As spring shifted toward summer, however, Alexander’s thoughts were more often again with the troops across the river. The encampment would soon break for summer. Although Alexander no longer knew every detail of the army’s activities and plans from headquarters—the sole feature of being an aide-de-camp that he missed, and sorely, too—he remained sufficiently informed to learn that His Excellency was determined to break the stalemate in the war this summer.
The largest concentration of British troops remained in the city of New York, which they had occupied since 1777. From Alexander’s final days in headquarters, he knew that His Excellency was planning to combine forces with General Rochambeau’s French troops and attempt to wrest control of the city from General Clinton. More recently he’d heard the attack could take place as soon as July, and already the first of the Continental troops were beginning to shift to another camp to the south and on the eastern side of the river, near Dobb’s Ferry and only twelve miles from the city itself.
On the days when Alexander didn’t have himself rowed across the river, he climbed to the highest spot on our point, and peered across the river with his spyglass by the hour, watching for signs of moving troops. It all made my heart heavy with dread, knowing I’d have no choice soon but to let him go.
When he finally received encouragement from His Excellency regarding a field post, before the coming campaign, he decided it would be best to rejoin the encampment to be in readiness. For safety’s sake, I would return to my parents in Albany, and he took me there himself, spending only a few more precious days with me and conferring with my father before he left in early July.
As can be imagined, our parting was sorrowful, but he promised he’d steal away to see me again before any attack took place. Still, I watched from the dock as the sloop on which he’d sailed caught the breeze, and headed down river. He stood on the deck, waving to me, while I waved my handkerchief back at him.
How many other women over time had done the same with their sweethearts and husbands? How many handkerchiefs beyond counting had fluttered in the breeze as the dear one had grown smaller and smaller in the distance, to finally vanish from view? And how many of those same handkerchiefs had then been used to blot the fresh tears of separation, sorrow, and aching loneliness?
Yet I’d learned several important things from that spring. First, that the love that Alexander and I felt for each other and our marriage with it only grew stronger with each moment we were together. Second, that my husband was the most intelligent and thoughtful man I’d ever known, and that as much as he might long for battlefield glory, he would likely have much more lasting importance in shaping our new government once the war was won. I feared for his life, yes; but I also realized now that for him to perish in battle would be a terrible loss not just for me, but for our country.
There was one more thing I learned that June, as the days grew longer and warmer and the trees began to leaf with new green: by all my cautious reckonings, I was at last pregnant with our first child.
CHAPTER 11
The Pastures, Albany, New York
August 1781
When Alexander and I parted in July, my greatest concern was for his welfare. He was once again in the army’s camp, where he believed a field command was to be given him as part of the upcoming military plans. Though I knew he wished this above all things, I hoped that Fate (and His Excellency) had a less dangerous path planned for his life.
It did not help to hear my father agree in his brisk military way, predicting that the three armies—Continental, French, and British—would meet this summer in a battle so momentous that it would likely decide the entire outcome of the lengthy war. This did little to ease my concerns for Alexander’s welfare, and I wrote him more letters than I ever had before, all describing in teary detail how very much I missed him and prayed for his safety. Before we’d been wed, I’d longed to conceive his son or daughter as a lasting proof of our devotion, but now that I truly was with child, I was terrified that our poor little innocent might be born without a father, and never know his love.
Nor did I find much comfort in my sister Angelica, who was also visiting The Pastures for the summer with her children. She was pregnant, too, but her husband was entirely safe in Boston, which made her advice to me ring hollow at best. Waxing dramatic as any actress on the stage, she likened Alexander to a warrior about to make the most gallant and noble sacrifices on the field of honor, and urged me to be a patriotic wife and feel the same. I suppose it amused her to sigh on about him as if he were the hero in a romantic poem instead of my flesh-and-blood husband; it only served to upset me, and one night at supper I’d finally cried at her to stop in a shameful outburst that sent me sobbing into my bed pillow while she begged my forgiveness.
I must hasten to note that this was unlike my usual temperament. I’d always considered myself by nature a practical lady, not given to tantrums and tears or impassioned scenes. All this changed once I was with child. While I wasn’t ill the way many women were, most anything—a slice of bread toasted too dark, a mislaid stocking—could set me to weeping so piteously that I feared I’d lost my wits.
Mamma calmed me as best she could, and assured me that this would pass as my time progressed. But this coupled with my worry for Alexander made for a long and miserable summer, and I both dreaded and longed for the post messengers that brought his letters and news of the army’s intentions. Yet as much as I fretted and worried for his safety over the course of that summer, I was the one, not he, who was first confronted by the hazards of war.
Most people now will remember the war for the great battles with uniformed regiments led by His Excellency and others of his generals. But for those of us who lived along the northern frontiers, the war was a series of smaller events, attacks and raids led by Tories and the Indians in their hire. Crops and barns were burned, livestock stolen, and houses looted, and in the most deadly raids entire families were slaughtered and their bodies mutilated on the same land they’d worked so hard to clear and make their own.
