Hamilton and Peggy!

by L. M. Elliott

  Catharine lit a candle. “No. We must do as I promised. We cannot flee without the provisions we loaded in the wagon. And I do not wish to leave my china for those heathen Hessians the British have hired to kill us.”

  “For pity’s sake, Mother! Your housewifery will get us killed.”

  Craaaackkk.

  The front door burst open. Someone raced up the stairs.

  Good God. Peggy almost tossed Cornelia at her mother in her scramble to grab up the loaded flintlock pistol laid out on a table in case of emergency. Peggy pointed it toward the door, cursing her hands for shaking. She’d never hit her mark.

  “Mrs. Schuyler!” Varick called. “Douse that light!” He dashed into the room, waving his arms.

  Crack! Crack-crack.

  Varick blew out the candle and pushed Catharine away from the window. “Please do not make yourself a target, Mrs. Schuyler.” He peered out into the darkness.

  “Who is attacking us?”

  “We think Mohawks allied with Burgoyne and Loyalist brigades. Stay here!” He rushed out.

  The women huddled on the bed as Catharine rocked Cornelia. “But Philip negotiated a peace with all the Iroquois tribes to not make war against us,” she whispered. “Your papa has known many of the Mohawk sachems all their lives.”

  “Yes, but those Mohawks have also known all their lives the local Tories who are mustering units like the Royal Greens. And you know, Mama, some settlers encroach on the Iroquois hunting grounds. I heard Papa say the Mohawks believe that if the British retain control of America, the king will keep their borders sacrosanct.”

  “I suppose we cannot count on anything anymore,” Catharine murmured.

  No, certainly not, thought Peggy. Not if Ticonderoga—considered impregnable—had fallen. If the rumors were true, British gunboats had blown apart in a mere thirty minutes the floating breastwork that had taken the Continentals ten months to construct. And somehow they’d hoisted enormous cannon up the sheer cliffs of Sugar Loaf Hill to point them straight down into the fort.

  Clearly anything could happen.

  Crack! Crack-crack.

  Trembling with terror, Peggy rose and took up post against the wall next to the window. For a few agonizing minutes, she watched the flash-fizz of igniting gunpowder that preceded each shot. Peggy held the heavy pistol out away from her body, knowing it could easily misfire and explode, tearing apart her hands. She clutched the wooden handle, keeping her thumbs braced up against the cock to keep it closed and her fingers off the trigger loop. Her breath came quick and shallow. Peggy felt faint. Would she really have the courage to aim and fire and split open an attacker’s chest?

  What if there was more than one? To reload took pouring gunpowder into the pan and down the muzzle, ramming in a grease patch and ball. She didn’t know how to do all that quickly. If more than one enemy came through that door, she, her mother, and her little sister were done for.

  The back-and-forth firing abruptly stopped. In the dim moonlight filtering through the windows, Peggy eyed Catharine nervously. Did that mean the attackers were gone? Or were their protectors captured?

  Peggy raised the pistol, took aim at the bedroom door, and pulled back the cock. “Aim small, miss small,” she whispered to herself, repeating what she’d heard Schuyler tell her brothers. “Aim small, miss small.” Her quickened pulse throbbed in her head.

  “Mrs. Schuyler! Miss Peggy!” Varick ran up the stairs. “Do not be afraid.” He popped through the door.

  Peggy gasped and lowered the pistol. Thank God. Feeling like she was about to vomit, she leaned over, trying to breath normally again.

  “Oh my Lord!” Catharine cried.

  Peggy looked up.

  A Mohawk stood behind Varick.

  “Get back! Get back!” Peggy shrieked at the colonel. Raising the pistol again, she fumbled to cock it.

  “No! No, Miss Peggy!” Varick rushed toward her. “Stop! He is a friend!” He pulled the pistol away from her, gingerly putting it down on the table. “It’s all right. He stopped the others. It is all quite extraordinary. Regret overcame this man.” Varick gestured toward the warrior. “He convinced his compatriots to stop. He came to us a few moments ago to say his kin had been enticed by a promised reward bounty for the capture of General Schuyler. Honestly, Burgoyne is a devil, tempting, exploiting—”

  Sensing one of his outraged and rather verbose tirades coming, Peggy interrupted. “What caused his regret, Colonel?”

