Eliza Hamilton

by Tilar J. Mazzeo

  The Schuyler home, the marquis remembered, was “a handsome house, halfway up the bank opposite the ferry, [that] seems to attract the eye and to invite strangers to stop.” These strangers were made very welcome by Eliza and her father. The marquis remembered Eliza’s mother, in her late forties, stout, gout-ridden, again heavily pregnant—for a twelfth time—and weary of houseguests, as short-tempered. It was better, the guests quickly concluded, not to cross Mrs. Schuyler.

  But there were plenty of compensations for a cranky hostess. We “found ourselves in an instant in a handsome drawing room near a good fire,” the marquis recalled, and there was a merry dinner the first night and for the next several nights with the family, before Philip Schuyler wisely set off with his guests a few days after Christmas to tour the battlefield at Saratoga. Alexander might otherwise have gone with the officers. He chose, instead, to stay with Eliza and Peggy. These were the last days in Albany and the end of any wedding holiday. Soon, they would return to camp, this time as a married couple.

  The thought of managing a new household on her own filled Eliza with both excitement and trepidation. Her mother didn’t need to warn her. Eliza could see for herself that marriage was not the same as courtship.

  Alexander set off for camp immediately after the New Year and, after more than a week of traveling through frigid weather by schooner and then on horseback through the mountains, reached General Washington’s headquarters at New Windsor on January 10 or 11, 1781. Eliza set off from Albany two days later, bringing with her trunks filled with wedding linens, gowns, and a few good pieces of silver, traveling more slowly and more comfortably, by boat and then carriage, expecting to arrive on January 17 to begin her new life as a young wife and housekeeper.

  As Peggy saw her sister off, she was filled with despair, frustration, and perhaps, if she were honest, even a bit of jealousy at Eliza’s good fortune. Peggy was twenty-two and eager to find a husband. She was tired of being stuck at home with her mother, looking after younger siblings and managing the canning. She had her beaux, and she knew that some people said she was the prettiest of the Schuyler sisters. She had turned down one or two dull gentlemen. She couldn’t help but wonder, though, why none of the admirers she fancied had ever made a marriage proposal.

  Peggy was not the only one to wonder if she would ever find a husband, though many had a better sense than she did of the root of the problem. Their old family friend Benjamin Franklin asked a mutual acquaintance in 1778 if she were married yet, and the answer came back, “I have not heard that the wild Miss Peggy has found a match to her liking.” Peggy was still unmarried more than two years after that letter, and her sisters advised her now to be less choosy when it came to marriage offers. Alexander, seeing she was desperate, advised her not to marry just anyone, no matter what her sisters urged her. Eliza might “persuade all her friends to embark with her in the matrimonial voyage,” Alexander told Peggy, but he sounded a note of caution:

  I pray you do not let her advice have so much influence as to make you matrimony-mad. ’Tis a very good thing when their stars unite two people who are fit for each other. . . . But its a dog of life when two dissonant tempers meet, and ’tis ten to one but this is the case. When therefore I join her in advising you to marry, I add be cautious in the choice.

  Caution, however, was not in Peggy Schuyler’s nature. She was suffering from a string of disappointments brought on by her indiscretion. As recently as October of 1780, rumors had swirled at camp that François Louis Teissèdre, the Marquis de Fleury, planned to propose to her. The marquis himself confided that he was in love with Peggy. “Mrs. Carter told me you was soon to be married to her sister, Miss Betsy Schuyler,” the French nobleman wrote to Alexander:

  I congratulate you heartyly on that conquest; for many Reasons: the first that you will get all that familly’s interest, & that a man of your abilities wants a Little influence to do good to his country. The second that you will be in a very easy situation, & happin’s is not to be found without a Large estate. The third (this one is not very Certain) that we shall be connect’d or neighbors. For you must know, that I am an admirer of Miss Pegguy, your sister in Law; & that if she will not have me; Mr. Duane may be cox’d into the measure of giving me his daughter.

