Does Wall Street mean anything to you? No? Well, my dearest, I beg you to familiarize yourself with it, for it is the most fashionable street in all of New York City, and as a defeated General Cornwallis is my witness, it is the street where we shall raise our family and conquer New York society. Pack your bags, my dearest. We are moving to the city!
A.
Eliza’s heart pounded in her chest harder than it had yesterday, when she faced a dozen enemy soldiers. Alex was alive! Her dearest, most-beloved husband had survived! She couldn’t contain her glee.
Dropping the letter to the floor, she threw her arms around the officer’s shoulders and pressed a kiss to his startled cheek. “Oh! Colonel Burr! Thank you! Thank you! You are nothing but a lifesaver!”
The In-Between Years
1781–1783
Even before General Cornwallis handed the white flag to General Washington, Alex had already written Eliza from the battlefield, letting her know that he survived the assault unscathed and that he was on his way home.
Now, at last, their life together in New York City was going to start.
But war refuses to accommodate anyone’s schedule, even America’s (future) first Secretary of the Treasury, and the woman who founded New York’s first private orphanage …
After the Battle of Yorktown, Cornwallis was so humiliated by his defeat that he refused to attend the formal ceremony of surrender, claiming to be ill with malaria. Ever conscious of decorum and rank, General Washington had in turn refused to accept the sword proffered by General Charles O’Hara, a Cornwallis subordinate, and instead directed him to hand it to Major General Benjamin Lincoln, his second in command at the battle. Alex was equal parts impressed by Washington’s majesty and appalled by his rigidity. This, indeed, was a man who could be king, if that’s what he desired. He only hoped America could resist the temptation to call on him in that capacity.
Afterward, Alex submitted another letter to General Washington: his resignation from the army. Washington commended him for his bravery and leadership on that fateful evening, telling Alex that he could add “war hero” to his list of accomplishments, and happily (or at any rate sanguinely) accepted Alex’s resignation, which capped five years of service to the cause of independence in general, and to Washington in particular. He alluded that he, too, was eager to shrug off the mantle of leadership and return to Mount Vernon, his great estate on the Potomac River in Virginia. He didn’t ask what Alex planned to do with the next phase of his life; though, he did say that he hoped Alex would not “turn his back” on the country he had, with his “bravery and brilliance,” helped create. Alex assured him he would not, saluted him one final time, and took his leave.
Alex immediately set off for Albany to retrieve Eliza and spirit her away to their new home in New York City, which for a variety of reasons held promise as a future capital of the country, and thus was the only place worthy of a family as ambitious as the Hamiltons.
But although Cornwallis had surrendered and British forces on the continent were decimated, King George’s army remained firmly in control of Manhattan and its surrounding islands and, against all predictions, refused to surrender or retreat. The redcoats were too numerous to chase out without great loss of life—not only to the attacking forces, but also to the nearly ten thousand Continental soldiers being held in British prison ships off the coast of Red Hook, Long Island.
The American brass feared that a preemptive move on Manhattan might spur the British to sink the ships, or burn them. Only later would they learn that such a fate would have been a small mercy for those thousands of prisoners of war, who died of illness, exposure, and starvation.
Right up to the end, the British held on to the notion that New York State might even cede Manhattan, Staten Island, and Long Island to the crown, which the empire could use as a way station between the Canadian colonies and its numerous territories in the West Indies. This was a pipe dream, of course—neither General Washington nor Governor Clinton would tolerate any British holdings between the Straits of Florida and the St. Lawrence River. Still, the transfer of authority took nearly two years to complete to the satisfaction of both parties.
The Hamiltons would have to remain in Albany for a little while longer. Their reunion at the Pastures was as joyful as their parting had been filled with sorrow and recrimination.
Alex galloped up the hill, so eager to see his beloved that he practically flew off the horse upon arriving, and Eliza felt her heart burst with relief and joy to see her brave lad home at last.
There were many tears shed on both sides that fine day, and Alex vowed he would never again leave her side. Eliza, as happy as she was, allowed him his promises, even as she understood that if they were to have a long and happy marriage, she would have to understand and forgive the promises that were broken even under the best intentions.
Alex told the story of the battle once and once only, after which he never spoke of it in Eliza’s presence again. He completed his law studies at a breakneck pace and passed the bar exam in July 1782. New York State normally required new lawyers to serve a three-year clerkship with a judge before they could appear in court, but this requirement was waived for veterans returning from the war, who were deemed to have given more than enough time to their country. He did, however, have to sign an oath of loyalty, renouncing any ties to the king of Great Britain and pledging allegiance not just to the United States of America, but to the “free and independent state” of New York.
With the city of New York still in British hands, Alex hung out his shingle for the time being in Albany, where he quickly found himself in great demand: partly because his connections to the Schuyler clan served as an entrée to wealthy society; partly because his status as a war hero and confidant to General Washington drew curiosity seekers to his door by the dozens. His services were also needed for a reason Alex and others found unfair and distasteful: The state of New York, under Governor Clinton’s direction, had passed a law barring all loyalists (citizens who had remained loyal to the British crown instead of declaring for the American rebels) from practicing in New York courts.
