Many thanks as well to historian Joseph F. Stoltz III at the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington, housed on the Mount Vernon Estate, who kindly guided my study of Philip Schuyler’s spy network and counterintelligence efforts. He seemed as pleased as I was to find proof within Mount Vernon’s collections of Moses Harris’s activities! I am also grateful to librarian Sarah Myers who patiently helped me access the founding fathers’ letters and nineteenth-century magazine articles, which added such personal immediacy and rich anecdotes.
Retired Park Ranger Larry Arnold spent hours driving me around the Saratoga battlefield and introducing me to the welcoming staff of the Schuyler House in Saratoga. Morristown National Historical Park Education Specialist Tom Winslow responded to a long list of questions with carefully culled information about the brutal winter of 1779–80 and George Washington’s encampment.
In addition to her perceptive editing comments, assistant editor Mabel Hsu braved the enormous collection of Philip Schuyler papers at the New York Public Library to collect otherwise unavailable letters I needed. There she found evidence of Richard Varick’s devoted personality, which added an unexpected and sweet supporting character to Peggy’s life. Friend and actor Michaela Kahan read the manuscript with an eye for the platability of Peggy’s real-life personality and life arc I researched and presented, given the almost urban legend–level expectations generated by fans of the musical. The unsung heroes of publishing are the production editors and copy editors, especially for a narrative dictated by historical facts and enriched with letters and direct quotes. I am so grateful for production editor Emily Rader’s and copy editor Jessica White’s painstaking, meticulous, and insightful work.
Finally, as with all the most profound and rewarding aspects of my life, my children—professional creative artists themselves—were inspiration for and integrally involved in this project—researching and guiding the novel’s characterizations, plotline, and themes, and reassuring me that I was allowed to imagine plausible scenarios which rippled out from the reams of facts that we pulled in from our wide-cast nets into the sea of Revolutionary War documents.
It was my daughter, Megan—a poetic and ingenious theater director who always manages to diaphanously accentuate the most subtle of a playwright’s messages while pulling out emotive and smart performances from her actors—who first introduced me to Hamilton. Thanks to her, we wrangled tickets to see the original cast, and I watched dumbfounded and delighted, knowing I was witnessing the transformation of theater and its possibilities. Given the fast turnaround of this project, Megan read almost as much as I did, focusing on researching the roles and challenges facing female Patriots—helping me build as much of a feminist narrative as possible within the reality of eighteenth-century life. She also lent me her nuance of vision and interpretation.
My son, Peter, an exquisite screenwriter and playwright—whose fluid, character-driven scripts always present beautifully complex and compelling personas, revealed deftly and viscerally within riveting action—helped me stay focused on Peggy’s individual journey within the wide, engrossing (and therefore distracting!) universe of the Revolution. His suggestions honed my pacing and authenticity of dialogue and helped me crystallize characters. An avid lover of history himself, Peter read and fed me material on George Washington, helping me invigorate the legendary father figure with tangible and very human traits.
Peter’s fascination with the past and ability to present it in captivating ways to modern sensibilities was echoed at a White House appearance by Chris Jackson, the actor who so beautifully originated Miranda’s George Washington: “In my high school we didn’t have a theater program. History was my drama program. I saw each and every moment in history as the most dramatic moment ever—which it was to the people who were taking part in it. Look at it from the perspective of who’s the protagonist, who’s the antagonist, what’s at stake,” he advised a teen writer invited by First Lady Michelle Obama to speak with the cast. “You might find a world there to unlock.”
I am so grateful to all who gave me the key to Peggy’s heart and life.
Bibliography
These resources guided my research for Hamilton and Peggy!: A Revolutionary Friendship. If you’d like to learn more about this fascinating time in American history, these are excellent places to begin your own research. (Also see my website, www.lmelliott.com, for links to historical databases, mini-bios, and other information.)
THE SCHUYLER FAMILY:
Cunningham, Anna K. Schuyler Mansion: A Critical Catalogue of the Furnishings & Decorations. Albany: New York State Education Department, 1955. Print.
Cushman, Paul. Richard Varick: A Forgotten Founding Father. Amherst: Modern Memoirs Publishing, 2010. Print.
Egly, T.W., Jr. General Schuyler’s Guard. 1986. Print.
Gerlach, Don R. “Philip Schuyler and the New York Frontier in 1781.” The New-York Historical Society Quarterly 53 (1969): 148–181. Print.
———. “After Saratoga: The General, His Lady, and ‘Gentleman Johnny’ Burgoyne.” New York History 52.1 (1971): 4–30. JSTOR. Web. 14 July 2016.
———. Proud Patriot: Philip Schuyler and the War of Independence,1775–1783. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1987. Print.
Grant, Anne MacVicar. Memoirs of an American Lady: With Sketches of Manners and Scenery in America, as They Existed Previous to the Revolution. New York, 1845. Print.
Halsey, Francis Whiting. “General Schuyler’s Part in the Burgoyne Campaign.” Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association 12 (1913): 109–118. JSTOR. Web. 14 July 2016.