  The marquis, however, either changed his mind or was a singularly unlucky gentleman, because he married neither Peggy nor her Livingston cousin, Mary Duane. Alexander threatened teasingly to write a play for his new sister-in-law on the topic of her marriage quest. “I am composing a piece,” Alexander wrote, “of which, from the opinion I have of her qualifications, I shall endeavour to prevail upon [Peggy] to act the principal character. The title is ‘The way to get him, for the benefit of all single ladies who desire to be married.’ ”

  What changed his noble friend’s mind about marriage to Peggy, Alexander never said. Perhaps the marquis learned that Miss Peggy had been so bold as to kiss one of her other beaux on a visit to Hartford, Connecticut. Perhaps word reached him that she declared next, as Alexander put it, that she was in love “with an old man of fifty.” Whatever the case, Peggy remained worryingly single.

  Alexander’s friend Mac thought he understood why Peggy was having trouble catching a husband. Comparing Angelica and Peggy, Mac observed,

  Mrs. Carter is a fine woman. She charms in all companies. No one has seen her, of either sex, who has not been pleased with her, and she has pleased every one, chiefly by means of those qualities which make you the husband of her Sister. Peggy, though perhaps a finer woman, is not generally thought so. Her own sex are apprehensive that she considers them, poor things, as Swifts Vanessa did [i.e., with scorn]; and they in return do not scruple to be displeased. In short, Peggy, to be admired as she ought, has only to please the men less and the ladies more. Tell her so. I am sure her good sense will soon place her in her proper station.

  Peggy, however, was not in a mood to listen. She looked down her nose at the other young ladies and didn’t care a fig that they looked for ways to ostracize her. She enjoyed talk with the men and flirting. She couldn’t see how that should affect her marriage chances. But that it did was certain.

  Army headquarters in the winter of 1781 was dull for a married woman. Peggy had no reason, Eliza quickly discovered, to feel jealous. It was, by any start, a rocky first year with a surprisingly volatile and moody Alexander. This wasn’t what Eliza had expected.

  At Morristown, Eliza had been courting. In New Windsor, she was a young military wife. Between the two was a world of difference. The transition was one from pleasure to duty. Martha Washington and Aunt Gertrude welcomed her warmly to their circle of camp matrons, but Angelica and John were passing the winter gaily in New York City, and Eliza secretly longed to join them. Alexander was so busy, she hardly saw him in the evenings, and she was lonely.

  Letters from her cousin Kitty Livingston were a consolation—and a source of lively gossip. “Pray do you talk of a Jaunt to New York?” Kitty asked Eliza. “I have heard such a rumor, if you do say everything from me to Ann that you Know I would myself repeat—How is Col. Tilghman? Miss Brown says very ill. I hope he is recovering—Farewell once more, I wish I could tell you so in person.”

  When Alexander came into the room, Eliza quickly tucked Kitty’s letters into her sewing basket. It wasn’t because Eliza feared talk of Tench would make Alexander jealous—though it might have. And it wasn’t that Eliza fretted that Alexander still carried a torch for her cousin either. It was a bit of solidarity among the girls, who were embarrassed by the poverty of their education and the silliness of their confidences.

  Kitty and Eliza knew that the polished and clever Angelica outshone them. Angelica wouldn’t need to be embarrassed by Alexander seeing her letters. Angelica spoke fluent French and wrote long, witty letters to important, clever men—men like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin—that charmed even the most discerning among them. It was the same with Kitty’s sophisticated sister, Sarah Livingston Jay, a diplomat’s wife
and cut from the same cloth as Angelica.

  Eliza and Kitty stumbled over their words and their spelling. “If I did not know any apology made a bad thing worse,” Kitty confided to Eliza, “I would endeavor to say something in behalf of this poor letter, pray do not let Colonel Hamilton see it. His forte is writing I too well know, to submit anything I can say tonight to his inspection—from your Friendship I know I have nothing to dread.” Ashamed of how dull they might seem to a brilliant man like Alexander, Eliza quietly rallied behind her cousin, and they often destroyed each other’s letters in solidarity.

  In New Windsor, Eliza saw far less of Alexander, and it was hard not to be a little homesick. She was particularly glad, therefore, to make a new friend among the younger officers’ wives. Marie-Charlotte Antill was a young Anglo-Quebecois woman with a thin, pretty face, and, although she was just a bit older than Eliza, Marie-Charlotte had a horde of children already.