Loyalists made up a full third of the population, and though many living near the coast chose to return to the mother country, or emigrate to Canada, most of those farther inland identified as Americans, regardless of where their government was located. Alex disagreed with Clinton’s law, as well as other provisions penalizing Colonial Americans who had sided with Britain in the war. They had lost, and that was punishment enough; anything else was punitive, and the country would need them if it was to succeed.
Alex was one of five from New York elected to the Congress of the Confederation, a position he accepted with great trepidation. Certainly, a part of his hesitation was based on the fact that Congress met—for the moment at least—in Philadelphia, which meant he would again have to separate from Eliza (breaking the promise he had made). But the main reason was his belief that the Congress of the Confederation was a useless, bureaucratic organization, having no authority except over itself and the Continental army (and even that was only nominal, since the army hadn’t been paid in years—soldiers were starting to mutiny, and some even marched on the Congress’s headquarters).
Any laws this Congress passed had no jurisdiction over the thirteen newly minted states, each of which was its own ultimate authority. It had no license to collect revenues by tax or duty or any other measure, which is to say, it could pass such laws but couldn’t compel their enforcement. Alex’s contempt for Congress was more than offset by the despair he felt for his new country. If a strong central government wasn’t established, he felt, uniting the thirteen states into a single nation, then the so-called confederation was bound to crumble as the various states began competing against one another for resources and wealth rather than working for the common good. After six months, he resigned his seat in Congress and returned once again to Albany.
For her part, Eliza was kept busy as well. Her performance as
her mother’s surrogate during Mrs. Schuyler’s lying-in had so impressed the matriarch that she came to rely on Eliza more and more, particularly where Kitty was concerned. Additionally, Eliza was indispensable to Angelica when her time came, and was there to welcome her nephew, Philip Church, into the world. The family progeny weren’t the only children she served. The plight of Anne Carrington—Mrs. Bleecker’s hapless charge—had so moved her that she devoted much of her energy to finding homes for other Albany children left orphaned by the war or other hardships. It seemed the least she could do until she and Alex were finally able to start a family of their own.
Both the Dutch Reformed Church and Church of England had established small foundling homes for orphaned children. Eliza raised money and resources for each one, even though the Schuylers had been Dutch Reform all the way back to the Reformation, and the Anglicans—later Episcopalians—counted many loyalists among their parishioners. Some of the women whom she had been canvassing for the past seven years looked a little askance at her nonpartisan activities, but Eliza took an even firmer stance on this line than Alex. In the first place, many of the loyalists were family friends, including men who had served with General Schuyler when he was in the British army, before an American army ever existed. But it was more than that.
“It is not a child’s fault,” Eliza insisted, “if her father fought for King George any more than it is to her credit if he served in the Continental army. Children do not have a political affiliation. They are all God’s innocents, and deserve our compassion and our aid.” Not only did she gather funds, food, and clothing for the parentless children, she frequently insisted that her friends accompany her on visits to the orphanages in hopes they might adopt a child there. “Now, Kate, you have already an eleven-year-old and a six-year-old at home. I don’t see why you cannot take nine-year-old Louisa back with you. She will be able to wear Henrietta’s outgrown clothes and look after Natalia while Henrietta is at her studies. Why, she will practically save you money!”
And so two years passed, an interim period bookended by two events in the lives of the young married couple, one tragic, the other joyous. In the late summer of 1782, Alex’s cherished friend, John Laurens, perished in the Battle of the Combahee River. As with New York, the ravaged British forces had managed to hold on to several other cities, including Charleston in Laurens’s home state of South Carolina. Laurens had returned to his native state to help free it from the pestilence of British occupation. Under the command of General Nathanael Greene, he led numerous raids against the besieged but still numerous redcoats, until, on the 27th of August, he was “shot from the saddle” during one such encounter.
Some witnesses said that Laurens’s party had been ambushed, while others maintained that the heir of Mepkin had recklessly led a charge against an enemy brigade that outnumbered his troops three to one, which General Washington seemed to allude to in his remembrance of the fallen soldier: “He had not a fault that I ever could discover, unless intrepidity bordering upon rashness could come under that denomination.”
Alex, as was his wont, kept his grief largely to himself, but in a letter to General Greene he wrote: “How strangely are human affairs conducted, that so many excellent qualities could not ensure a more happy fate! The world will feel the loss of a man who has left few like him behind; and America, of a citizen whose heart realized that patriotism of which others only talk. I feel the loss of a friend whom I truly and most tenderly loved.”
The pall of Laurens’s death hung over the Pastures for many months, until June 1783, when Margarita Schuyler—Peggy to her family and friends—at long last married Stephen Van Rensselaer III, who had been courting her for the past five years. It was an occasion so long delayed that Peggy joked to Eliza and Angelica that she feared the principal emotion at her wedding would be “not joy but relief.” For her parents’ part, General Schuyler congratulated his daughter on a “game well played,” while Mrs. Schuyler commended her nephew/cousin/son-in-law for “staying the course.”