These raiders had grown bolder with the rumors that the war might be reaching its climax, and in the spring of 1781, they’d come sufficiently close to Albany that my father had been warned to be on his guard. While Papa might no longer hold an active commission, he was still regarded as an important gentleman in the country, much involved in gathering military information. He was also known to be a member of Congress and a close friend and advisor to General Washington, and because of that, Continental spies had uncovered a plot to kidnap him and make him a prisoner for ransom in Canada.
Our house stood on the outskirts of Albany, not in the wilderness, and Papa doubted the Tories would be so bold as to attack him here. Yet still he warned us all to take care when we walked out of doors, and to keep within sight of the house at all times. A guard of six men stood in constant vigilance over us, with three on watch and three at rest in their temporary quarters in our basement, and our servants were warned to be vigilant as well.
In preparation for a possible attack, my father and the guards left their weapons near the door in readiness. However, after Angelica caught her little son, Philip, showing too much interest in these weapons, she did what most wise mothers would, and removed the guns herself to the cellar, where they’d offer less temptation.
August was especially warm that summer. The air was heavy and thick, and the usual breezes from the river that cooled our house on the hill seemed to abandon us. My mother and sisters and I dressed as lightly as possible, leaving off our stays and extra petticoats when we were at home, and forsaking silk for airy linen. The high-pitched whirr of cicadas in the trees added to the drowsiness of these days, and often the evening ended in a thunderstorm that did nothing to cool us, but only increased the steamy heat.
On this particular evening, we had gathered after supper in the large center hall with the doors on either side thrown open to catch whatever breeze we could. Mamma and I were stitching clothing for my coming ch
ild, while Papa, Peggy, and Angelica were reading, our chairs drawn close to the front door to catch the last light of the day. Angelica’s two children, Philip and Catherine, were engaged in some sort of game using the black-and-white patterned floor, and baby Catherine slept in her cradle in the family parlor nearby where it was quiet and she’d be undisturbed. Three of the guards were at rest downstairs, while the other three were in the shade in the garden, their guns on the lawn beside them.
Everything was as it should be, except that it wasn’t. One of our servants came into the house and addressed Papa, and we heard the man say there was a stranger at the back garden gate who wished to see my father.
While this seemed harmless enough to the rest of us, to my father, this was a signal. At once he briskly ordered the windows and doors shuttered and barred. Servants rushed to obey, pulling the heavy shutters over the windows and sliding the iron bars in place across them, while Papa hurried us upstairs and into the bedchamber he shared with Mamma.
“Keep together, and remain here,” he said. “Stay quiet, all of you.”
He took a pistol from the top of a chest where it had been loaded in readiness, and fired it from the window, a signal to summon help. He tossed aside the pistol and grabbed a musket leaning in the corner, taking care to keep to one side of the window where he wouldn’t be seen.
I’d a quick glimpse of men with pistols and rifles on the lawn, not in uniforms, but roughly dressed, and I gasped with fear. At least half of them were Mohawks, their faces fearsomely painted red and black and their long hair gathered atop their heads, armed with not only rifles, but tomahawks, too. There were so many of them that I guessed they must have overwhelmed the three guards outside, and I was thankful I could see no more. Clutching at my skirts, Angelica’s son began to cry beside me.
“Quiet,” Papa ordered sharply as he cocked the musket with an ominous click. I took the little boy into my arms, holding him tightly to quiet him as best I could. Angelica was cradling her daughter, rubbing her palm across the child’s back to comfort her even as her own face was taut with fear and her eyes squeezed shut.
We heard the men’s voices now, loud oaths and shouts and other blasphemy that was intended to frighten us more, and the crashing of shattered glass as they broke windows in the rooms below us. They were beating against the door, attempting to break it down with heavy, drumming thumps that echoed through the dark house.
Little Philip whimpered and curled against me, and I tightened my arms around him, as much to comfort myself as him. Silently I prayed for him, and for all of us, and especially for Alexander’s child, innocent and unknowing in my belly.
Suddenly Mamma cried out, her hands pressed to her face in alarm.
“The baby!” she wailed. “Oh, Philip, I forgot Catherine!”
She started for the door, determined to fetch the baby we’d somehow all forgotten in her cradle in the parlor.
But Papa seized her arm and held her back. “You can’t,” he said tersely. “It’s too dangerous.”
“I’ll go,” said Peggy, and before anyone could stop her, she’d darted from the room, her steps a brisk counterpoint to the men pounding on the door.
Mamma clutched at my father for support as she sank to her knees, overcome by the thought of losing not just one daughter, but two.
Abruptly we heard the front door to the house give way, and the attackers surged into the hall, grunting and cheering at their success. There were sounds of cracking wood, of breaking glass and porcelain, as the men roamed through the lower rooms, intent on plundering our belongings. I was shaking now, imagining Peggy with the baby in their midst.
Suddenly one man’s voice rose above the din. “Wench, wench!” he shouted roughly. “Where is your master, girl?”
“He’s gone to alarm the town!” Peggy cried as she ran up the stairs. In the next moment she was again with us, handing Catherine to Mamma. Her eyes were wide with terror, her hair disheveled, and there was a large slash in her petticoat. I held my arm out to her, and she came, hugging me close.
