And it was true, because to my mind it appeared that Alexander was in the process of single-handedly laying out the foundations for everything the American union might yet become, of creating the better world he’d promised to create. That might have been the proud wife in me speaking, but I didn’t think so.
His brow lifted, as if in surprise, but then wariness settled into his blue eyes. “Are you still teasing me, Betsy?”
“No, my dearest, I’m trying to tell you that in spite of my simmering disapproval of your decision to leave the general, I am so very proud of you.”
Alexander ducked his chin and cleared his throat, as if embarrassed or overwhelmed by my compliment. Had no one ever said such a thing to him before? Or had no one made him believe it? I couldn’t resist the urge to make sure he knew the truth of my feelings.
I moved to him, crouched by his knees, and peered up into his handsome face. “I am so very proud to be your wife.”
He grasped my hand hard where it rested on his leg, and when he looked at me, his gaze was filled with a depth of gratitude that made me fall a little more in love with him, and it stirred a longing in my body.
Tentatively, I reached for him until I captured his mouth with mine. The soft contact was like putting a match to kindling. It unleashed something within him—in truth, within us both. He took me to our bedroom, whispering, “I need you, Betsy. How I need you.” Warmth bloomed inside me at the sentiment, and then flared hotly as my husband grasped at the material of my skirts. “I just need . . .”
We came together desperately, frantically, but I’d never felt more loved and cherished.
Afterward, he turned to me, his arm cradling my neck. “I wish I’d met you earlier. That you’d been at home that first time I visited your father in Albany. I wish I knew you even when you were a girl—”
“You wouldn’t have looked twice at me then,” I teased, though I believed it to be true.
“You’re wrong. I’d have loved you, and wished to learn everything about you. I’d have tried to be worthy of you that much sooner and been a better man for it. You ease me, Betsy. My mind races, but your touch calms me. My thoughts fly, but your presence allows me an escape. I want nothing more than to please you in return. In your eyes, I wish to be the most amiable, the most accomplished. And when I’m not, I will endeavor to make up for all I lack with love.”
I pressed my lips to his. “You are the most amiable.” I kissed him again. “And so very accomplished.” Again. “And even more handsome.”
How strange it was to reassure a man whom every other woman in the world seemed to desire. His smile grew as humor slid into his gaze. “How handsome?”
I feigned exasperation with a roll of my eyes, but couldn’t hide my grin. “Are you fishing for more compliments?”
“From the mouth of my angel? Always.” His touch turned hungry once more, and his lovemaking that night won me over again and again with the belief that Alexander Hamilton—this brilliant, complicated, flawed man—needed me.
And I needed him, too.
Heeding Lafayette’s words, I’d done what I could to encourage him to return to Washington’s service, but now I thought better of it. If my husband wished to resign his commission in the army, I would encourage him to do so. Because I had now glimpsed the statesman in him, and I knew he would blaze a trail of glory in whichever path he chose.
Besides, it was much safer, I thought, to be a statesman than a soldier.
How naive I was.
* * *
“WELL, YOU’VE FINALLY done it, Ham,” said Tench Tilghman, with a lingering cough. With the coming of summer, I’d left the door open to a breeze, and now looked up to find the colonel’s height filling the entryway of our home, an expression on his face that warred between admiration and annoyance. “You’ve forced the great man’s hand.”
“What?” Hamilton asked, rising up hastily from the table where he was composing political essays on the defects in the Articles of Confederation.
But Tilghman, perhaps vexed that he’d been forced to cross the river in a rowboat just to deliver this news, was in no hurry to satisfy my husband’s curiosity. Instead, he turned his attentions to me and grinned, tipping his hat. “I shouldn’t have been so long without seeing you, Mrs. Hamilton.” He glanced out the window at the river he’d just rowed across. “It’s only that your jealous husband put an actual gulf between us.”
I laughed, and offered to have our servant fetch him some porridge. But Alexander thumped the table impatiently, “Out with it, man. What news?”