  Her new friend, Eliza knew, had a tragic story. Marie-Charlotte’s husband, Colonel Edward Antill, had been a guest at the Schuyler family home in Albany as recently as 1777, when he arrived bearing an urgent message from Montreal for the general.

  Not long after Colonel Antill’s flying visit to the Pastures, though, Edward had been captured by the British. He and Marie-Charlotte had wasted away together for years in the prisoner-of-war camps on Long Island in deadly conditions, alongside their small children. Alexander, as aide-de-camp, had had the job of opening and reading General Washington’s correspondence, including Edward’s increasingly desperate letters.

  Someone—perhaps Alexander—persuaded George Washington to make sure the prisoner exchange to free Edward took place in December of 1780, just as Eliza and Alexander were getting married. Eliza arrived now at camp to learn that Edward faced the scandalous indignity of a January court-martial. He would have to prove that he hadn’t let himself be captured on purpose.

  The trial consumed headquarters in the first weeks after Eliza’s arrival in the latter part of January. Everyone from the officers’ wives to the laundrywomen talked of it. Marie-Charlotte appeared, and conversations faltered. Marie-Charlotte kept her head high and threw back her thin, tired shoulders. She and the children had starved on Long Island as British prisoners, and she couldn’t shake the cough that plagued her. Marie-Charlotte never complained. Like Eliza, Marie-Charlotte was a woman who held close her emotions. In her eyes, though, Eliza thought she read anger and sadness.

  The other ladies avoided making awkward social calls to see Marie-Charlotte. Not Eliza. Eliza remembered all too well her father’s court-martial and all her family had suffered. Eliza was profoundly loyal to those she chose to protect, and she chose now to stand with Marie-Charlotte and Edward. Besides, Eliza loved spending time with Marie-Charlotte and Edward’s babies. Everyone hoped that it would not be long before Eliza was pregnant. No one hoped for it more than Eliza.

  On February 18, the Antill verdict finally came down, and the ladies sat vigil in tense anticipation. Edward was completely vindicated. “Lieutenant Colonel Antill appears to have been captured while in the execution of his duty,” the court-martial announced, and “he is not Censurable in any part of his conduct but is deserving the Approbation of every good officer.” It was just what Eliza knew was warranted. A pact had been sealed between the two couples now. As long as she had the friendship of Marie-Charlotte and the reassuring presence of Aunt Gertrude and Martha Washington, Eliza knew she could manage.

  Until Alexander’s impetuous temper turned everything topsy-turvy in the midst of the Antill verdict and threw Eliza’s plans into bitter chaos. It happened just as Eliza was getting settled.

  Headquarters was tense, and everyone worked too hard and in crowded conditions. Tempers were short. The war was uncertain. Eliza did not need anyone to explain that. Alexander was miffed at not being promoted to a field command position, where he could lead the charge, and, as their patience with each other frayed, George Washington and Alexander Hamilton quarreled on the staircase at headquarters. Alexander had been looking for a fight. He came home indignant. Eliza couldn’t believe what he had done. Alexander knew her father would be disappointed and worried. But he was defiant.

  General Washington tried to heal the rift, but Alexander remained hotheaded and stubborn. He would not retract his resignation as aide-de-camp and shunned headquarters. Suddenly Eliza had at home an unhappy and unemployed husband. Then Alexander let her know that he was sending her back to Albany.

  His impulsive decision threw into turmoil their camp housing arrangements. Alexander could not have her there while things were so uncertain. Money was tight, and, although Alexander might not have said as much, Eliza understood. A wife would only be a burden. A little over a month into their marriage, already Eliza was making the long, cold journey over snow back to the Pastures. She dreaded explaining Alexander’s rift with General Washington to her father.

  Eliza stayed in Albany until springtime, and, although there were visits from Alexander, it wasn’t the start to a new life that she had imagined in December. She would have to be patient until April, when Alexander rented accommodations at De Peyster’s Point, a rural hamlet just across the Hudson River from the New Windsor, and Eliza traveled south again to join him. Alexander kept busy writing and lobbying for a command position. Eliza, at last, set up housekeeping.

