the young officer from the house.

  When Aunt Gertrude had finally shooed Hamilton out the door, she’d shaken her head and said, “Oh, Betsy. Of all Washington’s fine young officers, you choose the—”

  “Stray,” Kitty broke in. “There’s no help for it. Betsy has always been too softhearted.”

  “Well, I like Hamilton,” Angelica said, rising to my defense with my nephew in the crook of one arm, and a book in the other. “He’s an ambitious and clever fellow. Should we win the war, there is no limit to his future. And if Betsy wants him, she should have him.”

  Kitty shrugged, as if she didn’t care one way or the other. And I hoped she didn’t care, because I did want him. Quite shamelessly, it would seem. For on a particular evening when he pressed the advantage of my family’s distraction gossiping over mulled cider in the dining room, I made only the faintest protest against his fevered embrace. One in which he seemed to be trying to forget the horrors of the war.

  “God,” he groaned into my hair. “I am Phaethon, undone.”

  “Who?” I whispered, my head thrown back, too much wishing to forget the horrors of the war myself. But as much as I desired him, I didn’t wish to be just one more girl with whom he could forget.
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br />   Hamilton seemed dazed, entirely intent on kissing and nibbling the flesh beneath my ear—which was very pleasant indeed. But my question seemed to pull him back to himself. “Phaethon. I mentioned him in the letter I sent when I refused to take you to the sledding party. He was a figure of legend. The bastard of the Greek sun god. He died trying to prove his parentage by driving his father’s chariot, and set the world aflame. ‘And though greatly he failed, more greatly he dared.’”

  It sounded as if Hamilton admired the boy’s hubris.

  And it made me remember that he had, at least three times in our acquaintance, alluded to easy acceptance, if not a wish, for death. He’d done so first at the ball. Then in our walk home from the hospital. Then again in his note about this fabled bastard boy who died trying to prove himself. And now he was again comparing himself to that boy.

  Which was what gave me the strength that propriety didn’t to withdraw from his arms. “Colonel Hamilton,” I said, forcing him to look at me. “Alexander . . .”

  He blew out a long breath, then appeared as if he was considering an apology.

  Before he could manage one, I laced my fingers with his and hastened to say, “I am too much a general’s daughter not to understand that a soldier’s courage is found in overcoming his fear of death.” I swallowed, mustering my own courage to broach this, for I was keenly aware that in giving my heart to a soldier during wartime, I might lose it—and him—at any moment. Especially since I’d already heard tales of how Washington’s aides seemed to try to outdo one another in brash acts of battlefield bravery. Perhaps Hamilton was no different, in this respect, than Tilghman or McHenry or even their idolized, nearly mythical, John Laurens, about whom they never ceased to boast. “But—but surely you know there are other paths to glory besides death.”