Love & War--An Alex & Eliza Story

by Melissa de la Cruz

  Mrs. Bleecker’s voice broke off, and Eliza took her hand. Her host had lost her only two sons in the war as well.

  “You are doing the Lord’s work,” Eliza said sympathetically. “Colonel Hamilton was fostered in a similar fashion after his mother’s death, and no doubt saved from a life of penury. I wonder, though, are there many such children in poor Anne’s condition here in Albany?”

  “More than you realize. Thousands of men have died in service to the great cause of independence, many leaving behind wives and children made that much more vulnerable without a man to provide for or protect them. I do not know the total number of children in the Albany area who have been orphaned by the war, but I would imagine that there are some scores of them. And Albany without even a foundlings home to take them in! It is incumbent upon those of us with the means to make sure that these children, whose parents gave their all for America, do not meet the same sad end.”

  Once again Eliza reached out and took Mrs. Bleecker’s hand. “You are an inspiration to us all. I only wish there was one of you for every Anne out there.”

  “She is a blessing, as I’ve said.” She was silent for a moment, then continued in a more delicate tone. “And what of you? Do you and Colonel Hamilton plan to start a family sometime soon?”

  Eliza felt the color rush to her face. Thankfully, it was a warm day and the parlor stuffy; she hoped her cheeks were already a bit pink.

  “Oh, we are both so young, and Alex is so busy with the war. He hasn’t even decided what he’ll do after it is completed, and thus where we will live. I would not want to cart a child like a piece of luggage as I have done in the past several months. When we are settled . . .”

  This time Mrs. Bleecker put her hand on Eliza’s.

  “My dear, if age has taught me one thing, it’s that, in the matter of children, one is never ‘settled.’ They will always find a way to upset the most well-managed domestic routine. And yet, even in the most chaotic of times, one always finds a way of making do.”

  “Speaking of which,” Eliza said, standing, “I should be getting home. Mrs. Schuyler is very close to her own time, and she grows unsettled when she does not know where all seven of her children are.”

  She took her leave hastily, but as she passed through the front hall, she peeked into the opposite parlor again. Anne had finished singing and now sat with a book in her hand, turning pages with the idleness of one who is not reading but merely glancing at old familiar words, as if to remind herself of a favorite world but not sink too deeply in it.

  “She wants for playmates her own age,” Mrs. Bleecker said. “When hostilities cease and regular schooling resumes, we will arrange for her to study with some of her peers. But until then I’m afraid she has to make do with two middle-aged companions.”

  Eliza stared at the girl a moment longer, thinking in part of her orphaned husband and in part of the family she hoped they would have together, then took her leave and began the long walk back to the Pastures. It was not too far a distance—perhaps four miles—but she did not want to overtax herself in the heat. As she leisurely made her way along the well-packed soil, her mind began to race ahead, faster than her feet. How odd that her mother’s pregnancy had not made her think of children of her own, whereas a single comment from a family acquaintance awakened slumbering feelings she had not realized she possessed.

  The truth was, she and Alex had hardly spoken of starting a family, even as they enthusiastically did all they could to start one (ahem). But they had not yet been blessed, and perhaps that was a blessing in itself for now. Eliza knew Alex’s own childhood had not been happy. He had never said as much, but Eliza suspected that he doubted if he was temperamentally suited for fatherhood. He was an exacting man and a perfectionist, a trait that endeared him to an authoritarian like General Washington (when it wasn’t annoying him), but did not exactly inspire love from one’s children. Respect maybe, but not love. And Eliza knew Alex wanted to be loved by his children, not because he was their father, but because he was lovable.

  And she? What did she want? Her primary experience of motherhood had been through Mrs. Schuyler. Her mother had been pregnant an astonishing twelve times, and seen no fewer than four of her children, including a set of triplets, die before they could even be baptized. Perhaps even more sadly, she lost three others before their first birthdays. True, seven lived and provided their parents with all the joys that children can impart, but one death for every life? It seemed almost too high a price to pay. She wondered how her mother had endured such loss without succumbing to despair or morbidity. Eliza didn’t know if she had that strength.

  And if her children-to-be lived? What then? To be responsible for another life, from its food to its clothing to the shaping of its mind. It was an awesome responsibility, and here Eliza was, barely a woman herself. How could she expect to rear and mold a brood of her own, when she was still trying to decide not only who she was, but how she would be in the world? She recognized that motherhood was indeed an awesome profession, but just as fatherhood was not the whole of man’s life, she didn’t think that raising children should be all a woman concerned herself with either.

  She couldn’t “take a job” in the conventional sense, but still, there were fulfilling endeavors to which a respectable woman could devote her energies. There were charities—hospitals, schools, orphanages—that were bigger and more complex than many businesses, and did arguably more good in the world. But if she were to saddle herself with children, it might be twenty years or more before she could begin to do any real work of that nature.

  And as their less-than-smooth parting indicated, she and Alex still had a lot to learn about who they were—as individuals and as a couple—before introducing children into the recipe. Plus, now that he had his own command on the battlefield, who even knew if she would still have a husband at the end of this war.