  “He wishes to tell Mrs. Schuyler himself. Given the circumstances, I could hardly refuse. Sir?” He called to the Mohawk.

  The warrior stepped through the door. Even in the dim light, Peggy could see his face was painted for war. She tried not to instinctively recoil in trepidation. His fierce and strong presence filled the room.

  Slowly, Catharine rose.

  The Mohawk bowed his head. She curtsied.

  “When I was a young,” the warrior began in a deep voice, “I often tired on the hunt. The aunt of your husband let me sleep in her barn. She gave me fruit from her trees. I do not agree with your husband, Thoniondakayon, and his fight against our father, the king. But I will not harm his family in the night.” He bowed again. “I lay boughs of peace at your feet.”

  Then he withdrew, making no sound except the click of the downstairs front door as it opened and then shut.

  “Quite poetical, don’t you think?” murmured Varick. “I regret that we fight them.”

  “Who ordered their attack?” Catharine asked.

  “Local Tories, most like. They are greatly emboldened with Burgoyne’s approach. They’d like nothing better than to kidnap General Schuyler and turn him over to the British. Or keep you as hostage to control him. We must evacuate you at dawn, madam.”

  Without skipping a beat, Catharine turned to Peggy. “That is still a few hours from now. We can finish packing.”

  The rising sun warmed Peggy’s left side as their two-wheeled calèche jolted down the road. To the right were still-dark woods, their tangled undergrowth a mystery of potential ambush. She tried not to think about that, or whether she would ever see their beloved country house again.

  How many games of hide-and-seek had she played there with her siblings among the lilac bushes her father had brought back from England and planted in a welcoming lane from the Hudson to their front door? How many bluebird nests in tree cavities along their fields had she peeped into? What joy it had been to lie in the meadow grasses and look up, watching the young birds’ exquisite sky-blue plumage blend into the azure heavens above. Oh, and spotting the brook trout darting through the waters of Fishkill Creek as she hoisted her skirts and leapt from rock to rock to cross to the wilds along its western side. The gorgeous wild hydrangea blossoming there along the far bank. The glorious green cool that enveloped her as she stepped onto that shore and into the deep forest shade.

  Her heart would break if she never saw all that again.

  Peggy sighed and focused on the ears of the horse pulling the little carriage in which she sat with her mother and Cornelia. An odd twitch could signal that the horse sensed trouble she did not. Behind her, their heavily loaded wagon creaked. Varick and a guard rode alongside it, nervously checking the bushes as they passed. A third man rode one of the cart horses to steer it. In this slow, weighted-down train, they were, as any frontier huntsman would say, roosting turkeys begging to be shot for dinner.

  For several hours they rode in careful, anxious silence, jumping when any squirrel shook leaves as it leapt from branch to branch. At midday, about halfway home, they heard ahead of them a bone-chilling cacophony—dozens of voices raised in panic.

  Peggy pulled the horses to a stop. The pair stamped and snorted and shied backward, alarmed.

  “What in God’s name?” Catharine breathed.

  Varick pulled out his saber and, brandishing it, rode ahead.

  “Well, that’s likely to get him shot,” Peggy muttered. But she didn’t hear any musket fire. She strained her ear
s. What she could make out were shouts of impatience, anger, fear. As if a horde was crushed together on the narrow road.

  From behind them came the thundering sound of fast-moving horses. Peggy whirled around in her seat as their two guards pulled out the flintlock pistols they carried.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” The three approaching riders yanked back on their reins. They were in a hodgepodge of plain clothes, their mounts thick plow horses. They were no military couriers.

  “Don’t stop here, miss,” one of them said. “Burgoyne is coming, thanks to that idiot Schuyler.”

  Her father—an idiot? “What do you mean, sir, by calling General Schuyler that?” Peggy shot back. How dare this man criticize her father?

  “Schuyler and St. Clair sold us out at Ticonderoga. Played traitors.”

  Peggy started to rise up and strike at the man with the carriage whip she held, but Catharine grabbed her by the arm and kept her down in her seat. She shook her head, reminding Peggy they were outnumbered. Better to remain anonymous. Catharine kept her voice calm. “Goodness, why do you say that, sir? What proof is there?”

