My Dear Hamilton

by Stephanie Dray

  She smiled, shaking away the sand we used to dry the ink. Then she poured a circle of wax upon the page to seal it. “If I could tell you that, perhaps the war would already be done.”

  I suspected she had somehow managed General Washington into offering an apology. And now it was up to me to get Alexander to accept it. But I felt ill-equipped for the task. Martha Washington was, in my mind, the ideal of a true woman. More amiable and diplomatic than my own beloved mother. Martha had, for more than twenty years, worn around her finger a plain wedding band that symbolized her devotion to—and perhaps her influence over—her husband. Whereas I was a newlywed and still learning how to influence mine.

  Foundering as if in a canoe without a paddle while I did it.

  And the one person who seemed as frustrated as I felt was Lafayette.

  That afternoon when taking lunch to the back room where my husband labored over the general’s correspondence, I overheard the Frenchman cry, “Mon Dieu, the feud I started by accident! My dear Hamilton, how I wish I hadn’t stopped you to talk when the general needed you. I make all the apologies.”

  “No one blames you, my friend,” my husband replied.

  “Better to blame me than His Excellency,” Lafayette said stoutly. I hesitated just outside the slightly open door, riveted by our friend’s effort to talk sense into Alexander. “Your being angry with him will pass, Hamilton. But trust in someone who has tender sentiments for you—if you quit this army now, you will be angry at yourself the rest of your life.”

  I held my breath, because my husband had said nothing to me of quitting the army itself—only Washington’s service.

  Whatever Alexander replied was too muffled to hear, but the marquis’s unusually soft tones were just audible. “Then make me a promise, do not resign your commission. If nothing better can be found, come fight beside me and Monroe in Virginia and command our artillery. Like old times. I will not go until you agree.”

  I withdrew to the kitchen, not wishing to be caught eavesdropping. How was I to make all of this better when Hamilton seemed intent on making it worse?

  Some moments later, Lafayette surprised me when he walked in, nearly banging his head on the copper pots hanging from the rafters. “Madame Hamilton, you marry a most obstinate man.”

  “So I’m learning,” I said, immediately afraid I’d been disloyal. But how was I to save my husband from behaving with recklessness, pride, and even arrogance?

  Lafayette gave a rueful smile as he leaned in. “Brilliant men are often the most stubborn, but to pick a quarrel with Washington.” He shook his head, and his amusement melted away. “Some would say this to be folies de grandeurs. But in Hamilton I know this to be a mask. And allowances must be made for his circumstances.”

  “His circumstances?” I asked, fearing he might raise the issue of Alexander’s legitimacy.

  Instead, he said, “Great pain and loss, madame. As I think you know.”

  I did know, but I was a little amazed that Lafayette did, too. And even more so at the sudden intimacy of our conversation.

  “My own father was killed when I was not yet two years old,” the Frenchman explained. “But still I had money and relations to look after me. Your husband had no one to look after him . . . small wonder he trusts no one but himself to care about his future. Not Washington. Not me. Not anyone, I think. Maybe not even you.”

  I never wished to depend entirely upon any one person.

  That’s what Hamilton had said. And I realized how well Lafayette understood his fears. Martha Washington had advised me to manage my husband’s self-destructive impulses. And now I hoped Lafayette might help me do that. “Maybe you could talk to him again in a few days, when he’s had time to reflect.”

  “Perhaps we can conspire together to make him see reason, oui?” Lafayette replied. “I can only write him letters because I march shortly to defend Virginia, with orders to capture Benedict Arnold and hang him dead by the neck.”

  With a bloodthirstiness I’d never felt before, I said, “In that endeavor I wish you very well, sir.”

  Still, Lafayette spoke of his new southern command a little glumly, for we all believed the final battle would take place somewhere in New York, and he didn’t wish to miss it. “It is probable I will be in the southern wilderness until the end of the war, so if Hamilton will not return to Washington, convince him to join me. We will share our exile.”

