My Dear Hamilton Read online

  Dedication

  Semper Fidelis

  Note to the Reader

  ALEXANDER HAMILTON LEFT us with more than seven thousand letters, essays, proposals, and other papers. Of his wife’s letters, only a handful remain. Whenever possible, for Hamilton and other historical figures, we quote directly from primary sources, which reflect the biases, prejudices, and political opinions of the time period.

  However, because the language of the eighteenth century was so stilted and opaque, we have taken the liberty of correcting spelling, grammar, and otherwise editing, abridging, or modernizing the prose and terminology in the interest of clarity.

  We have also adopted some conventions for the purposes of familiarity and simplicity. For example, we refer to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy as the Iroquois. And what Hamilton gave the snappy title Observations on Certain Documents Contained in No. V & VI of “The History of the United States for the Year 1796,” In Which the Charge of Speculation Against Alexander Hamilton, Late Secretary of the Treasury, is Fully Refuted. Written by Himself is referred to in this book simply as the Reynolds Pamphlet. For clarity in discussions of early national politics, we have largely used the terms federalists and antifederalists, and the political party names Federalists and Republicans to denote the two main political factions that dominated Hamilton’s life, despite the fact that Republicans, Democrats, Democratic-Republicans, and Jacobins were all largely synonymous at the time. (The latter we occasionally use, because the Hamiltons themselves did, to disparage their Republican opponents.)

  Finally, this novel’s portrayal is skewed by our protagonist’s biases. Whenever the historical record was in doubt, we have unabashedly, and occasionally uncritically, adopted the slant most favorable to the American revolutionaries, Eliza, and her family; it’s her story after all. For a more complete understanding of our choices and changes, please consult our Note from the Authors at the back of the book.

  Epigraph

  Though the natural weakness of her body hinders her from

  doing what men can perform, she has a mind as valiant and

  as active for the good of her country as the best of us.

  —PLUTARCH

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Note to the Reader

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Part One: A War for Independence

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Part Two: The War for Peace

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Part Three: The War of Words

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Part Four: The War for History

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Epilogue

  Note from the Authors

  Acknowledgments

  P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*

  About the Author

  About the Book

  Praise

  Also by Stephanie Dray & Laura Kamoie

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Spring 1825

  The Grange

  Harlem, New York

  THE PROMISE OF liberty is not written in blood or engraved in stone; it’s embroidered into the fabric of our nation. And so is Alexander Hamilton.

  My husband. My hero. My betrayer.

  Though Hamilton is more than twenty years dead now, his memory lingers where I stand in the garden of tulips, lilies, and hyacinths we once planted together. He is inescapable in even the smallest things. I cannot buy a pouch of seeds for this garden without money from the mint that he established. I cannot pass a newsboy on my walks through the city without seeing the paper he founded or without reflecting upon the freedoms for the press he helped guarantee. I cannot cast my gaze at the busy ships in the harbor without seeing the trade he assured, or the coast guard that he founded, or the industry and opportunities he provided for the people who now flock to our shores in search of freedom and a better future.

  In short, there is not a breath in any American’s life that is not shaped in some way by Alexander Hamilton. Certainly not a breath in mine. His memory, which I must honor for the sake of our children if nothing else, is impossible for me to escape.

  Though I confess I have tried.

  In the secret seethings of my discontented heart, I’ve searched for a life that is my own. A life not consumed by the questions he left in his wake—riddles I will never solve about our marriage, our family, and the suffering to which he exposed us. I’ve searched for a meaning to my existence not swallowed up by Hamilton’s shadow. By his genius. By his greatness. By his folly.

  And by his enemies.

  For in the battle for history—a war for truth, fought against time—I am a veteran. I’ve been fighting that battle for decades, and perhaps never more ferociously than now, within myself, as I stare at the paper in my hand.

  Squinting beneath my bonnet against the sunlight, I see a calling card, unremarkable but for the single name etched in the center with bold ink.

  JAMES MONROE

  At the sight of it, an unexpected pain stabs beneath my ribs, where my heart picks up its pace. My basket of purple hyacinths lies forgotten at my feet as I stand up, a little breathless. For the only thing more astonishing than the name itself is that the card is folded at the corner, indicating the former president personally delivered it, rather than sending a servant.

  I should feel honored.

  Instead, I’m incensed that James Monroe has darkened my doorstep. And before I can stop myself, my voice drops low, as it always does when I’m angry. “What has that man come to see me for?”

  “Couldn’t say,” my housekeeper murmurs, straightening her apron. “But he’s waiting for you in the parlor.”

