I wish, now, he’d said so much more. For the memory of our son Philip holding that pistol even all these decades later retains the power to make me want to retch.
Alexander held out his hand for the pistol and returned the pair to their portmanteau, though that didn’t effect a change of subject because the men in my family were in a belligerent humor about Burr.
When it looked certain that we’d go to war with France, Burr had volunteered to help defend the harbor, despite his earlier support of the French Revolution. Burr had also abandoned his fellow Republicans to support the antislavery measure in New York’s legislature. He’d even proposed a new project to bring clean water to the city so as to prevent yellow fever. Alexander had been thrilled to see Burr’s political changes, and he’d championed them.
But it’d been a scheme. My harried husband, busy arranging for military supplies and organizing the army, had missed a few legal clauses belatedly added to the paperwork for the water utility—clauses that enabled Burr to transform the supposedly charitable corporation he started with my husband’s help into a bank.
A Republican bank.
Burr had used him.
It’d been a masterful and malevolent joke, sly and well executed at the very time my husband was occupied in everything from designing military uniforms from sash to buttonhole, to recommending a military academy at West Point. Otherwise, Hamilton would never have been distracted enough to let Burr slip something past him.
Seldom did anyone outsmart Alexander Hamilton.
But Burr had done just that, in a most public and humiliating way.
Alexander had privately fumed, but Church accused Burr of corruption, which brought about a duel between the men, where my brother-in-law proved himself such an expert marksman that he shot a button off Burr’s coat—a feat that much impressed my sons, but not my sister.
Hearing Church boast now about how he could have killed a man, Angelica set her cup down so hard that I feared it would crack, and strong black tea sloshed over both sides. For she, like the rest of us, had learned of her husband’s duel only after the fact. And the fright of having so nearly been made a widow, in complete ignorance, still set her nerves on edge.
“What if you had killed him, Jack?” Angelica asked.
No one in our family seemed poised to answer that question—least of all my unrepentant brother-in-law. And over our teacups, Peggy and I exchanged a look, both of us knowing from childhood experience not to tangle with Angelica when she was in this mood. But as my newborn daughter mewled like a kitten in her cradle, I was emboldened to remind everyone of our blessings. “Let’s just give thanks to God that no one was hurt. Not to mention that we’re all together to enjoy a respite in this beautiful countryside.”
“A respite that would’ve been even more enjoyable if you’d named your new daughter Margaret,” Peggy piped up, both changing the subject and professing jealousy that we’d named our first daughter after Angelica but none after her.
“I’m afraid I favor the name Elizabeth,” Alexander replied with a wink. “But perhaps the next one . . .”
“The next one! And to think I once feared Betsy would be a spinster. You’re like rabbits, you two,” Peggy accused, quite heedless of the agonized cringes this elicited from my sons and the chorus of snickers from their cousins. Especially Angelica’s twenty-one-year-old Flip and Peggy’s eleven-year-old Steven—where they stood, still admiring Church’s pistols in the open portmanteau.
Reaching to pat my husband’s knee, I said, “Since the gentlemen of the family have been so fixated on guns, perhaps you might take the boys into the woods and bring us some ducks for supper.”
Alexander looked as if he wished to protest but called for his new hunting dog, an overeager spaniel that answered to the name Old Peggy. That’s when my Philip joked to his aunt, “You have a Hamiltonian namesake after all.”
Peggy gave an indignant sputter that sounded quite like the curly-haired mongrel—eliciting howls of laughter from all of us. “My nephew is a rogue,” Peggy said, affectionately ruffling Philip’s dark hair. “Be gone with you to fetch our supper.”
Then Alexander marched off into the forests of Harlem with a fowling piece in hand, my brothers-in-law and our boys all trooping behind.
“Do you see how Church swaggers about like a daring boy of eighteen?” Angelica hissed when they’d gone.
To soothe her, I said, “You were once charmed by Church’s daring.”