  I wasn’t certain that a loving wife should convince a husband who had dedicated six years of his life to war that he should endanger himself even one more day. But I was sensible to Lafayette’s argument that Alexander would never forgive himself if he didn’t see the war to its conclusion.

  Nor was I even sure we could win this war without Alexander Hamilton, for these weeks at his side in camp had revealed to me the military side of the man. He was forever identifying weaknesses in enemy movements, formulating strategies about which he convinced the general before communicating them to the commanders in the field; haranguing Congress for what support the army received; negotiating with the French, and finding clever ways to stretch the army’s resources—all while unburdening Washington so he could focus on the whole of the war.

  So I agreed to give Lafayette’s suggestion long thought. “You’re a good friend,” I told the Frenchman. “And I wish you the fondest Adieu.”

  “No, no!” Lafayette cried before taking his leave. “We will say only Au revoir! Until we meet again. In the meantime, I wish you luck with your campaign to keep your husband from rashness. As for me, I would rather face the cannons.”

  Chapter Twelve

  April 1781

  De Peyster’s Point, New York

  TWO MONTHS LATER, I wondered if I would not have fared better against cannons myself.

  Martha Washington’s advice had helped me to see that my soft words and touches could moderate my husband, at least a little. By making of myself a soothing presence, I’d gently persuaded Alexander to accompany the general to Rhode Island to serve as interpreter in the strategy discussions with the French officers, for Alexander’s mastery of the language exceeded that of all the other American members of Washington’s staff.

  I accomplished that much.

  But after that, Hamilton left Washington’s service, just as he said he would.

  And now he appeared to be taunting our commander.

  His Excellency had refused my husband a promotion partly on the grounds that he was indispensable at headquarters. Well, now we were gone from headquarters, but living in a little brick and stone house directly across the river from Washington’s dwellings.

  Our new home at De Peyster’s Point—our first household together—was little better than a fishing shack, without so much as a dining table. It was drafty, the roof leaked, it stunk of dead fish, and the only way to get to it from headquarters was by way of a little rowboat. But it had one winning feature as far as my husband was concerned.

  Namely, that George Washington couldn’t look out his window without seeing us there.

  Day in. Day out. Our presence—in plain sight—was to remind the general that Alexander Hamilton was available for a promotion, but until he got one, he would remain just out of reach.

  For my part, I’d promised that I would live anywhere with Hamilton, and I took genuine pleasure in transforming the shack into our home. This was not, after all, a boardinghouse where we must be careful not to move anything. No, this was the first place I might decide for myself how to arrange our few sticks of furniture, where to store silver, where to hang linens, and what to store in the larder—for we had no servant with us to do it for me.

  And not even Mama would swoop in and dictate how everything should be.

  So, armed with bucket, a brush, and some precious lye soap acquired at far too great a price, I cheerfully scrubbed our new home from floor to ceiling. I made countless trips to the river to get wash water. And when I hung my petticoats on the line, I’d wave, quite ruefully, to Martha Washington
across the way, imagining she was doing the same.

  It was all a great deal more challenging than I expected. The fire needed to be tended all day if we were to have anything to eat. And having never managed a household by myself, much less attended to all the chores, there were a few mishaps. My first attempt at cooking fish resulted in a charred mess and a burned hand.

  “This is no place for my gently bred bride.” My husband said this while kissing my blistered fingers, as if to make them all better. Then his eyes fell upon the wash bucket where I’d been on my hands and knees scrubbing mud from the floor. And later that night, when I collapsed in an exhausted heap beside him in bed, he asked, “Why don’t you return to your father’s house in Albany before he sees what I’ve reduced you to?”

  Because you aren’t the only one with too much pride, I thought.

  My aunt Gertrude had said I was no milk-and-water miss. Well, I wasn’t about to be a milk-and-water wife, either. “Others make do with less. So can I. I don’t want to leave. My place is at your side in service of the cause.”

  Besides, I could hardly make him see reason if I was far away.

