Washington was well-known to make his subordinates wait on him for sometimes twenty or thirty minutes while he finished a routine task, but he was apparently not in the mood for such theatrics today. He stowed his pen immediately and indicated a ladder-back chair opposite his desk. “Colonel Hamilton. Please, have a seat.”
Alex resisted the urge to stick his fingers in his ears to see if they were stuffed with wax. In the five years Alex had worked for him, Washington had never said “please” to Alex, let alone invited him to “have a seat.”
However, as the general continued to stare at him expectantly, Alex nervously made his way to the chair and eased himself into it, as if it might collapse beneath his weight. The rush caning was a little on the thin side and the back was uncomfortably straight, but nevertheless it held.
“I have reviewed the document you placed into my hands at our last meeting,” Washington said. As always, his words sounded formal. But they also sounded so much like him, that to anyone familiar with the general, it was hard to take offense. Alex was not given to flights of fantasy where his commander in chief was concerned, but on the rare moments he had allowed himself to imagine Washington as a boy, or alone with his wife, Martha, he could not picture “George” choosing his words with anything less than meticulous care.
The document Washington referred to was a letter Alex had written, but in the general’s voice rather than his own. Alex had written hundreds of such documents during the course of the war to which the general had affixed his signature. The only difference was that all those other letters—letters sending men into battle or pulling them away from it, to the gallows or giving them their freedom—had been written at Washington’s direction, whereas this one was entirely of Alex’s creation. Which is to say, after years of asking the general to give him command of his own battalion, he had simply written the promotion into existence.
It was an ultimatum of sorts, and Washington knew it. If he didn’t sign, there would be no more business as usual. Alex had long since served his tour of duty and could resign at any moment. As Eliza had said, he would forfeit his salary and his pension, but there was no legal preventative to his departure.
Alex knew it was a bold move, which is why he’d delivered the paper right before he went away for leave. Washington did not like insubordination or cockiness, however he admired self-determination. He’d had a month to stew over it and cool whatever anger he might have felt when he’d first read it. Alex had taken the fact that he hadn’t received a letter telling him that his services were no longer required as a good sign. Nevertheless, the general displayed a consummate poker face. He could be preparing to promote Alex to lieutenant general or throw him in the brig.
“You are aware that General Cornwallis has quartered nearly nine thousand British and German troops at Yorktown?” asked the general, leaning forward and placing his hands flat on the desk.
Alex wasn’t sure what to say. He himself had passed on this intelligence to the general some time ago. He nodded, then stirred himself to speak. One did not merely nod at the commander in chief of the Continental army.
“Yes, Your Excellency,” he said, employing the honorific he always used when he addressed Washington.
“After extensive discussions with General Lafayette and Count de Rochambeau, I have come to the conclusion that if we can pin Cornwallis’s forces in the city, we can cut him off from escape. We will then be able to starve them into submission or bombard them to oblivion. Either way, Cornwallis will have to surrender. The British forces will be decimated, and the war—in effect—over,” said Washington proudly. The general relaxed his shoulders a bit, as if the war had already been won.
Alex held his neck unnaturally stiff to keep himself from nodding again. Having written most of the general’s correspondence on these matters himself, he was intimately acquainted with the deliberations. “Indeed, Your Excellency. I couldn’t agree more.”
Washington nodded, and a rare smile crossed his face. “Lafayette has seven thousand French and American troops in position outside the town to keep Cornwallis’s men from escaping farther inland.”
Alex grunted in agreement.
The general continued. “Additionally, Admiral de Grasse has agreed to provide three thousand troops from the West Indies. This would give us a numerical advantage but not an overwhelming one, especially since de Grasse’s men will be at great risk when they disembark from his ships. It is therefore imperative that our own forces join the fray, though it would be a difficult march of some four hundred and fifty miles. We have two thousand men of our own, and Rochambeau has agreed to put his seven thousand troops under my command. Obviously, we cannot make nine thousand men invisible, but the count and I have devised a maneuver that we think will disguise our true intentions from the British.”
Washington kept a placid expression, so it took Alex a moment to realize the general was making a joke. He allowed himself a smile. “May I inquire as to the nature of the maneuver, Your Excellency?”
“We will split the men into multiple units and march them in parallel tracks some tens of miles apart. If British spies do catch wind of us, they are more likely to conclude that the troops are being deployed to multiple locations rather than heading toward a single target.” Washington tapped the battlefield maps that were laid out on the desk.
Alex immediately saw the beauty of the plan, but he also had reservations. “Isn’t it risky splitting our forces up, sir? Won’t they be more vulnerable to attack?”
Washington frowned, and crease lines deepened across his weathered cheek. “They would be, if the British had a large army within striking position. But they have no forces that can reach us before we will have accomplished our mission.”