“That was before I loved him,” Angelica replied, taking me quite by surprise. “When we eloped, that was just the seedling of love. It’s taken years of careful tending, pruning, and cultivation to come to full flower. Though, if Church had gotten himself killed in a childish duel, I should doubt the whole enterprise of love altogether!”
Peggy dramatically rolled her eyes. “Oh, how would it have looked if he’d refused Burr’s challenge? It’s the way men defend their personal honor.”
Angelica seethed. “It’s never personal with Burr. Tell her, Eliza.”
“It’s true,” I said, in the familiar role of mediator between them. As improbable as it sounded, Burr was, and had always been, wryly amused with life, taking it all for a game.
“Burr only cares about his political reputation,” Angelica said. “Now, thanks to my husband, that sly self-seeker can boast that he didn’t flinch when a bullet came close enough to wing a button off his coat. He’ll tell that story every chance he gets while campaigning for Jefferson in the upcoming presidential election. And mark me a fool if Burr doesn’t win the vice presidency for himself.”
“Heaven forfend,” I said, glad Alexander wasn’t present to hear this prediction, for it would have sent him spiraling into a rage.
What I wanted was to celebrate with my sisters that we were all together. The three of us. Our children playing together outside. Our husbands good friends. Just as I’d once dreamed we’d be.
So I did my best to soften Angelica’s temper until the three of us were laughing together as we did when we were girls. “I’ll call her Lysbet for short,” I said to Peggy of the new daughter in my arms. “And I am sorry, Peggy. I wanted to call her Margaret but my husband is still persuasive when he desires something.”
She snorted. “Oh, and I’ll bet he knows just how to persuade you, too. No doubt it involves his—”
“Say no more!” I said, laughing despite myself. “There’s an innocent babe here.”
Chuckling, Peggy smoothed her hand over Lysbet’s downy hair. “Call her what you like. It’s just good to see you happy again.”
I was happy, I realized.
The advantage of the Reynolds scandal was that I no longer had anything to hide. I found satisfaction in my work—and in Alexander’s. For on the Fourth of July, we’d toasted the state legislature’s passage of a law establishing the gradual abolition of slavery. And shortly thereafter, Alexander had taken me to scout a property he meant to buy for our home—a high, wooded place not far from the river.
The country still feared an American war with France—with that tyrant, Napoleon Bonaparte. But with Washington and Hamilton at the head of our armies, we could be in no safer hands.
* * *
Doctor, I die hard. But I am not afraid to go.
—GEORGE WASHINGTON
December 1799
New York City
George Washington’s passing shook the very foundations of the country. Few men on earth had done more to earn eternal rest than the former president, but we were left like children frightened to face a world without him. Even Alexander, though he was loath to admit it.
Nevertheless, like a grieving son, my husband went to Philadelphia to march in a somber funereal procession in honor of his fallen chief, wearing a black sash of mourning, leading a white riderless horse from Congress Hall, accompanied by a solitary drumbeat.
But where were the rest of the country’s supposedly great men?
One would have searched the assembled crowd i
n vain for Jefferson, Madison, or Monroe. Though I could well imagine the three Republicans clustered around a dinner table, wickedly toasting Washington’s demise and the opportunity it now gave their party to rise to power.
For my part, I was forced to steal away to the privacy of my room so that the children would not see my tears fall as I remembered the first time that godlike man spoke my name in welcoming me to his military encampment.
My heart bled for Martha.
She must feel so alone now, I thought. Inconsolable. She’d had children from her first marriage, but none with Washington. And she’d had only two years with her husband after a lifetime of public service. Only two years to sit together upon their piazza overlooking the Potomac and dine together in the privacy of their rooms. And yet, even then, I knew Mount Vernon resembled a well-resorted tavern, with people stopping by for a glimpse of the former president and in expectation of southern hospitality. A meal, a room for the night, a stable with feed for their horses—all at Washington’s expense, of course.