  “So you are a Roman wife,” he said, more than a little pleased. “But I’m not entirely without hopes we’ll soon have peace. Then you must submit to the mortification of enjoying mere domestic happiness. This I know you will not like, but we cannot always have things as we wish.”

  I laughed at his optimistic teasing, then said, “Martha Washington stays with her husband through hardship and I intend to stay with mine.”

  By mentioning Mrs. Washington, I also hoped to remind him of all the people who sacrificed their comfort and personal desires to remain at Washington’s side. But what he seemed to take from it was a reminder that Martha Washington had servants and I did not. A thing remedied the next day in the form of a young enslaved Negro woman Alexander hired from her master. Though I was happy for the help, I didn’t know if we could truly afford a servant and was surprised to feel discomfited at being entirely in charge of supervising one. I’d grown up in a house run using the labor of slaves, but they’d always been Papa’s slaves. Certainly, they’d tended to me, but as a child living under my father’s roof I’d not been given a choice in that.

  Now, I had a choice. Though she’d only been temporarily hired out to us by her owner, this was the closest I’d ever come to being a slaveholder in my own right.

  And I found that I did not like it.

  I did not like it at all.

  Not when I thought about the black soldiers at Morristown. Not when surrounded by soldiers preparing to die for the cause of liberty and independence. In any case, I didn’t share my misgivings with my husband because he’d done me the kindness of giving me exactly what he’d thought I’d wanted and needed, likely against the pangs of his own conscience.

  I was only just beginning to see the inherent contradiction between the ideals we said we were fighting for, and the reality of slavery in our daily lives. Hamilton had opened my eyes to it.

  But I wasn’t sure what to do about it.

  We were, I suppose, both of us, still a ways from a full awakening.

  * * *

  IT MUST NOT be thought that Hamilton was idle at De Peyster’s Point.

  Quite the opposite. While my servant and I cooked and cleaned and caught fish in the cold brackish water, Hamilton cast about for any sort of opportunity fortune might cast up. Not only pestering Washington near daily to give him command of troops, but also writing other generals, too, in the hopes they had some leadership role for him in the forthcoming campaign. He even wrote to my brother-in-law, who apparently informed Angelica of his ambitions such that she became anxious to exert her own influence on his behalf.

  “Good news,” Alexander said one day as he came rushing in the door, tramping spring mud all over the floor. Rain had fallen for two straight days, causing the river to overflow its banks and making of our yard a quagmire. “Betsy, if you will hear—”

  I held out a hand before he could cross the room. “I would love nothing more than to share in your good news, my dearest husband. After you’ve removed those boots.”

  A stack of books and papers in hand, he appeared completely confused, and he finally peered down at himself, as if he’d momentarily forgotten he had feet. With a chuckle, he juggled his load and pulled the tall boots off, and I wondered if he’d finally been given his command. But Alexander said, “Congress has acted as I hoped they would. Robert Morris has been appointed as superintendent of finance.” My husband had not been much impressed, in early March, when the Articles of Confederation were finally ratified, thinking them far too weak a system. But now he was hopeful and nearly vibrating with excitement. “Finally, we shall have men of the first abilities, property, and character in charge of the departments of the executive.”

  I smiled and said how wonderful it was, though this was not the sort of news that excited me. And as he sat, I took in the pristine spines of books sprawled across the table to find a series of what appeared to be philosophical texts on government and economy. Price’s Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, in two volumes. Hume’s Political Discourses. Postlethwayt’s The Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce. Beawes’s Lex Mercatoria Rediviva.

  Given this reading material, I was happy to leave him to it!

  But when I returned a short time later, I found that he’d discarded his coat and loosened his cravat. Ink dotted his fingers and smudged his cheek, and his hair had the appearance of having been blown by the wind from the way he raked his hands through it when deep in thought.

  “What are you working on so feverishly?”

  “A letter of congratulations to Mr. Morris,” he said, working with an intensity I’d never seen in another—not even my father. His focus unwavering, his quill scratched fast against the page. It was strangely enthralling to watch. Utterly appealing.