  “No!” she said out loud, horrified at the very thought, just as she rounded the last hill and the Pastures came into view on its promenade. “Alex will come home to me. He must and he will. And children can wait for now.”

  Even as she spoke, however, she saw a boy running toward her. She recognized him as Lew, who worked in the barn with his father, Llewellyn, a Welshman who served as the estate’s ostler.

  “Miss Eliza! Miss Eliza! Come quick!”

  “Whatever is the matter, Lew?” Eliza said, catching up the panting boy.

  “Miss Dot sent me! She said to fetch you as soon as I saw you!”

  Dot was calling, and it could only mean one thing. For Dot was not only a ladies’ maid but a handy midwife, who had brought all fourteen of Catherine Schuyler’s children to the world.

  The baby was coming.

  8

  War at Last

  On the March

  White Plains, New York, to Yorktown, Virginia

  September 1781

  The 1st and 2nd New York Regiments, along with a pair of patchwork Connecticut divisions, set off for Yorktown, Virginia, on September 7, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton. The three-week march was grueling, even for the mounted officers. Ten-hour days in scorching heat, the sun beating down on their tricorne hats and turning them into little furnaces atop the soldiers’ heads, dense wool coats draped around shoulders and arms growing heavier and heavier with each step. The occasional cloudburst brought rain and brief respite from the heat, but any relief was offset by the burden of marching in sodden clothing through muddy roads churned to slurry by hundreds of booted feet.

  Some of the men tried to ease their load, doffing their caps or removing their coats and tying them to their packs, but Alex ordered them to don them again. As a self-made man, he knew the importance of appearances. He kept the brass buttons of his coat secured from waist to neck and his hat firmly screwed in place. If you looked the part, most people would assume you were the part, and he wanted any news of
advancing Continental troops to be tinged with awe rather than derision. Whether the stories reached the ear of either General Washington or General Cornwallis was immaterial, the accounts had to be glowing. He wasn’t just marching to battle, after all. He was marching into history, into glory.

  I am so proud of you, Eliza had written in her latest missive, when she heard the news of his command. His brave Betsey, whose only resentment was that he had kept his ambition from her instead of allowing her to share in his dreams for glory. I will come back to you, my love. I promise, he had written in return.

  Alex was mounted on his brilliant new chestnut stallion, christened Mepkin in homage to the friend who had gifted it. While as an officer he didn’t have to carry a pack, ten hours in the saddle, even with breaks for water or food, can leave the legs feeling like jelly, and he was developing tender spots in parts of his body that he didn’t like to think about. But when the army made camp each evening, he eschewed whatever cabin or house had been requisitioned for the night, giving his place to one of the many soldiers who had developed fever or some other ailment during the day’s march. Instead, he slept under the open sky like the enlisted men.

  In the morning, he washed himself with a bucket of frigid well water, shaved with a dry razor, and donned his uniform, smoothing the wrinkles as much as possible. He made the rounds of his men as they ate their breakfast, inquiring after their blisters and sunburns and passing along whatever news he might have received overnight about the soldier’s hometown. He himself ate only a few pieces of jerked beef or venison with hardtack, and only on horseback, after the march was underway.

  No one had told him to do this, and certainly it was not the kind of thing he had ever seen General Washington do. Washington inspired by his regality, his air of unapproachable greatness. He was well over six feet tall and nearly fifty years of age, and a wealthy country squire to boot: He could get away with such a performance. Alex was just in his twenties, and a nameless orphan from the West Indies. If he was going to win his men’s respect and loyalty, he was going to have to do it by caring about them as individuals as well as soldiers. That he would not give any order that might put them in harm’s way without first considering the very real lives that would be affected by his decision.

  Seventeen days into the march, one of his men, a Private Baxter, caught his foot in a wagon rut and turned his ankle quite severely. It was impossible to tell if it was broken or simply badly sprained, but in either case Baxter was unable to walk. After more than two weeks on the road, it would have been onerous for Alex to demand his exhausted men carry Baxter in a stretcher. It was not yet noon, and there were still six hours of hard marching ahead. Without hesitating, Alex ordered that Baxter be put on Mepkin, and he marched the rest of the day on foot with his enlisted men.

  Alex remained at the head of the column, and though he replied jocularly to the occasional familiar comment from one of his soldiers, he also maintained military jargon, reminding them that he was still their commander. It was exactly the right balance. If his men had been guardedly respectful in their regard to him before, open affection was in their eyes when he made his usual rounds. When they addressed him as “Sir” or “Colonel,” it wasn’t begrudgingly, but with genuine respect.

  Two days later, exhausted but feeling more prepared for the coming battle than he had at the start, Alex and his men reached Williamsburg, where Washington and Rochambeau would make the final preparations for the siege at Yorktown. Alex saw his soldiers to their temporary barracks, then cleaned himself up and reported to headquarters.

  It was early in the afternoon, and he’d only marched two hours that day, so he felt comparatively fresh. Still, he was extremely grateful to accept his first cup of coffee in three weeks, as well as several thick slices of bread that didn’t taste of ash or mold. He had just finished a second slice when he was summoned into Washington’s office.