We consumed him, I thought, clutching the pendant I wore containing his hair.
We might not have chopped off Washington’s head and lapped up his blood from the paving stones as the French mobs did with their king. But we’d taken the best years of his life—his sweat, his toil, his wisdom, his vigor and energies. And what did we give him in return? For eight years we called him president. Now we called him the Father of the Country.
Who then, was the heir?
All eyes, it seemed, turned to an increasingly erratic President John Adams. But finding him wanting, some looked to Alexander Hamilton. And for the first time, I found myself almost grateful for the exposure of my husband’s infidelity. Because it meant that he hadn’t the stature to run for the presidency. Not now, at least.
We were stuck with President Adams. The alternative was unthinkable.
The alternative was Jefferson.
“Did you remember to deliver the parcel to Widow Rhinelander?” I asked Philip when he absconded with a piece of bread, trying to slip out the back door.
“I could scarcely forget, with all your reminders.” My tall son leaned against the butcher block table in the basement kitchen of our rented town house, affecting a manly devil-may-care pose. He was still dutiful about helping to deliver baskets to the needy, but having graduated from Columbia College, he would not be at my beck and call for long. He was grown now—and keen to prove it. “Fortunately, Mrs. Rhinelander has a very pretty girl living next door to her . . .”
“Naughty young man,” I scolded, for he was entirely too much like his father had once been—irresistibly brilliant, shamelessly flirtatious, and outrageously handsome. I’d already had to warn him against making eyes at our pot-scrubbing girl. Now I snatched the butter before he absconded with it, too. “Don’t make me fear to send you on errands for the charity lest you flirt with the ladies.”
“I wouldn’t flirt with Widow Rhinelander.” Philip’s mouth twisted into a feigned expression of horror and he shuddered. “She reminds me of the Baron von Steuben, may he rest in peace. Besides, she says all her German gentlemen friends are voting Republican . . .”
Of course they were.
Which was why, for the coming elections, I found myself undertaking the most energetic role in the political wrangling that I could without forfeiting my dignity as a lady. While going door to door and church to church raising charitable donations, I’d made careful note of those with Federalist sympathies who might be approached for support. Every day that my husband—who should’ve been about the business of the military—rode hither and yon, haranguing passing crowds on street corners, attending committee meetings in various wards, and even enlisting our sons to stand watch at polling stations where we suspected election trickery, I pinned my black Federalist cockade to my hat and went out to praise the virtues of courage and perseverance in the Federalist cause.
It was an unseemly business to electioneer in support of President Adams, but we’d been forced to it by Aaron Burr, who opened his house to offer refreshments and a mattress upon the floor to any grubby miscreant willing to campaign for a populist sweep of Jeffersonians into the government.
And now Philip complained, “It seems Colonel Burr sent someone to the neighborhood who spoke German. And he’s drawing up lists of voters in all the immigrant precincts.”
“For all the good it will do him,” I said, smugly. “To vote, immigrants must have resided here fourteen years, and own substantial property.”
But, having embarked upon the study of the law in his father’s footsteps, Philip explained, “Burr’s found a legal loophole. He’s going to have them pool the value of their property so they can qualify to vote.”
Damn Aaron Burr! Was there no end to his schemes?
Of course, it was just what Alexander would’ve done if he’d thought of it. My husband had, after all, filled the Federalist slate with booksellers, a grocer, a mason—precisely the sort of working people who ought to appeal to populists. And, as if in diabolical mockery, Burr filled the Republican slate with rich and venerable old Clintonites and Livingstons for the cachet of their family names.
Despite what he’d said to me on the street that day, however, I didn’t think Burr’s tireless campaigning came from any principled stance; he simply wanted to be vice president. And perhaps that wouldn’t be so terrible an ambition if he didn’t want to serve under Jefferson, who would assuredly plunge us back into a world of chaos, starvation, and riots.