Humphreys, Mary Gay. Women of Colonial and Revolutionary Times: Catharine Schuyler; With Portrait. Leopold Classic Library, 1897. Print.
Mayer, Brantz. Journal of Charles Carroll of Carrollton: During His Visit to Canada in 1776. Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1876. Print.
Phelan, Helene. The Man Who Owned the Pistols: John Barker Church and His Family. Interlaken: Heart of the Lakes Publishing, 1981. Print.
Saffron, Morris H. Surgeon to Washington: Dr. John Cochran (1730–1807). New York: Columbia University Press, 1977. Print.
Tuckerman, Bayard. Life of General Philip Schuyler, 1733–1804. New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company, 1903. Print.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON:
Chernow, Ron. Alexander Hamilton. New York: Penguin Books, 2004. Print.
Flexner, James Thomas. The Young Hamilton: A Biography. New York: Fordham University Press, 1997. Print.
Larson, Harold. “Alexander Hamilton: The Fact and Fiction of His Early Years.” The William and Mary Quarterly 9.2 (1952): 139–151. JSTOR. Web. 14 July 2016.
Schachner, Nathan. “Alexander Hamilton Viewed by His Friends: The Narratives of Robert Troup and Hercules Mulligan.” The William and Mary Quarterly 4.2 (1947): 203–225. JSTOR. Web. 14 July 2016.
Syrett, Harold C., and Jacob E. Cooke. The Papers of Alexander Hamilton. Vol. 1 and 2. New York: Columbia University Press, 1962. Print.
HAMILTON: AN AMERICAN MUSICAL:
Miranda, Lin-Manuel, and Jeremy McCarter. Hamilton: The Revolution. New York: Grand Central Publishing and Melcher Media, 2016. Print.
WOMEN IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION:
Berkin, Carol. Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence. New York: Random House, 2005. Print.
Bleecker, Ann Eliza. The Posthumous Works of Ann Eliza Bleecker in Prose and Verse: To Which is Added a Collection of Essays, Prose and Poetical. Gale, Sabin Americana, 2012. Print.
Good, Cassandra A. Founding Friendships: Friendships between Men and Women in the Early American Republic. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Print.
North, Louise V., Landa M. Freeman, and Janet M. Wedge. In the Words of Women: The Revolutionary War and the Birth of the Nation, 1765–1799. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2011. Print.
Norton, Mary Beth. Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750–1800. Ithaca: Corne
ll University Press, 1980. Print.
Stevens, John Austin, William Abbatt, Henry Phelps Johnston, Benjamin Franklin DeCosta, Martha Joanna Lamb, and Nathan Gillett Pond. The Magazine of American History with Notes and Queries. Vol. 1. New York: A.S. Barnes & Company, 1877. Print.
GEORGE AND MARTHA WASHINGTON:
Chernow, Ron. Washington: A Life. New York: Penguin Books, 2011. Print.
Fleming, Thomas. The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. Print.
Keller, Kate Van Winkle, and Charles Cyril Hendrickson. George Washington: A Biography in Social Dance. Sandy Hook: The Hendrickson Group, 1998. Print.
Philbrick, Nathaniel. Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution. New York: Penguin Random House, 2016. Print.
Wharton, Anne Hollingsworth. Martha Washington. Cambridge, 1897. Print.
WASHINGTON’S AIDES-DE-CAMP:
Beall, Mary S. “The Military and Private Secretaries of George Washington.” Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, DC 1 (1897): 89–118. JSTOR. Web. 1 February 2017.
Lefkowitz, Arthur S. George Washington’s Indispensable Men: The 32 Aides-de-Camp Who Helped Win American Independence. Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books, 2003. Print.
Steiner, Bernard Christian. The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry: Secretary of War under Washington and Adams. The Burrows Brothers Company, 1907. Print.
Tilghman, Tench. Memoir of Lieutenant Colonel Tench Tilghman, Secretary and Aide to Washington: Together with an Appendix, Containing Revolutionary Journals and Letters. 1876. Print.
JOURNALS OF CONTINENTAL SOLDIERS:
Fisher, Elijah. Elijah Fisher’s Journal While in the War for Independence, and Continued Two Years after He Came to Maine, 1775–1784. Augusta: Press of Badger and Manley, 1880. Print.
Martin, Joseph Plumb. A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier. New York: Signet Classics, 2010. Print.
Rochambeau, Count de, and M. W. E. Wright. “What France Did for America: Memoirs of Rochambeau.” The North American Review. 205.738 (1917): 788–802. JSTOR. Web. 29 August 2016.
Thacher, James, M.D. A Military Journal during the American Revolutionary War, from 1775 to 1783. Boston: Cottons & Barnard, 1827. Print.
THE FRENCH AND HESSIANS DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR:
Acomb, Evelyn M. The Revolutionary Journal of Baron Ludwig von Closen, 1780–1783. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1958. Print.
Brown, Marvin L., Jr. Baroness von Reidesel and the American Revolution: Journal and Correspondence of a Tour of Duty, 1776–1783. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965. Print.