The young couple was married at Rensselaerswyck, in the so-called New Manor House north of Albany, which Stephen’s father had built when Stephen was still a child. As grand as the Pastures was, the Van Rensselaers’ home was grander still, with stone quoins of New York State brownstone and rich chocolate stucco troweled over the bricks to give it a stately, if somber, appearance, complemented by a wide porch with elegant torus-shaped balusters and Corinthian capitals on the stone columns.
Inside, however, in the first-floor great hall, was the same Ruins of Rome wallpaper that graced the Schuylers’ home (General Schuyler pointed out, not so very sotto voce, that he had commissioned his set more than five years before Stephen II ordered his, ahem). At the wedding, Peggy was resplendent in a burgundy dress with a brilliantly embroidered mint-green underskirt and a wig that threatened to brush against the chandeliers hanging from the twelve-foot ceiling, while Stephen looked stately in a midnight-blue velvet frock coat that recalled the uniform he had been too young to wear during the war. When bride and groom had at last said their “I dos” and kissed each other on the lips, a hundred Schuylers, Van Rensselaers, Ten Broecks, Jansens, Vromans, Quackenbushes, Van Valkenburgs, and Van Sickelens, along with a handful of Livingstons, stood up and cheered this (re)uniting of two of the state’s dynastic families.
For if Angelica had married “the Englishman” and Eliza had married “the genius,” Peggy had married “gentry” through and through, and between the Schuylers’ military and political connections and the Van Rensselaers’ vast fortune, the new couple’s future as the first family of New York was assured.
And so, two years passed even more quickly than Alex or Eliza realized, Alex busily laying the groundwork for a career that would enable him to support a family and Eliza accumulating the skills that would enable her to raise one. If only her husband would slow down a little, as the two years were such a whirlwind, there was little time to focus on starting the family she began to crave more and more. For while she supported his efforts in the founding of the nation, she wished he would put in a little more effort in the founding of their own little establishment.
It was a heady time of chaos and change. Both young spouses contributed to the political and moral character of this new nation that had, against all odds, torn itself off from the most powerful empire on earth, and found itself in the unexpected position of having to decide what kind of nation it would be. Would it be a monarchy or a republic? A loose confederacy of thirteen competing states, or a unified polity whose far-flung and disparate regions each contributed their unique strengths to make up for the deficiencies and weaknesses of the others?
And above all, how would it conduct itself? Though the colonies had won their liberation from England, they had never been a purely English society. There were Irish, Welsh, and Scottish strains, for one thing—Alex’s father was born in Scotland, and though Alex knew little about him, he knew his father would raise his fists against any man who dared accuse him of being English. The Dutch legacy persevered in New York as well (both General and Mrs. Schuyler had been raised speaking Dutch as well as English, and still used the former language when they wanted to keep secrets from their children). The French influence was strong in the northeast, along the border with Canada, and west of the Mississippi, in the Louisiana Territory. The Spanish presence was strong in the deep south in Florida, where they supported the British cause during the Revolution, and along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. There were German and Swedish enclaves, and of course the large African population, consisting of 40 percent of the thirteen colonies’ people. The vast majority—but not all—had been brought to the New World as enslaved people. Regardless of their station, they made profound contributions to the new country through their labor, art, music, and tenacity, even though slavery would not be eradicated for nearly a century more—a profound injustice in the history of the new nation that just fought for its own freedom.
Then there were the Native po
pulations that had been here when the Europeans arrived, hundreds of different tribes and confederacies and nations, some numbered only a few thousand, others had hundreds of thousands of members and commanded great swathes of land that dwarfed most of their European counterparts. As the annual Thanksgiving celebration reminded them, without Native American instruction and aid, most of the early European settlements would have perished. New World foodstuffs had made significant changes to the European diet, from potatoes to squash to tomatoes to corn, and of course tobacco—and chocolate!—and had changed the way Europeans conceived of creature comforts. Hundreds of words now peppered the language, from chili to chipmunk, from hurricane to hammock, from piranha to poncho to peyote, and with those words came ideas about how to relate to this land that Europeans had forcibly taken as their own, and christened “America.” Liberty and justice for all?
And so the myth of American exceptionalism was born, even as it managed to skirt the troubling history of its founding, that a nation dedicated to the ideals of freedom and justice was also established by the twin foundations of slavery and theft.
In any case, all these different cultures had unique strengths of character and industry, and no doubt many people would have been content to separate themselves according to culture and language and replicate Old World divisions in the New, state lines replacing national borders and people pushing ever westward when their neighbors grew too close. But more and more people realized that if the United States of America were to be truly united, they were going to have to forge a common national identity.
Chief among these visionaries was Alexander Hamilton, whose accomplishments during the Revolutionary War would soon be overshadowed by the work he did for the budding republic. Alex knew that the differences between people and points of view couldn’t be eliminated or ignored. Those differences had to be celebrated, and put to work for the good of the nation. As with most political ideals, such lofty sentiments were easier said than done. Fortunately, it had two tireless champions in Alexander and Elizabeth Hamilton—assuming, that is, they could harness their unique gifts to a single yoke, and finally learn to work as a team.
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