  It’s not the protocol for a gentleman to present a card and wait, except when presuming upon familiar acquaintance. And though Monroe definitely is a familiar acquaintance—and more than an acquaintance besides—he has no right to presume upon our old intimacy. No right at all. Not after everything that has passed between us. Especially not when he’s caught me out in the yard, in my gardening gloves and black workaday bombazine frock.

  He should not expect, even under the best of circumstances, that I would receive a man of his rank and stature on a moment’s notice. But then James Monroe has always been wilier than anyone gives him credit for, and I imagine that he’s counting on the element of surprise to work to his advantage.

&n
bsp; “Doubtless he’s come to pay his respects to you,” the housekeeper says.

  And I give the most indelicate snort of my life, because I think it more likely Monroe has come to collect my surrender. For years now, to promote his so-called Era of Good Feelings, a popular President Monroe cut a swath through cities and towns, using his southern drawl and amiable manner to smother every last vestige of dissent. And charmed, no doubt, by that infernal dimple in his chin, everyone has genuflected.

  Everyone but me.

  Which is why I suppose he cannot retire in complete victory until he can boast of having been reconciled with the wife of Alexander Hamilton. But there are no good feelings here. And even though I’m not completely reconciled with Hamilton myself, I have no wish to become Monroe’s final triumph.

  As I clutch the card, much perturbed, the housekeeper prompts me. “Ma’am, you wouldn’t want to leave the gentleman waiting.”

  Oh, but I do want to. I’d happily leave Monroe standing on the stoop of the house Alexander Hamilton built until the Virginian is bent with age and crumbling to dust. But Monroe has already invaded my parlor so I must deal with him. And I must deal with him myself. To do otherwise would be to discount a lifetime of lessons from my father, a general who taught me that when faced with the specter of defeat, one must meet it swiftly and with as much dignity as possible. So I remove my garden gloves, scoop up my basket of hyacinths, and say, quite grandly, “I will see him.”

  After that, I don’t so much walk into the Federal-style yellow house as march into battle. I find Monroe in the old, faded parlor, sitting on a dark sofa I embroidered to hide where it has become threadbare. The gentleman rises to his feet to greet me, his familiar expression grave, hat clutched in now aged hands.

  And from ten paces, I take the measure of him.

  Six feet tall, square-shouldered, and rawboned as ever, Monroe is wearing antiquated black velvet knee breeches, long since gone out of fashion, which leads me to imagine the silver in his hair is powder from a bygone era. A showman when it comes to reputation, Monroe must be pleased, I think, to count himself in that pantheon of presidents my countrymen now venerate.

  Washington, the father of the country. Adams, the mastermind of independence. Jefferson, the voice of the revolution. Madison, the father of the Constitution.

  And Monroe, the last of the founders.

  Or so they say. But if Monroe must be counted as the last, then by my reasoning, my husband was the first. For not one of these men would have ever become president without Alexander Hamilton, the architect of our very government.

  Yet Monroe doesn’t even glance at the portrait of my husband that hangs where the piano used to be—long since sold off to keep a roof over my children’s heads.

  Perhaps I cannot blame Monroe for avoiding the eyes of Hamilton’s portrait. After all, even for me, the likeness still churns up a noxious stew of resentment, guilt, and loss. And I am not the only person in this world who loved the man and hated him, too.

  So I nod to Monroe.

  I should invite him to sit. I should serve tea. A thousand niceties are dictated by social grace when a president—even a former president—comes to call. But I observe none of them.

  Instead, I wordlessly wait for him to deliver the first volley.

  Finally, with a formal bow, Monroe drawls, “Mrs. General Hamilton.”

  Why does it suddenly bother me to be addressed this way? It’s the title by which I’ve been known for almost thirty years. A title in which I’ve taken pride. A title some would say has opened as many doors as it has slammed shut. But somehow, hearing myself addressed as Mrs. General Hamilton by James Monroe feels as I’m being forced by him, for a second time, to loyally claim Hamilton as my own.

  And Monroe—as much as any person still alive—has cause to know just how much that loyalty cost me.

  Now Monroe rises up from his bow with the hint of the smile I once found so charming. He clears his throat and begins, haltingly. “It’s been many years since we first met . . .”

  Oh, after everything, is he truly appealing to our history?

  As if I’ve forgotten. But I haven’t. Not for a moment. Especially not recently, when the approach of the fiftieth anniversary of our independence reminds me daily of how my life has been entwined with the creation of this nation.

  Monroe’s, too, I must, in justice, admit.

  At the start, I was a general’s daughter and he was a handsome war hero. And now I stare at Monroe, wondering if he still has that bullet lodged in his shoulder, or if a surgeon ever managed to dig it out . . .

  But I don’t ask. I don’t say anything. In truth, I take perverse pleasure in the pained yearning I imagine I see upon Monroe’s face as I force him to founder against the wall of my silence. Silence is often the only weapon available to ladies. And I wield mine expertly.