“Washington is not about to let you resign your commission as you’ve tacitly threatened to do,” Tilghman replied, and I could see that was the part that annoyed him. “So you’re getting your command.”
My husband tensed. “Tell me.”
“A New York light infantry battalion.”
The glee that broke out on Alexander’s face defied all description. He was, thereafter, in a celebratory mood, and invited Tench to stay for a meal. The next morning, my husband was eager to meet with the generals about the long-awaited battle and left early, finally, and at long last, crossing the river back to headquarters.
And I was absolutely nauseated over the thought of him finally going off to fight. I couldn’t tolerate my breakfast, and could only nurse a cup of tea until the nausea passed. It took three days in a row of this same discomfort before I counted back to my last monthly courses and it finally dawned on me.
I was pregnant. I was going to have a baby.
I debated when to tell Alexander about my suspicions, wishing to be more certain before I raised his hopes. But my husband forced my hand, just as he’d forced Washington’s.
To take command of his troops, Hamilton needed to ride south, and this time, he couldn’t have me with him. We’d all assumed that the summer campaign would take place in New York, but new intelligence from Lafayette—which I later learned had come from a Negro spy the marquis had recruited—suggested that we might better gamble it all in Yorktown, Virginia.
Whichever choice was made, Hamilton would have to be ready to ride into battle in an instant. Which meant we had to say our good-byes.
Oh, God. What if he doesn’t come back? What if he never meets his child?
As I had this thought, my husband came immediately to my side. “Betsy, dearest angel, what is it? You’ve gone so pale. Are you still unwell?”
“No,” I said, gulping a deep, steadying breath. “Well, perhaps a little.”
Alexander frowned. “I’m calling for the doctor. But let’s get you to bed first.”
“That’s not necessary,” I said, letting myself be pulled from the chair. “Alexander—”
“I’ll row out and retrieve him right away,” he said, a tinge of panic to his words. “It won’t take long. I promise.”
“I’m not ill,” I said abruptly, rushing to allay his fears. “I’m pregnant.”
Alexander froze. As my announcement sank in, my hands went to my belly. His gaze followed, and then he was looking at me with the purest expression of wonder I’d seen on any man’s face. “You’re pregnant.”
“You’re going to be a father,” I said, heart beating hard against my breast.
Slowly, Alexander placed a hand atop my own, and when he lifted his eyes to mine, they were glassy with joy and awe. “I’m going to be a father.”
Smiling, I nodded. And then we were laughing and embracing even as Alexander asked a hundred questions and insisted all over again that I needed to lie down. That night, I whispered into the darkness, “Whatever happens, you must come back to me, to us.”
Alexander pulled me tight against him. “Oh, Betsy. It costs me a great deal to be absent from you, but I promise we won’t be separated for long.”
I tried to believe him.
The next day, as he put me in the carriage for my father’s house, his expression a mask of regret, he said, “I miss you already.”
“As do I miss you.” Tears s
tung my eyes, but I wanted to be strong for him, when all his focus needed to be on the coming fight. “I love you,” I said, then insisted more fiercely. “Come back to me.”
“I will,” he whispered, his voice strained. He closed the door and tapped on the side of the carriage, and it lurched to a start.
And I could only hope that in having unleashed the forces of war, my husband would not, like Phaethon, be struck down for hubris in his quest for glory, our dreams of the future mere ashes for me to mourn.
Chapter Thirteen
August 1781
Albany
OUR ARMY WOULD risk everything in Yorktown.
There, in Virginia, Lafayette had somehow cornered the British general Cornwallis. And success relied upon the trustworthiness of James Armistead, the black spy who was posing as a runaway slave in the British camp and feeding Lafayette critical intelligence. Papa, who was privy to the strategy, seemed confident of victory. And I tried to be, too.
But we’d been losing for so long, and now, with a child on the way, I had more to lose than ever before. After seven years of fighting, we’d so many times seen victory slip away. Only for the flower of our youth to perish ingloriously for a cause that might never be won. And in my secret heart, hope became to me a fleeting mirage. No matter how desperately I reached for it, it felt always just beyond my grasp.
