My Dear Hamilton Read online

  In the days thereafter, Papa wrote the baby’s name in the family Bible. A carpenter made a tiny pine coffin. My father dug a tiny grave. “God gives and God takes away; blessed be the name of God,” Papa said, determined to submit to the Lord’s judgment, but Mama was powerfully afflicted, and I’d never felt so terrible about anything.

  God could not wish this, I thought. Our ancestors’ Dutch Reform faith held that much was predestined. But God could not wish helpless babes to die after only a few painful breaths. No just God could wish suffering, sickness, slavery, and savagery.

  Wasn’t that why we were fighting a revolution?

  I’d never been a patient girl in church services. I’d read the Bible only indifferently and because my mother insisted. But now, at the grave site of my dead baby brother, hearing clods of earth fall upon the tiny coffin like the sound of knocking, I was struck by the powerful conviction that God put us here to make a better world.

  And it is a conviction that has informed the rest of my life.

  Though I burned for some heroic deed to accomplish, the uncomfortable realization of maturity was dawning. The grinding toil of duty might not be as glorious as adventures in the wild, but more necessary. To make this world a better place, my family needed to survive this war. And so I applied myself for the first time to the housework I’d always shirked, laundering clothes, feeding chickens, bundling herbs, pickling vegetables, bottling cider, and making soap. And to make sense of any of it occasioned countless trips up and down the stairs to disturb my poor mother’s rest.

  This was especially so because Dinah, our cook, had not returned from Pinkster. She’d been found in a barn, harbored by a Scotchman, and now marked time in jail as a runaway until Papa could reclaim her. Despite my father’s reassurance that he wouldn’t punish Dinah harshly, Jenny was beside herself with fear—or perhaps with guilt that she’d not joined her mother in running away. And even after a chastened Dinah returned to our kitchens, tensions on our plantation ran high, with Prince thin-lipped and more insistent upon protocol than ever.

  Meanwhile, my father slept scarcely at all that spring and well into autumn.

  He’d lost his child, his command, and his honor. For months now, despite his continued service, Congress denied him the opportunity to defend himself against charges of neglect and disloyalty. All while General Gates discounted our reports of devastating raids by the Mohawk, Cayuga, Seneca, and Onondaga.

  It wasn’t until October—perhaps under my father’s subtle threat that he would publish a pamphlet to exonerate himself—that he was finally called upriver for his court-martial.

  The verdict came in three days.

  The court having considered the charges against Major-general Schuyler, the evidence and his defense, are unanimously of opinion that he is NOT GUILTY and the court do therefore acquit him with the highest honor.

  Sweet vindication! All the sweeter because it helped put an end to talk of replacing Washington. His trusted officers had proved trustworthy. Lafayette had avoided the trap of a disastrous misadventure in Canada and salvaged his reputation by recruiting Indian allies to the cause. My father had been acquitted by an honest court. Our generals and young officers had stood together with Washington.

  Semper Fidelis.

  And I will always believe it was loyalty to the cause over personal ambition that saved us. General Gates was forced to apologize for his role in attempting to undermine Washington and became, himself, the subject of an inquiry. Other conspirators resigned in humiliation. And since Mama was quite nearly recovered, it was a thing I meant to celebrate in high style.

  Peggy and I determined to host a party, something to bring cheer and joy back to the Pastures. The little ones thought to make a pie for Papa’s return, so we invited friends from our community troop of Blues on a foraging day to pick the last of the season’s berries. A group of us ventured into the wilds, singing and joking, as we’d done since we were young.

  It was an old Dutch tradition meant for matchmaking. All New Netherlander children were divided from the youngest ages into teams for races and games, outings and house parties. The Blues, the Reds, the Greens. Even in Papa’s day, no chaperones were present, which was how, I supposed, my oldest sister had come to be born only a few months after our parents married.

  Not that I’d ever dared ask my starchy mother about it.