  I blinked at the stack of thick leather tomes and what looked to be at least ten pages of writing. “A very long note of congratulations, I should say . . .”

  “Well, I’m also sending him my thoughts on the topic of establishing our economy,” Hamilton said with the same nonchalance with which another might talk about the weather or the price of tea. “Betsy, if we win this war, we turn to the great project of building a nation where none has yet existed. Rarely does mankind have such an opportunity, nor such a burden. We must get it right.”

  Clearly Hamilton believed he knew how to get it right.

  And I listened as he told me all he’d learned of world finance when, at the age of fourteen, he’d worked as a clerk at an export and import company in St. Croix, trading sugar, timber, cattle, and even slaves. I hadn’t realized he had such a passion for finance—or really, that anyone could have such a passion for it. Truthfully, it was a passion I didn’t share. But I listened in rapt attention because it was one of the few times Alexander ever spoke about his childhood, and the hard lessons it impressed upon him.

  Lessons he was very keen to impart to his new country.

  Even then, as a starry-eyed newlywed, I feared there might be some manner of hubris in a lieutenant colonel with no expertise in finance other than his own experience as a fourteen-year-old clerk condescending to write the new superintendent of finance an economic manifesto. But at the time, having mostly witnessed the soldier in Hamilton, I was also much intrigued by the scholar. More importantly, his enthusiasm for the project of building a nation—for thinking ahead—helped give me much-needed courage that we would win this war.

  And with a little hubris of my own, I asked, “Is there . . . something I can do to help?” He’d already refused a bowl of fish stew for dinner, as if he couldn’t take even a moment away from his pen in exchange for a spoon. And now he was rubbing with one hand at the back of his neck, as if it pained him. When he glanced at me quizzically, I suggested, very tentatively, “I see that you’re copying your notes and calculations. Maybe I could do the copying for you.”

>   “You want to write for me,” he said, arching a brow. “Like a clerk?”

  “I should rather be your long-suffering and extremely loyal aide-de-camp,” I replied.

  He smirked at my impudence. “Your simmering disapproval of my decision to leave the general is duly noted.” I started to object, but he held up a hand. “That was not a point subtly made, my love. And I intend to thoroughly punish you for it by accepting your offer.”

  I felt a little thrill of excitement. When I’d thought of being his partner, I never imagined being so directly involved in his work. To be a patriot in heart and sentiment, but also in deed and ink. “Just tell me what to do.”

  Before long, I had a stack of pages in front of me. While Alexander wolfed down his dinner and worked out more calculations, I copied his notes for hours, concentrating on penmanship, until my eyes glazed over from recording lengthy discussions of generating revenue, paying for the military, currency depreciation, foreign credit, and instituting a national bank. But his long complicated calculations made me think of Papa’s love of equations, and I smiled at the comparison.

  When I had written my twelfth full page, I set down the quill but found that my hand had cramped in a curled position. I laughed as I rubbed at my palm and fingers. “How do you do it?”

  Hamilton’s brow furrowed. “Do what?”

  “Write so much. Some days the only time you’re not writing is when you’re asleep. Why, I’ve even seen you writing while saddled upon a horse. Yet, after just a few hours at the task, my hand feels as though I’ve suddenly developed rheumatism.”

  He frowned and made as if to set aside his work. “I’m sorry, love. You don’t have to continue.”

  “No, please,” I said, smiling. “I want to help. I only mean to convey my admiration, Alexander. You are remarkable, truly.”

  Slowly, he settled back into his chair. “Remarkable? How?”

  “Oh, Mr. Hamilton, what I’d known of you pales in comparison to what I’ve learned this night. Why . . . I begin to think you’re a genius. And I say this as the daughter of a man who has always delighted in calculations and equations and theory and philosophy. I may not understand all your work, but I recognize the cleverness . . . no, the brilliance behind it all the same.”