  In the thick awkwardness, Monroe clears his throat and continues what seems a rehearsed speech. “Yes, it’s been quite a long time since we met. I find that the lapse of time brings its softening influences. Now we are both nearing the grave, when past differences can be forgiven and forgotten.”

  Forgiven and forgotten.

  I nearly scoff, but I’m determined to hold my tongue as an act of resistance. After all, despite what Hamilton believed, I am no angel.

  But Monroe seems not to realize the war I’m silently waging against him, and his gray eyes are hopeful. Why shouldn’t he be hopeful? Napoleon Bonaparte once said that history is merely a set of lies agreed upon, and I know it would advantage me, and my family, to go along with all the little lies this new nation has agreed upon with regard to Alexander Hamilton. My sons will more easily find advancement if I do. My daughter might be courted by more respectable beaus. I myself might more comfortably mingle in society, if I so please.

  All I have to do is surrender to James Monroe’s wish for reconciliation.

  And I should. I know that I should. I have every reason to put the past behind me.

  But as I stand here, trying to form conciliatory words, I am over aware of my husband’s portrait in its gilded frame, his extraordinary eyes looking down upon me. I turn my head toward the arched entryway, where his ghostly marbled bust has beckoned me, each night, like an intimate and a stranger. And I glance past that, to the doorway of the little green study in which I can still remember him toiling at his mahogany and satinwood cylinder desk, leather-bound books piled high on either side of him, ink smudges upon his hands, his quill scratching and candle burning late into the night.

  Forgiven and forgotten.

  If I am famous for anything, it’s for being a forgiving woman. And as for the forgetting . . . there are so many things I should like to forget. Forgetting would lift the weighty cloak of the past from my shoulders and make the present so much easier. But memory unalterably sets our compass, and guides us down paths we might have preferred never to have walked at all. And my path goes back all the way to the start. To the fathers of this country who fought and bled beneath a starry banner of red, white, and blue. To the mothers who were the menders, the sewers of flags, the darners of uniforms, the binders of wounds. And, in my case, the quilter of the torn scraps of old paper that remind me why we ever fought in the first place . . .

  Part One

  A War for Independence

  Chapter One

  You have called together a host of savages, and turned them loose to scalp our women and children and lay our country waste.

  —ANONYMOUS AMERICAN SOLDIER TO BRITISH GENERAL JOHN BURGOYNE

  October 17, 1777

  The Pastures

  Albany, New York

  I WAS SOMEONE BEFORE I met Alexander Hamilton.

  Not someone famous or important or with a learned philosophical understanding of all that was at stake in our revolution. Not a warrior or a philosopher or statesman.

  But I was a patriot.

  I was no unformed skein of wool for Hamilton to weave together into any tapestry he wished. T
hat’s important for me to remember now, when every thread of my life has become tangled with everything he was. Important, I think, in sorting out what can be forgiven, to remember my own experiences—the ones filled with my own yearnings that had nothing to do with him.

  I was, long before he came into my life, a young woman struggling to understand her place in a changing world. And torn, even then, between loyalty, duty, and honor in the face of betrayal.

  Torn as I stood in my family’s potato field surrounded by wounded soldiers, debating a choice that would never have given me pause before. Should I tend to the injured Redcoats while under the gaze of mistrustful American soldiers?

  “Water, please, Miss Schuyler,” croaked a British regular, lying in a furrow beneath one of our orchard trees.

  He’d been evacuated here to Albany with at least a thousand others from Saratoga, where a brutal battle had been fought ten days earlier. Our hospital, churches, and pastures were now overrun with casualties from both armies and we struggled to care for them all. The least I could do was fetch the Redcoat a pitcher of water.

  Instead, I hesitated, a knot of anxiety tightening in my throat, for I was now the daughter of a disgraced American general who had been relieved of his command under suspicion of treason.

  Facing court-martial, my father already stood accused of taking bribes from the British and surrendering an American fortress to the enemy. For his daughter to be seen caring for the same enemy now . . .

  I feared for anything I might do to worsen Papa’s situation, so even as my face heated with shame, I turned away from the Redcoat to help others, forcing myself to remember that these British had been ravaging the whole of the Hudson Valley for months and terrorizing my countrymen.

  They are the cause of this bloodshed, I told myself.

  For the king’s men had captured and occupied New York City, burned our state’s first capital at Kingston to the ground, and during the fighting upon the plains of Saratoga, they had set fire to our summerhouse, leaving it in ruin. From here in the relative safety of the Pastures, we’d seen only the faintest glow of battlefield fires against the distant evening sky, but even now the acrid smell and taste of soot carried to us downriver. And I thought, We’ve set the whole world on fire.