  “St. Clair has just shown up with some of his army at Fort Edward. . . .”

  “Oh, thank God,” Peggy couldn’t help but exclaim.

  “Don’t thank God for it,” the man replied. “St. Clair is a cowardly devil. Burgoyne is laying waste to everything he sees because General St. Clair slunk out of Fort Ticonderoga in the middle of the night, without so much as putting up an hour’s fight.”

  “But now it all makes sense!” Peggy blurted. “Now that he’s brought his troops to reinforce Fort Edward. Surely St. Clair evacuated Ticonderoga to save his men from capture or certain death—to fight another day. Don’t you see? If the British did indeed manage to aim cannon directly down into our fort from adjacent cliffs, their artillerymen could see every movement our boys made inside. They didn’t stand a chance. So the evacuation was . . . brilliant! He saved a third of our army.”

  “Begging your pardon, miss,” the second rider spoke up, “but that is simpleminded. Obviously you haven’t heard the truth of it. Those twelve-pounders weren’t filled with cannonballs but with balls made of silver. That’s right—silver! We heard that them Redcoats shot pure silver into the fort—to bribe that bastard St. Clair into handing over Ticonderoga. People say he’s come to Fort Edward to divvy up the riches with his conspirator, that old arrogant Dutch fart Schuyler. We ought to string the pair up, right now.”

  Peggy was speechless. She had heard vicious attacks of her father before, but nothing this ludicrous. Or this threatening.

  “Silver balls? Hogwash, sirs.” Catharine spoke, polite but firm, even though Peggy could feel her quivering with anger, squashed as they were together on the calèche’s board seat. “As we speak, General Schuyler is marshaling militia to fight Burgoyne. He is begging Congress for more Continental troops and ammunition. He is using his own money to supply the meager troops he does have. Meanwhile he has ordered his men to block all roads and waterways that Burgoyne must use—to fell trees across paths, to break up bridges and dam up creeks so they flood into impassible swamps. It has taken the British two weeks to go a few miles, has it not? That is because of General Schuyler. A traitor would not do all that.”

  She cleared her throat before adding, in her best lady-of-the-manor voice, “Now, where are you heading in such haste? Surely to join up with a New York militia to defend us?”

  Peggy admired her mother striking such a steely attitude. If she weren’t so afraid, she might have smirked, knowing what a dressing down by an imperious Catharine felt like.

  The men squirmed in their saddles. “We be from Massachusetts. And our crops need harvesting,” said the second rider. “We are for home.”

  Peggy wondered if they had deserted and stolen the plow horses on which they sat.

  “Your country, we”—Catharine gestured to herself and Peggy—“need you.”

  “I already did my time,” the first rider snarled. “I froze and starved this past winter and nearly died of the pox inoculation the army made me take. And for what? For twenty Continental dollars. All that paper money is good for is the outhouse. Which reminds me . . .” He kicked his horse to nudge it close to their wagon. “What’s in here? Any food for a hungry veteran?” He reached over and caught the edge of the tarp covering their provisions.

  Schuyler’s two guards cocked their pistols as Peggy shouted, “Leave that be!”

  Cornelia wailed.

  Everyone froze in the standoff, until Catharine slowly stood, balancing herself as the calèche swayed with her movement. “That happens to be supplies we have gathered for the army. We carry them to Albany for the troops mustered there to fight Burgoyne. We do so at the request of my husband—General Philip Schuyler—who is, by the way, in constant conference with His Excellency, General George Washington.”

  As her words sank in, the first two deserters froze like startled deer. The third rider, who had remained silent, rolled his eyes. “Now you done it. Washington executes men what steal food.” He tipped his hat at Catharine, before saying to his compatriots, “She’s right, boys, now’s not the time to quit. Remember that lad telling us Benedict Arnold has arrived to command the militia being called up? I’ll follow him. He be the bravest man this side of Hades.” He kicked his old horse into a heavy trot, calling over his shoulder: “Come on.”

  His companions watched him go. “The fool,” the first rider grumbled. “I ain’t going. I’m headed home to save my wheat and protect my family. What about you?” he asked his remaining friend.