Alex had to admit that the plan was a stroke of genius. Though he had never said so to anyone other than Laurens, he had often had concerns about Washington’s military savvy. There was no doubt about the man’s leadership capabilities—not to mention his ability to inspire both his troops and the general populace. George Washington was a fine specimen of a man, tall, strapping, with a commander’s profile and confidence. He would make an excellent head of state one day—governor of Virginia, perhaps, or maybe, if the thirteen colonies could work out their differences and consent to a centralized government, a prime minister, or if things should work out another way (God forbid!), a king.
However, while unquestionably brave, Washington’s military strategies had always struck Alex as unnecessarily blunt. This maneuver, however, was inspirational. Alex could feel himself salivating to be a part of it. The British were no cowards, but they would be fools to put up a protracted fight—which would only result in hundreds, perhaps thousands, of casualties—and they would still lose.
Was the general telling Alex all this in order to make him that much more grateful for his promotion, or to make a denial of his field command that much more painful? Alex didn’t think Washington was quite so base, but he was well aware that the man despised violations of protocol and could hold a grudge.
“When do you anticipate the movement will begin?” he said now, in a cautious voice.
“The troops should be ready by August. We need to wait for Mr. Church’s shipment to arrive before we depart.” He gave Alex a curt nod.
It was typical of General Washington not to confirm with Alex that the arms deal had been successfully negotiated. It was possible that he had received word by some other channel—perhaps General Schuyler had dispatched a courier—but more likely he had simply assumed that Alex had completed his assigned task. It was not that Washington had unquestioned faith in Alex or General Schuyler, although he certainly believed in their abilities. It was more a case of belief in himself. He had ordered something be done, and would assume that it had been accomplished unless otherwise informed.
“Well then,” General Washington said. “I believe you are fully versed in the plans. I wil
l dismiss you so can prepare for departure.”
Alex was so used to standing when Washington said he was dismissed that he immediately rose from his chair and turned for the door. Still, he couldn’t believe it. The general had turned down his request for a command of his own! And still expected Alex to accompany as an aide-de-camp! It was not to be borne! He had to say something, but what? Before he could protest, however, the general had more to say.
“Colonel Hamilton?” General Washington called after him. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Alex turned to see the general holding out a sheet of paper. He could have sworn he saw the tiniest smile playing around the corners of the older man’s mouth. “Your Excellency?”
General Washington merely shook the page at him. Alex crossed to the desk and took it. To his surprise, it was the very letter he had written in the general’s name, promoting him to field commander. And there, at the bottom, was Washington’s signature. Alex had signed the name himself so many times that he knew it better than his own. He stared at it as if it might be a forgery, but it was indisputably real.
“Your Excellency,” he said again. “I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”
“You can thank me by driving the redcoats off American soil in three months’ time. For now, I suggest you get acquainted with your men. Those New York regiments have something of the frontier spirit about them. You will have to inspire them to follow you, or risk losing their respect and loyalty.”
There was undeniable pride in General Washington’s voice, and Alex had to take a moment before he could answer. It was a long time coming, and Alex soaked it up.
“I have your example to guide me,” he said finally, then bowed and walked from the room, holding the piece of paper tightly in hand.
A battle command at last! Glory and bloodshed would be in his future! He could hardly wait.
7
The Home Front
The Schuyler Mansion
Albany, New York
July 1781
Spring was over (and so were the berries, to the relief of everyone’s waistlines). High summer was always slow to come to upstate New York, but when it did arrive, the heat could be as oppressive as a Maryland or Virginia bayou. The advent of summer also brought a slew of letters from the front lines, letters that Eliza read and reread again and again, lingering on the effusive declarations of love from her absent husband. She wrote back with the profusions of forgiveness he desperately asked for, as well as admonishments that he take good care of himself so he could return to her before long. She told him she was proud of him for having secured his long-desired command. He wrote back that he was grateful for her strength at the news, and that he could not wait to fly back to her arms as soon as the war was ended.
But the war was not over, not yet, and since Albany was a riot of mists and odors raised by the heat, Eliza and her sisters avoided town as much as possible. Despite its name, the Pastures was perched on a hill above the fields, and its wide entrance hall caught the easterly breezes and kept the main body of the house relatively cool.
The front parlors and front bedrooms also stayed cool, and though Mrs. Schuyler’s old Dutch soul felt that it was “gauche” for a lady to sleep in a bedroom facing the road, practically “risqué,” even she consented to move to an east-facing room after three sweltering nights when the mercury refused to dip below eighty degrees, and nipped at one hundred during the day. This being Mrs. Schuyler, she insisted on taking her bedstead with her, despite the presence of a perfectly comfortable bed in what was, after all, the Schuylers’ finest guest room, which had slept many a general and governor. (Perhaps that was the issue. Though Mrs. Schuyler would never say so out loud, Angelica speculated to Eliza and Peggy that their mother could not abide the idea of laying her body where a man who wasn’t her husband had slept.)