Chastellux, Francois Jean. Travels in North America, in the Years 1780–81–82. New York, 1828. Print.
Jones, T. Cole. “Displaying the Ensigns of Harmony: The French Army in Newport, 1780–1781.” The New England Quarterly 85, no. 3 (September 2012), pp. 430–467.
Kennett, Lee. The French Forces in America, 1780–1783. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1977. Print.
Selig, Robert A. “A German Soldier in America, 1780–1783: The Journal of Georg Daniel Flohr.” The William and Mary Quarterly 50.3 (1993): 575–590. JSTOR. Web. 22 August 2016.
Stevens, John Austin. “The French in Rhode Island.” The Magazine of American History III, no. 7 (July 1879).
THE IROQUOIS:
Glatthaar, Joseph T., and James Kirby Martin. Forgotten Allies: The Oneida Indians and the American Revolution. New York: Hill and Wang, 2007. Print.
MORRISTOWN:
Cunningham, John T. The Uncertain Revolution: Washington & the Continental Army at Morristown. West Creek: Cormorant Publishing, 2007. Print.
Mills, Weymer Jay. Historic Houses of New Jersey. Bibliolife. Print.
Rae, John W. Morristown: A Military Headquarters of the American Revolution. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2002. Print.
ESPIONAGE DURING THE REVOLUTION:
Daigler, Kenneth A. Spies, Patriots, and Traitors: American Intelligence in the Revolutionary War. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2014. Print.
Kaplan, Roger. “The Hidden War: British Intelligence Operations during the American Revolution.” The William and Mary Quarterly 47.1 (1990): 115–138. JSTOR. Web. 23 February 2017.
Nagy, John A. George Washington’s Secret Spy War: The Making of America’s First Spymaster. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016. Print.
Rose, Alexander. Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring. New York: Random House, 2006. Print.
Stone, William L. “Schuyler’s Faithful Spy: An Incident in the Burgoyne Campaign.” The Magazine of American History II (1878). pp. 414–419.
NEW YORK DURING THE REVOLUTION:
Albany Chronicles: A History of the City Arranged Chronologically, From the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time; Illustrated with Many Historical Pictures of Rarity and Reproductions of the Robert C. Pruyn Collection of the Mayors of Albany. Albany: Albany Institute and Historical and Art Society. Print.
Roberts, Warren. A Place in History: Albany in the Age of Revolution, 1775–1825. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010. Print.
Schecter, Barnet. The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution. New York: Penguin Books, 2002. Print.
BENEDICT ARNOLD AND PEGGY SHIPPEN:
Jacob, Mark, and Stephen H. Case. Treacherous Beauty: Peggy Shippen, the Woman behind Benedict Arnold’s Plot to Betray America. Guilford: Lyons Press, 2012. Print.
Philbrick, Nathaniel. Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution. New York: Penguin Random House, 2016. Print.
Stuart, Nancy Rubin. Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married. Boston: Beacon Press, 2013. Print.
CLOTHING IN COLONIAL AMERICA:
Baumgarten, Linda. Eighteenth-Century Clothing at Williamsburg. Williamsburg: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1986. Print.
———. What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America. Williamsburg: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2002. Print.
Baumgarten, Linda, John Watson, and Florine Carr. Costume Close-Up: Clothing Construction and Pattern, 1750–1790. Williamsburg: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1999. Print.
Riley, Mara, and Cathy Johnson. Whatever Shall I Wear? A Guide to Assembling a Woman’s Basic 18th Century Wardrobe. Graphics/Fine Art Press, 2002. Print.
VIDEOS:
Alexander Hamilton, PBS.
George Washington, MGM.
George Washington: The Man Who Wouldn’t Be King, PBS.
John Adams, HBO.
Lafayette: The Lost Hero, PBS.
Liberty! The American Revolution, PBS.
The Crossing, A&E.
AND LAST, BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST:
The Founders Online website, created by the National Archives, is an extraordinary database of letters between the founding fathers and their families, compatriots, and friends: https://founders.archives.gov/.
Also, the New York Public Library’s collection of Philip Schuyler’s papers are now digitally available: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org.
About the Author
PHOTO BY MARY NOBLE OURS
L. M. ELLIOTT is the award-winning author of Da Vinci’s Tiger; the WWII trilogy Under a War-Torn Sky, A Troubled Peace, and Across a War-Tossed Sea; as well as Annie, Between the States, a New York Times bestseller, and Give Me Liberty. Writing Peggy’s story totally enthralled Elliott—combining her passions for research, American history, theater, and early feminism. She lives in Virginia with her family. You can find her at www.lmelliott.com.
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Books by L. M. Elliott
Under a War-Torn Sky
A Troubled Peace
Across a War-Tossed Sea
Annie, Between the States
Give
Me Liberty
Da Vinci’s Tiger
Hamilton and Peggy!
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Copyright
Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
HAMILTON AND PEGGY!. Copyright © 2018 by L. M. Elliott. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
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Cover art and design by Sarah Pierson
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2017944492
Digital Edition February 2018 ISBN: 978-0-062-67132-5
ISBN 978-0-06-267130-1
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