So I dared not believe my husband when he wrote to me at my father’s house, where I’d taken refuge with my family, to promise, Cheer yourself with the assurance of never more being separated after the war. My object to be happy in a quiet retreat with my better angel.
I felt like no angel.
I had neither wisdom nor peace nor the power to protect those I held dear. To keep me safe, Alexander had sent me home, where all I could do was await news of the war.
Until the war suddenly came to us.
“Bar the doors,” Papa said, his command punctuated by a clamor of silver and plates as we sprang from the table.
For years, the enemy had been trying to seize or kill my father. And now our fears were finally at hand. A stranger had come to the back gate, insisting my father come outside.
Fortunately, Papa had been forewarned by his spy network that they would use just such a ruse to lure him out of the house, and now he barked, “Upstairs!”
Racing like a much younger man, Papa took the stairs two at a time to get his weapons. Meanwhile Angelica grabbed her daughter and I grasped the first little one within my reach—my three-year-old nephew, who’d been dozing in the window seat—then hurried up the stairs behind my father.
At the landing, I stopped to pull the shutters closed. That’s when we heard the shrill war cry that turned my knees to water. I caught a glance in the yard below of men in moccasins and feathers—Mohawks or Loyalists disguised as Indians, I couldn’t be sure. But what I did know was that it was a war party, and a loud commotion at the back door told me that they’d overpowered our guards.
They’re in the house! I fought down the panic, for my sake, and for that of the babe in my womb. Would it all end in tragedy before I met my beloved child?
Not if the Schuyler family had anything to say about it. My seventeen-year-old brother, Johnny, grabbed muskets from the cabinet in the hall. Papa threw open a window and fired a shot from his pistol as we heard the grunts of men locked in struggle below stairs.
Meanwhile, my five-year-old sister wept, clinging to my father’s knees. “They’ve come for you, Papa. We won’t let them get you!”
Just then, we heard the wail of an infant below, and a sickly terror gripped me.
“Where’s the baby?” Mama cried, her usually stern voice betraying panic.
Dear God. In all the chaos, we’d left my new baby sister, Catherine, sleeping in her cradle by the front door. We’d left her. And now our enemies had breached the door.
“They won’t harm her,” Angelica said. If there were Iroquois with them, they might take her. And that I couldn’t allow. I started for the stairway, but Angelica grabbed my arm. “You’re pregnant.”
“I must get her,” I replied without a second thought. I was the best runner, a strong climber, the one who adventured like a boy while Angelica buried her nose in books and Peggy preened in front of a mirror.
And yet, Peggy said, “I’ll go.”
“No!” I cried after her. But Peggy dashed to the stairs—her figure a bobbing blur along the walnut banister of our elegant staircase. I crept down after her, feeling faint with fear as the shouts and scuffles of fight from the back of the house escalated. A moment later, Peggy rushed back, the baby bundled in her arms. “Hurry!” I cried from the landing, reaching down for Peggy to surrender the baby to me as a crash sounded and war whoops echoed throughout the house.
Just a few steps farther and . . .
A hulking white man with a hatchet lunged from the dining room, grabbed Peggy, and shook her. “Wench, where is your master?”
He’d mistaken her for an indentured servant. Maybe because, due to the heat, we hadn’t dressed for dinner. Whatever the reason, Peggy’s eyes narrowed in contempt and confusion, and I thought it would be just like her to say something she shouldn’t with her very last breath on earth.
Instead, my little sister masterfully transformed her expression into servility. “General Schuyler’s gone to alarm the town. He was warned you were coming. Please, sir, that’s all I know.”
Just then, I glanced up to the hidden top of the stairs to see Papa, pistol in hand, his expression murderous. I shook my head at him and pleaded with my eyes for him to stay where he was, out of sight, because the brute was buying Peggy’s clever ruse.