“They’re taking all the plate from the dining room, Eliza,” she whispered, trembling. “One of them threw his hatchet at me when I was on the stairs, and it caught my skirts.”
“But you saved Catherine,” I whispered back, and beginning to rock her gently just as I was doing with little Philip. “Oh, Peggy, you were so brave!”
Thinking quickly, Papa again leaned from the window.
“Come along, men, come along!” he shouted as if addressing a great party of men. “Surround the house, and seize these villains before they can escape!”
It seemed too obvious a ploy to work, but then, Papa was a general, and I was not. As we huddled together upstairs, we heard the men call to one another and then running through the hall and down the steps.
For a long moment the house was strangely silent, making our own sad little noises of distress—the children snuffling and whimpering, my sisters and mother struggling to muffle their tears—all the more noticeable.
Standing to one side of the window, Papa let out a long sigh, and though he uncocked the musket, he still held it.
“They’re gone, praise God,” he said, still looking from the window. “Peggy, are you unharmed?”
She nodded, tears streaming down her face, as the realization of what she’d done was finally becoming clear to her.
“I do not know what possessed you to risk yourself like that,” he said gruffly, “but I shall always be thankful you did. Here’s the militia from town at last.”
He set the musket down and helped my mother to an armchair in the corner, pausing to kiss the infant Catherine in her arms. Little Philip abandoned me for his mother, and Peggy, too, went to Mamma. With the Albany men in the yard, the servants were creeping out from wherever they’d hidden themselves, their voices raised with excitement as they described to one another what had occurred. Father called for Mamma’s maid and she came swiftly up the stairs, puffing her cheeks as she fussed about Mamma and baby Catherine.
I stood alone, and took a deep breath, then another. It was strange that in these last weeks I’d cried at everything and nothing, but now, when there’d been real cause, my eyes were dry. My heart still raced too fast within my breast, but knowing what could have happened, yet hadn’t, gave me an odd kind of peace.
Papa must have taken note.
“Eliza, come with me, if you please,” he said. “We must make these people welcome, and determine what misfortune has been caused below.”
I nodded, and followed him. I’d often acted in Mamma’s stead, though never quite in these circumstances, and in a way it was a relief to be busy. I ordered candles to be lit against the gathering dusk, and sent out refreshment for the men who’d come to our rescue. I greeted and thanked those among them that I knew, and I then set the servants to tidying things as best they could. As Peggy had said, one of the men had thrown a hatchet at her, and a sizable raw gash in the stair rail proved how close she’d been to being struck. I was shocked to see how much damage had been caused to our house in so short a time, much of it serving no use but willful mischief and destruction. Porcelain vases had been smashed, curtains torn from the windows, and chairs upended and their cushions slashed.
But what had attracted the intruders the most had been my parents’ silver. They’d forced open the door to the plate closet and carried off all the larger and most valuable pieces—platters, tankards, candlesticks, bowls, and other vessels—leaving the shelves shockingly bare. It wasn’t just the cost of the pieces that had been stolen; some had been in our family for many years, and for that reason were irreplaceable.
Papa came to stand beside me, and he, too, stared at the empty shelves.
“They meant to kidnap me,” he said, as matter-of-fact as can be. “I’d been warned, but I didn’t believe Waltermeyer would be such a fool as to come here after me by day.”
I glanced up at him with surprise. “You knew the leader?”
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�John Waltermeyer,” he said with unabashed disgust. “He was at their head, and as brazen a Tory as any in the region, with some manner of puffed-up commission from Clinton to make him feel like the man that he isn’t. The rest were only his underlings, and mercenary cowards at that.”
“Cowards indeed,” I agreed soundly, even though I was glad they’d abandoned their mission. “Can’t they be found and captured, if they’re known to you?”
“We all have better things to do than chase after them,” he said. “Most likely they are well on their way to Canada by now. What will gall your mother the most when she learns of it is that Waltermeyer has been in this house as our guest.”
It galled me as well. My parents were renowned for hospitality, but it was shameful when a former guest turned generosity against them like this. Waltermeyer’s goal might have been to kidnap my father, but he also would have known the arrangement of our house, and exactly where the plate was kept.
“It grieves me that they captured three of our guards as prisoners as well,” he continued. “By all reports, Ward, Tubbs, and Cor-lies tried their best to acquit themselves, but since Angelica earlier saw fit to remove their weapons, they were unarmed, and defenseless. I’ll see that they’re ransomed as soon as possible, and rewarded for their trouble.”
“Oh, no.” The three were amiable, dedicated men, and it saddened me to think that Angelica’s maternal concern had caused them to be captured. “What of the other guards?”
“Slight injuries, noting mortal,” he said, taking one final look at the empty shelves. “They’ll recover. It’s the others that concern me more.”
By candlelight, his face looked old and worn, the events of the day showing their effect, and I slipped my hand into the crook of his arm. While others often judged my father as aloof, even cold, I knew the kindness in his heart. This evening he’d seen his family cowering in fear, and suffered considerable losses to his personal property, and yet his greatest concern now was for the soldiers who’d been captured in his service.
I, Eliza Hamilton Page 21