  Orders flew to John Carter’s business partner, Jeremiah Wadsworth, requesting household goods. They ordered a pound of green tea and a dozen new knives and forks. They purchased a “table 41/2 feet long 31/2 wide for a dining table” and a slave woman from the wife of General George Clinton. Any claims that Alexander Hamilton was an ardent abolitionist are complicated by several such transactions in the 1780s and 1790s. Alexander also bought a small boat, which he put into immediate use, rowing across the river to spend rowdy evenings in the pub with the officers. Eliza sat home alone. When Alexander returned, he was inevitably tipsy and amorous.

  Most of Alexander’s letters to his brother-in-law John, though, were about getting money rather than spending it. He and Eliza were woefully short of funds, and Alexander did not want to rely on the generosity of General Schuyler. In 1781, James McHenry sardonically observed that Angelica’s husband had “riches enough, with common management, to make the longest life very comfortable.” Alexander wanted to know how he had made it happen. The truthful answer was through speculation and some shady practices, although people were mostly too polite to say so. But John was on the make, and growing richer and richer. He never stopped being a bounder.

  Above all, though, what Alexander wanted was to lead a regiment in battle. He wanted to be a hero and to prove himself as a soldier and a patriot. For Alexander, an immigrant, it was especially important to do so. Otherwise, the war would end, and he would be one of those men who would have to confess to never having seen action. He was determined to loiter about camp until General Washington relented. He might not be an aide-de-camp, but he was still a colonel. The climax of the revolution was surely coming. Alexander was desperate to be part of it.

  It meant yet another separation. Eliza struggled to accept it. Winter camp broke up in June, as the campaign season again started, and Eliza would need to go again for the summer to the Pastures, without Alexander. There was only one consolation. With her would go her sister Angelica, uncomfortably pregnant with a third child, and Marie-Charlotte. Edward Antill had been ordered to “proceed immediately with Colonel [Moses] Hazen’s Regiment to Albany,” and Marie-Charlotte and the children followed.

  Eliza tried to be happy that summer when General Washington, in a peace offering, gave Alexander his long-wished-for command position. But she knew enough about war to worry. “Though I know my Betsy would be happy to hear I had rejected this proposal,” Alexander chided gently, “. . . I hope my beloved Betsy will dismiss all apprehensions for my safety.” Alexander was also pressing her already for letters. She couldn’t write him too often. “I impatiently long to hear from you the state of
your mind since our painful separation,” he wrote. “Be as happy as you can, I entreat you, my amiable, my beloved.” But Eliza was not happy. She missed Alexander.

  Eliza had particular reason to worry about the safety of her husband. She had suspected something wonderful for weeks, as her stomach churned and she felt sometimes light-headed. She and Angelica had nursed her secret. At last, she confided her suspicions to her mother, who didn’t think there could be any doubt but called for the local doctor. The kindly old gentleman confirmed her guess. Mrs. Hamilton was four months pregnant by August. Eliza looked forward to writing to Alexander to let him know. When the letter reached him, his response was speedy and excited. “I am inexpressably happy . . . to find that you seem at present to be confirmed in your hopes.” Now if only Alexander would stay safe to meet the baby.

  What none of them understood fully until that summer was that the gravest danger faced not Alexander Hamilton but General Schuyler and his family at the Pastures. Eliza would also have to explain this in her letter.

  Sunset came late in the summer so far north, and the sentries still stood guard. But this time, it didn’t matter. The attack was planned and ferocious.

  August 7 was a hot day, and Eliza was over the worst of the morning sickness. She noticed now the swelling beneath her stays and wondered that Angelica—unwieldy and awkward in her eighth month of pregnancy—could bear the heat and the clammy weight of rich dress fabric. Somewhere in the house came the cry of an infant. Their mother had recently given birth to their last sister, baby Catherine.

  By nine o’clock in the evening, the family gathered in the front hall for dinner, where the breeze was coolest, and the sisters talked in quiet voices as the sky darkened. Three armed guards, all named John to the amusement of the girls, lazed on the front steps of the house, their guns leaning against the woodwork in the entrance. Three more guards, who would keep watch come dark, snoozed in the cellars, and Peggy noticed that baby Catherine had finally fallen asleep in a cradle.