  General Washington sat at his desk with two other men. Alex recognized the first as the Count de Rochambeau, a distinguished man in his middle fifties in the dark wool jacket of the French army. The third man was similarly attired, but it wasn’t until he turned his head toward the door that Alex realized it was his old friend, the Marquis de Lafayette.

  “My dear Colonel Hamilton,” Lafayette said genially but respectfully. Though the two had spent many an evening making their way through a bottle or three of fine French wine, Lafayette was greeting him in the presence of Washington and Rochambeau with the deference due his rank. Still, his handshake was warm, and the look in his eye promised a more rousing welcome at some more convenient moment. Alex greeted General Rochambeau next, and then General Washington, who once again bid him to take a seat. Only then did he notice a large map spread out on a low table placed between the chairs.

  I could get used to this, Alex thought. But I probably shouldn’t.

  There was some brief talk about Alex’s march and Washington’s opinions on Admiral Grasses’s Ville de Paris, a 120-gun French warship. Then without preamble, Washington said, “We have been discussing final plans for the assault of Yorktown.”

  Alex sat up straighter. It was unseemly to be excited by the prospect of battle, yet he couldn’t help it. He felt his heart beat as if someone had just dealt him a hand of poker, and a peek discovered he held a brace of aces.

  “General Cornwallis sought to evacuate his troops by sea, but the French have managed to thwart the attempt. Some seven thousand British troops are for all intents trapped behind their battlements.”

  Alex wanted to yell in triumph, “We have them!” but he contented himself with turning to General Rochambeau and saying, “The American people will learn of the great contributions the French made to their liberation.”

  Rochambeau made a funny face at this rather formal pronouncement. “Any enemy of the British navy is a friend of the French,” he said drily.

  Alex allowed himself to crack a smile at the count’s witticism.

  “We have concluded,” Washington continued, “that the only way to complete a second trench that will allow us a cannon within range of the British position is to take redoubts numbers nine and ten, which protect the main body of their troops in Yorktown.” He indicated the forts’ positions on the map. “The British have fortified them with earthen walls and a timber palisade. Our engineers tell me we could blast through the walls fairly easily, but moving the cannon into position would alert Cornwallis to our intentions. We must prevent his troops from falling back into Yorktown proper, protracting the siege. Therefore, we have concluded that the redoubts will have to be stormed on foot, and the palisades toppled with axes. The forts are not heavily manned. We will suffer casualties, undoubtedly, but we should be able to take them with minimum loss of life. Once the positions have been secured, we will dig our second parallel here, place our cannon within range of Yorktown—”

  “And then we will blast the British to hell,” Rochambeau interjected. “Forgive me for interrupting, General,” he said to Washington. “The thought of a British defeat gets my pulse racing.”

  Mine too, Alex thought, though that wasn’t quite correct. He had no great animus against the British. He just didn’t think they had any business ruling a country three thousand miles away from their own, a group of colonies that was, moreover, ten times larger than the mother country. It was the thought of battle itself that excited him.

  “It has been decided,” Lafayette said now, “that the assault on redoubt nine will be a French column under the able command of our German ally, Lieutenant Colonel Wilhelm von Zweibrücken. The assault on redoubt ten will be by the First and Second New York infantry units, and the Fifteenth Connecticut.”

  Alex kept his face neutral. “My men have arrived in fine form, General. They are ready for the challenge.”

  “Ah yes,” Lafayette said, squirming slightly in his chair. “About that.”

  Alex peered at his old friend. “Yes, G
eneral?” he said in as formal a voice as he could muster.

  “It has been decided that in order to foster a greater spirit of camaraderie between the French and American forces, the First and Second New York and the Fifteenth Connecticut will be commanded by my aide, Major Jean-Joseph Sourbader de Gimat.”

  Alex stared at his friend, unable to believe this turn of events. Lafayette knew how important the opportunity to command a battlefield assault was to him. Alex also knew that Lafayette had not awarded command of the assault to Major Gimat in an effort to build “camaraderie” between American and French forces. He had done it for the same reason that Washington had given the command to Alex: because his longtime aide had insisted that he, too, be given a chance for glory before the war was over. On one level, Alex appreciated the loyalty Lafayette was showing to his officer. But as a friend, he felt utterly betrayed.

  “I was under the impression,” Alex said tightly to Washington, fighting to keep his voice calm, “that when you asked me to lead the First and Second New York and the Fifteenth Connecticut, it was not just on a march from New York to Virginia.”

  Washington’s face showed no reaction to the bitterness in Alex’s words. “General Lafayette makes the case that even after we take the redoubt, the ensuing siege could last some weeks. During that time, American and French forces will be quartering together and often skirmishing with the enemy. It is important that every single soldier fighting for the American cause feels that he is a member of one army and not two, as it were. That there be no unnecessary divisions between people fighting for the cause of freedom and mercenaries fighting merely for a salary.”

  “There is not a single American soldier,” Alex said, turning back to Lafayette, “who is unaware that the French grievance against the British is many generations older than our own, and compounded by the two countries being separated by the few miles of the English Channel rather than by the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean. We welcome the French here with unqualified affection and, as you so aptly put it, ‘camaraderie.’”