  In any case, amongst our children’s troops, Angelica had been our undisputed leader. Never one who enjoyed the outdoors, Peggy had often groused her way through all of our troops’ adventures, but Angelica had cheered our Blues in the winter as I skated to victory past one of the Livingston girls. And sang songs as we climbed through the brambles to explore the mist-slick caves along the river. And lolled on the green grass, nose buried in a book while the rest of us stuffed ourselves on a picnic of good bread, butter, and jam.

  Every boy of the Blues had wanted to marry Angelica; every girl wanted to be her friend. But they called me Buckskin Betsy, and it was once suggested that I should make a new troop of the so-called strays I was known for collecting. But Angelica never tolerated a mean word to be said against me, and promised that if I left the Blues, she’d leave, too. That had been the end of it.

  I’d never forgotten my sister’s loyalty. And it made me miss her even more.

  But our mood was so celebratory that morning as we set off that even Peggy seemed to enjoy herself. Laughing and teasing, we paddled canoes to get to the berry patch, gathering and eating the sweet berries until fourteen-year-old Stephen Van Rensselaer, the young patroon of Rensselaerswyck, suddenly lifted his hunting rifle with wary eyes on the shoreline. And everyone fell silent.

  Except Peggy. “What is it?” she whispered.

  “Indians,” he said, eyes wild.

  My heart thumped a drumbeat as I measured the distance back to the Pastures, where we might slam the shutters and guard the doors. Alas, they’d come upon us too stealthily. We’d never make it, I thought, when I spotted the Iroquois emerge from the foliage.

  I knew them on sight. Oneida.

  Friendly Iroquois. Not a war-painted party wielding hatchets, but a small delegation of Oneida chieftains dressed in buckskin and moccasins, carrying a haunch of venison. And a tall woman walked with them, a clay pipe between her teeth.

  “Two Kettles Together!” I called, my voice shaky with relief. She gave a regal nod of her head, explaining that she was on her way to see my father. And she carried grave news. Though Lafayette’s bounty had turned the tables on the spy, we’d never captured Major Carleton. Now he was leading coordinated raids against our settlements. And a separate force of three hundred Indians had skulked through Cherry Valley with two hundred British Rangers, laying waste to everything in their path—including the fortifications Lafayette had authorized to defend our friends. Forty women and children had been butchered, mangled, or scalped—some had their heads, legs, and arms cut off, or the flesh torn from their bones by dogs.

  Our Oneida friends had tried to warn us, and for months after the treaty conference, Papa had tried to warn Gates, to no avail. Now that my father had been exonerated, I expected that he would take back his command and lead the army in reprisals. I’d been at his side in Johnstown when, with Lafayette, he promised to treat the Mohawk, the Cayuga, the Seneca, and the Onondaga as enemies if they persisted.

  Someone would have to make good on that promise.

  For more than a year now, I’d burned with a desire to see Papa again in his general’s uniform, his honor restored.

  But when my father was finally offered back his command of the Northern Army, he refused it.

  “Why?” I asked, mortified.

  “Because I have been appointed to Congress,” he replied.

  Congress. I supposed it to be a great deal of jabbering. Scarcely anyone paid the men who labored with paper and pen the respect due a major general of the Continental army.

  I couldn’t see the glory in it. And I couldn’t imagine how my father
would be content with it, given the abuse he’d already suffered. Not even when he said, “Too few legislators know anything about provisioning an army. They know even less about these territories and the real power of the Six Nations. If they did, they would quake in their boots. So it seems I am needed in Philadelphia.”

  I wanted to change his mind. How was he to finish rebuilding our fortunes from Philadelphia? How would we provide for the family without completed mills or timber? Shouldn’t he be remembered as the great general that he was?

  But before I could argue, my mother rested her hand atop his. “Whatever you decide, your family needs nothing but your presence to make us happy. Whether you are called General Schuyler or simply Philip Schuyler, Esquire.”