  “Aye, I’m with you.”

  They turned their horses for the woods.

  The cowards! If only Peggy could join up. She’d show them what loyalty to the cause looked like. And oh, how she’d duel men who dishonored her papa with such lies!

  Only when the riders disappeared from view did Catharine collapse back onto the seat. “Let us find Colonel Varick, child. Quickly.”

  Five minutes down the rutted road, they found it swarming with cows, hogs, sheep, and farmers trying to herd them around a clog of wagons stuck fast in mud. The woods grew so close to the path, many of the animals were caught up in thick brambles. They thrashed and kicked, grunting, mooing, bleating, as their herdsmen tried to cut back the thorny thickets to release them. Their own faces bled from deep scratches where branches had whipped up in the fray, slicing open the men’s skin.

  In the road, other frontiersmen were pushing carts and shouting curses at one another. Women stood nearby, their children clutching their skirts and whimpering. A boy held Varick’s horse. The colonel was down in the mire, yanking on a wagon wheel as a hulking old man shoved its back.

  There was no getting around the tangle. Those wagons simply had to move.

  Making it all worse were more families and livestock stalled in a merging pathway, coming from the northwest, out of the forest. Fear and rage and life-or-death impatience were splashed along their faces. Peggy felt her skin prickle with anxiety. The British and Loyalist raids they were fleeing must have been horrific to spark this much terror. These were hardened frontiersmen who braved many soul-breaking hardships to hack out their rustic farms on the edge of the wilderness.

  She was about to take Catharine’s hand for comfort when Peggy thought she recognized a distant cousin of their vast extended Schuyler family. “Mama, isn’t that Ann Bleecker?” She pointed to a young mother, kneeling in the grasses, wailing. A little girl clung to her, sobbing.

  “Goodness, it is.” Catharine frowned, witnessing the woman’s anguish. “Go see if we can help her.”

  Peggy clambered down and hurried toward Bleecker. She could see a baby lying on the ground. As she drew closer—and just as she realized with horror that the poor baby was dead—an elderly farmer grabbed Peggy’s arm. “Don’t get no closer, missy. That baby died of the runs. You be one of the general’s daughters, aren’t you? I recognize the good Mrs. Schuyler.” He nodded toward Catharine. />
  “Y-y-yes,” stammered Peggy. She tried to pull herself loose of his grip. She couldn’t just this leave this poor woman.

  But the elderly man held fast, seeming to read her mind. “Not nothing you can do for Missus Bleecker. She won’t even let friends near her yet. She’s mourning her babe. When she’s through, we’ll bury the little lamb and then keep moving to Albany. The babe sparked a high fever. So if we’re going to get the curse of whatever tore her up with dysentery, the die is cast for us. No need for you to endanger yourself. Your papa been good to me. I tenant on your Saratoga lands. I can’t let you get sick, missy.”

  He looked sadly to the weeping mother and her children. “This is what happens with bad water, food that spoils on the road. Damn the bloodybacks. Damn the Tories what help them. They torched all the farms round us. Beat a widow trying to douse the flames. Bayoneted her son. A young woman, name of Jenny McCrea, has been murdered, rumor has it by Torries or a Huron with them. She were engaged to a Loyalist officer—someone on their side! If that be true, no one’s safe.” He gestured to the swarming crowd. “That be what’s fulminating all this.”

  Right as he pointed, the wagon Varick was struggling to uncork from the mire popped free.

  Cries of “Huzzah!” “Thank God!” “Move on!” echoed into the woods.

  “Go on now, missy.” The old farmer gently turned her to head back to her carriage. “Your mama needs you.”

  Peggy staggered toward Catharine, sick to her soul. Eloquent words and lofty beliefs in the rights of man, of an individual’s God-given ability to think for him or herself, had spawned their Revolution. This, though, was how it was fought. In vicious attacks neighbor to neighbor; in fear; with rumors spawning panic, hatred, and retributions. And this was what it cost—refugee children dying on the roadside as their parents fled enemy armies thinking that would keep them safe and alive.

  As Peggy crawled back onto the seat and their calèche rolled forward, she swore that if she did nothing else, she would stick fast to her family to watch over them. She prayed she’d have the nerve to protect them when it really counted.