“Please let me go.” Peggy sniveled. “I tell you truthfully, he’s gone!”
Biting out a silent curse, Papa disappeared into one of the bedrooms. And then, taking advantage of Peggy’s lie, he shouted out an open window. “Come on, my brave fellows, surround the house and capture the scoundrels!”
It was enough to convince our marauders that Papa’s patriot forces had arrived to rescue us. And, in frustration, the villain holding Peggy shoved her so violently that she fell at the foot of the stairs, trying to shield the wailing infant.
The man lifted his tomahawk as if to butcher them both, and I yelled, “Don’t you dare, you devil!”
But perhaps he only meant it to frighten us, for when he brought the hatchet down, the blade buried itself in my father’s fine wood railing with a thunk, sending a spray of wood chips into Peggy’s hair. Then he fled through the entry hall, from whence a clang of falling silver rang out. Meanwhile Peggy called down hell and brimstone after him as he escaped with his booty.
The intruders melted away from the house as suddenly as they’d come, but they’d dragged away three of our guardsmen as prisoners. And before the attack had even subsided, I flew down to help Peggy rise. “Dear God, are you hurt?”
“We’re both unharmed,” she said, though there was a tremble in her voice. “Can you take her?”
I accepted my wailing infant sister into my arms, and an immediate rush of relief flooded me—for her and the baby in my womb. We were safe. All of us. We’d survived the assault. “We all have you to thank,” I told Peggy. “That was incredibly brave.”
She ran shaking fingers along the line where the hatchet remained buried in the wood, then peered up at me with uncharacteristic humility. “I knew it’s what you would’ve done, Betsy, but I could hardly let you do it. So I had no choice but to be brave.”
It was possibly the sweetest, most tender moment we’d ever shared as sisters, and I couldn’t resist hugging her. Realizing that perhaps I had always misjudged her a little.
Mama offered comfort to my terrified siblings while Papa snapped orders to a surviving soldier to ride for help.
And I went to tend the wounded.
Without hesitation, I tore the hem of my own muslin gown to make bandages. I thought nothing of it. Nor should I have. The attack on our home stripped from me and my sister
s any remaining illusions that we might go on as dainty ladies in such a fraught enterprise as a fight for freedom. And so much the better. I vowed to myself that if our attackers came back, it wouldn’t only be my father and his sons who armed themselves with muskets.
I would bear one, too. Because there was no safety for the wife or child of a revolutionary but in victory.
* * *
October 18, 1781
Albany
How strange it is to recall that though I met my husband in the coldest winter, in the darkest hour of the war, I met Aaron Burr on a shining sunny day of thanksgiving.
“They’re saying your husband is a great hero, Mrs. Hamilton,” the man said when I found him waiting in the blue parlor for an interview with my father. One of Papa’s guards informed me that we had a caller—a veteran who’d resigned from service due to failing health, though his unforgettable hazel eyes flashed with vigor. And he appeared every inch the urbane gentleman in a tailored suit of gray satin.
I’d come to tell him that Papa had gone to town, but the promise of news about Alexander completely diverted me. “You know of my husband, Mister—”
“Colonel Burr,” he said, stepping to reach for my hand and bringing it to his lips in greeting. With a mouth set in a mischievous smirk and those shrewd eyes, the colonel was extremely handsome. “Aaron Burr. I served with your husband.”
I could remember no specific anecdote or story about Burr—my husband’s most colorful stories were always about Lafayette and Laurens—but I was too anxious to learn what he knew of Alexander to think of anything else. “I meant . . . you’ve heard news of him?”
No sooner had I asked than did my heart leap to my throat, for I became suddenly quite fearful that this man in his elegant clothes had come to tell me not that my husband was a hero but that he’d died as one.
Burr’s features slid into an enigmatic expression that couldn’t quite be called a smile. “No doubt your father will receive the dispatch, but a wife on the verge of motherhood ought to know straightaway. So I’m very honored to tell you there are whispers of a great victory at Yorktown.”
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