  The warm and grateful way he smiled at her made me bite my tongue.

  I have since thought back many times to that moment. Remembering how graciously she accommodated both my father’s pride and his sense of duty. The way she convinced him that his family would love and honor him just the same. That there was nothing whatsoever he needed to prove. That he was enough of a husband, a father, and a patriot, in and of himself. That he could be at peace with private honor over public laurels.

  And I’ve wondered why I couldn’t accomplish the same when it came to my own husband.

  Perhaps it was because the man I married was not born to a great family. He was not secure in his heritage or in himself. It would be easy to blame the wounds that my husband carried that had nothing to do with me. But sometimes, in the dead of night, I wonder if, unlike my mother, I have always carried within myself some spark of ambition or expectation that my husband sensed he mustn’t disappoint lest he lose my love.

  Even if it meant his death . . .

  Chapter Six

  February 1780

  Morristown, New Jersey

  I MET HIM DURING the worst winter anyone could remember, and in the darkest hour of the war, during a year that would see the literal blotting out of the sun and make us wonder if it were the end of days. No one could remember such a winter, so cold that one couldn’t write a letter except by the fire or the ink would freeze. The river iced over so solidly, even at the widest part, that the British could wheel artillery across it. No ship could come in or out of any port. And the young officers in my military escort were forced to stop every so often to knock shards of ice loose from the wheels of the coach, wary of catching a glimpse of the king’s soldiers.

  They had good reason to be wary, for I carried a letter from my father to General Washington. There was also the matter of my traveling companion, a fair and feisty beauty by the name of Kitty Livingston, my cousin and childhood friend. Kitty was the daughter of New Jersey governor William Livingston—one of the most forceful and influential men of the revolution, perpetually on the run from the British, who desperately wanted to make an example of him. And there had recently been, at the Livingston family home, Redcoats pounding upon the door at midnight, forcing their way in at the point of bayonet, demanding that the governor’s daughters betray their father’s hiding place—which they steadfastly refused to do.

  “I was certain they’d burn the house.” Kitty’s breath puffed steam into the air as she nestled closer to me beneath a quilt. “Though, God forgive me, at this moment, I’d gladly see Liberty Hall engulfed in flames if only to warm my feet near the conflagration.”

  If God wouldn’t forgive her, I would, because the coals in our foot warmer had burned out. But I told myself to endure it because I was soon to see my sister.

  It’d been nearly three years since Jack Carter spirited Angelica away to Boston. Now my brother-in-law’s business dealings—which I never sufficiently understood—had brought him back into service as a commissary. Angelica had written that he’d been sent on a foraging expedition, and that, in the meantime, she was with the army in Morristown. Where I was determined to join her.

  Given that British raiding parties skulked everywhere along the Hudson, throwing torches into homes, courthouses, and churches along the way, I expected my mother to balk at the idea of my journey. But the revolution was still, for us, a family affair. My aunt Gertrude, whose husband, Dr. Cochran, was George Washington’s personal physician, invited me to visit, with a pointed reminder that Washington’s officer corps was comprised almost entirely of well-educated bachelors from good families, in dire need of brides.

  I was more interested in the knowledge that they were also in need of nurses.

  And so I went.

  When our coach came to a stop we heard a watchman call, “Who comes there?”

  Standing upon a muster ground of muddied slush, an irritated sentry all but encased in ice demanded our papers. And when I leaned out to see him, I was greeted with the welcome sight of smoke billowing from a tavern chimney amidst a little cluster of peaked roofs. The tavern gave us hope of a warm drink, but when the sentry saw the direction of our eyes, he said, “Don’t bother. They’ll slam the door in your faces.”

  That’s when I noticed the dark glances of the townsfolk trudging past. Startled, I asked, “They’re Tories here in Morristown?”

  “Aye. And they’re just sick to death of us, miss.” The sentry pointed down the lane. “Your kin are staying less than a mile that-a-way. Your sister, Mrs. Carter, is already in camp.”