By now the house had become a women’s abode. General Schuyler had gone to the Schuylers’ summer residence near Saratoga, both to oversee its ongoing reconstruction after its burning by General Burgoyne in 1775, and to attend to the replanting of the estate’s orchards and fields, from which much of the family’s income derived. He had initially refused to go, saying that he needed to be close to his wife during her lying-in, but Mrs. Schuyler had shooed him away, saying that he had done nothing but fret during her eleven previous childbirths. She did not expect that to change for her twelfth. “Nature will take its course as it always does,” she said, “and Providence shall see to the child’s well-being or call her home as God wills.”
“Her?” General Schuyler had asked softy. “How can you know?”
“I have been with child enough to know. Your sons were feisty, even irksome, during their time with me. But your daughters are demure even before they are born.”
“Demure?” General Schuyler said with a laugh. “Are we talking about the same daughters?”
Mrs. Schuyler patted his knee, pretending to be annoyed. “Like kittens,” she said. “And this one has been the easiest of all. Were she not so big, and were I yet a younger woman, I imagine that I would still be up and about supervising the servants and children.”
“Put any such thought out of your head at once!” General Schuyler commanded, but in a soft, even worried voice. “If anyone has earned her rest, it is you.”
Mrs. Schuyler patted his knee again, gently this time, and sent him off to husband his crops. Alex was also gone by then, and John Church had traveled to Boston to see to his mysterious importing business, accompanied by Stephen Van Rensselaer, who was attending classes at Harvard University. Aside from the servants, the oldest male in the house was sixteen-year-old Johnny. In another house, he might have strutted his stuff a bit, but in the absence of General Schuyler he knew his place, and deferred to his sisters and mother in all matters of household organization. He and thirteen-year-old Philip Jr., who seemed immune to the sweltering heat, spent most of their time playing soldier, “patrolling the perimeter” of the Schuyler lands, as Philip put it, armed with a pair of matchlocks and trailed by eight-year-old Ren (whose request for a rifle of his own had been roundly refused). Though they never caught wind of any redcoats, they often returned home with a brace of hares or grouse to liven up the dinner table.
In the absence of their menfolk, the sisters fell back into girlhood routines, albeit with a more mature bent. Angelica had once been wont to read racy French novels and regale her sisters with titillating stories of how “Continental women” comported themselves. Now she perused French broadsheets to educate herself about America’s strongest ally, and went so far as to declare that she believed that one day soon the French would follow the American example and throw off the yoke of monarchy.
Peggy glanced at the same papers. Her French was abysmal but it didn’t matter, since she was largely concerned with the illustrations of the latest fashion trends. A few years earlier she would have harangued her mother or father with requests for this or that brocade or jacquard or watered silk, but even if their father hadn’t been absent and their mother abed, it was unlikely she would have asked for anything so profligate. Even she knew the end of the war was in sight, and every last cent of the young nation’s resources had to be channeled into the victory effort (though she did direct her maid to alter the fit of several of last year’s dresses to reflect the changes in hemlines and necklines).
Eliza, ever the practical middle sister, continued the fund-raising and fabric drives that had made her simultaneously the most admired and most dreaded girl in the capital region (Elizabeth Ten Broeck, a Van Rensselaer by birth, and aunt to Stephen—which is to say, as filthy rich as filthy rich can get—declared that thanks to Eliza’s constant “alms-gathering” she and her daughters were dressing in “cotton and rags”). Eliza threw herself into the work, not least to distract herself from thoughts of Alex and his looming battle. By now, though, most of what could be gathered had been gathered, and it was un
likely that anything Eliza procured (besides money, that is) would make it to the front before the fighting was over.
She felt a bit at a loss as to how to contribute until one day, as she was preparing to leave Mrs. Anne Bleecker’s house with the latter’s monthly pledge, she heard a small, bright voice singing in one of the parlors. She peered in, where she beheld a girl of nine or ten sitting upright on a tufted chair, singing to an otherwise empty room. Her voice was sweet and pure and sad, and Eliza remained hidden at the edge of the door, lest she interrupt the girl’s recital. At length, a hand on her arm drew her attention. It was Mrs. Bleecker, who guided her to an adjacent parlor.
“I can see you are curious about the latest member of our household. Her name is Anne. She is the daughter of our neighbors that were, the Carringtons.”
“That were?” Eliza said in confusion. “Did they move away? And if so, why did they leave such a sweet girl behind?”
“For the only reason parents would leave their children behind—six of them in total. Corporal Carrington perished in service of his country at Kings Mountain in South Carolina, and poor sweet Josephine—her parents were French, the dear thing—succumbed to fever near the end of last winter.”
“An orphan!” Eliza said, immediately thinking of Alex.
Mrs. Bleecker nodded. “Such kin as they have were unable to take in any but the two youngest. Mr. Bleecker and I could not sit idly by while the rest disappeared into the streets or the sticks, and took in Anne early this spring. God help her older siblings, for we know not what happened to them. Even in her sadness it has been a joy to have a young child in the house again, with our sons and daughters grown or . . .”
Mrs. Bleecker’s voice broke off, and Eliza took her hand. Her host had lost her only two sons in the war as well.
Love & War Page 6