“We’d better warn your father,” I said, grabbing up the lunch basket I’d filled with fruit and pastries. I wouldn’t open my home with mattresses on the floor for every mercenary willing to campaign under my husband’s generalship, but I was determined to feed and encourage the troops.
As I searched for Alexander and passed out my baked goods to my husband’s loyalists on the streets, I heard the most outrageous talk amongst the milling crowds. Hollow, ignorant Republican slogans. Curses and taunts at our party’s volunteers. Libelous rumors about President Adams. I felt a growing dread that if we lost this election, my future and that of my children would be thrown into a world characterized by such vitriol—all at the hands of Jefferson—an atheist in religion and a fanatic in politics.
I would see half the earth desolated, Jefferson once said to me.
That must not be allowed to happen.
I finally found my husband outside a notorious boardinghouse on Greenwich Street warning a discontented crowd of ruffians against a Jefferson presidency.
“Alexander,” I called, attempting to push through them with my basket.
But he didn’t hear me, and they refused to hear him. Instead, the men shouted him down. “Thief! Rascal! Villain!”
They cursed my husband, their general, a man still in uniform with a sword on his hip. Stunned, I took a step back and quite nearly bumped into the Quaker proprietress of the boardinghouse waving her arms at my husband, and shrieking, “If thee dies a natural death, Hamilton, I shall think there is no justice in heaven! I’ll never support anything you’re about. I tell all my boarders to vote with Burr!”
It wasn’t the first time that proprietress had accosted him. She’d done it months before in a courtroom where Alexander had defended the man accused of murdering her cousin. The trial had created a sensation, especially when Alexander exposed the proprietress as running a bit of a bawdy house. So it didn’t surprise me to hear the woman shriek and rave.
Outraged, my husband tugged his military coat straight. “Hear now—”
The growing crowd drowned him out with a raucous cheer of support for the proprietress, one that made me anxious. “Alexander,” I said, finally forcing my way through to him.
“Oh, dear Eliza, it’s too rowdy out here today for you.” He took my basket and sheltered me away from the unruly mob with an arm around my shoulders. But frustration rolled off him. “Why does that lady not recall that Aaron Burr was the other defense attorney in that case? Why
doesn’t she blame him, too?”
“Because Burr is slippery,” I replied when we finally found a bit of privacy in the doorway to a millinery shop. “The sort of fellow off the surface of whom can slide almost any resentment.” Whereas, when it came to Alexander, everything stuck.
Perhaps that was because Burr’s ancestry stretched back to Jonathan Edwards, one of the great New England theologians, whereas Hamilton was said to be a Creole bastard. Or perhaps it was because Burr never proclaimed any position on anything until he knew which way the wind was blowing, whereas Hamilton could never keep an opinion to himself.
Late that night, sinking in exhausted despondency beside his father in the parlor, Philip groaned. “Our state election is over. They’ve swept the slate. It’s all Republicans.”
New York would give twelve electoral college votes to Jefferson. Enough, quite possibly, to tip the balance of the presidency. And it was all accomplished by the wily Aaron Burr who had, in the late hours of the election, gotten every man who couldn’t vote to bring out wagonloads of those who could, even carrying the infirm and sitting them down on chairs in the middle of the cobblestone street to wait their turn.
We’d lost New York!
My general had been out-generaled. I suppose it had always seemed impossible to me that Alexander could fail at anything he set his mind to, and so I sank down, too, numbly.
But at the stroke of midnight, Alexander was already at his desk, drawing up new battle plans. Feverishly, he scratched out a letter to the governor, audaciously suggesting that presidential electors should be chosen by popular vote rather than by the incoming legislature.
“Such a measure would be seen as overturning the election,” I warned, hoping to dissuade him from sending it. “And would surely cause a civil war.”
“A civil war would be preferable to Jefferson,” Philip said, perhaps remembering the sermon we’d heard at church telling us that if Jefferson became president, we’d have to hide our Bibles.
My Dear Hamilton Page 43