  Angelica. The thought of her alone was enough to warm me. And my excitement was rewarded when, before our coach even came to a full stop in front of a neat little white house with a picket fence half-buried in snow, my older sister flung herself out the front door. We both cried at once:

  “Angelica!”

  “Betsy!”

  Thereupon we flew into each other’s arms and squeezed so tightly we could scarcely breathe for the sweet pain of it. I couldn’t stop looking at her because she had become, it seemed, even more beautiful as a consequence of motherhood, her bright black eyes shining over an elegantly long nose that was pink just at the tip.

  From the doorway, stout Aunt Gertrude fussed, “Let’s get you girls in out of the cold before you catch your deaths!” She ushered Kitty, my sister, and me inside a small front parlor where a corner fireplace blazed with the most welcome fire I’d ever seen.

  Meanwhile, Angelica kissed my cold cheeks again. “You must tell me everything straightaway. Whether Peggy has learned to discipline her tongue, or Mama bought any elegant dresses, or if Papa’s gout has returned, and if our brothers are becoming little men. Or even if Jenny has learned to powder your hair without making you sneeze. I must know.”

  I wanted to tell her everything straightaway, but I could scarcely feel my fingers or toes. Thankfully Aunt Gertrude made some warmed cider to thaw us. Apologetically, she also offered some sorry-looking biscuits. “The best that can be done with mealy flour, a few raisins, and the last of the spice.”

  The biscuits were dry, but Kitty and I gobbled them up as if they were the finest of pastries. Then we were pleased to present some precious supplies. Flour, cheese, and salt—the latter of which, my aunt told us, was more valuable than gold. As our aunt went through the packages, Angelica put my adorable infant niece into my arms, while her little boy played peekaboo about Kitty’s skirts. I cuddled the baby close, inhaling her milk scent and feeling beneath my breast a stirring. How might I feel to hold a little creature like this in my arms, knowing she’d be mine to keep forever? If I was to live as a spinster, I’d never know.

  And it seemed as if my kinswomen had hatched a veritable conspiracy to keep that from coming to pass. “As soon as you’ve warmed yourself, my dear, we must see your gowns,” Aunt Gertrude said. “There won’t be much time to make necessary alterations if we don’t start upon them at once. Surely you wish to be in fashion when you meet the most eligible bachelors in the Continental army.”

  Clearly, she was addressing me, as Kitty was never out of fashion, and I must’ve looked dismayed at the idea of sorting through ribbons and lace because Angelica broke in to say, “If men were not so blind, Betsy could beguile t
hem in buckskin or burlap. But men are truly the most bumbling of creatures. To get their blood up, you must wave a bit of ribbon and lace before them, like a matador.”

  We had a good laugh at that, but Auntie protested, “They’re not rutting bulls, they’re gentlemen. And I’ll have you know, Betsy, when I told a certain Colonel Tilghman that you were coming, he said he’d be very glad to see you again.”

  I very much doubted he meant it.

  When I was seventeen, Tench Tilghman served with my father as an Indian commissioner, and the Iroquois had proposed to the mild-mannered Maryland officer that he take an Indian bride. Later, at a picnic that followed, our lady friends had teased him about this unmercifully. Hoping to divert their mean-spirited sport, I’d managed to humiliate him and myself by blurting that I’d volunteer to be a bridesmaid if Colonel Tilghman should, in fact, wish to take an Indian wife.

  At the time, I believed that he took me for a simpleton. Now I was sure of it because my aunt went on to say, “He told me that you’re the finest tempered girl in the world.”

  I groaned, my cheeks burning, for it was precisely the sort of polite thing a man might say about a simpleton. “He thinks I’m addle-headed.”

  Knowing the story, Angelica laughed. “My poor sister and her good intentions.”

  “Well, you are addled if you don’t take the opportunity to reacquaint yourself with Colonel Tilghman,” Aunt Gertrude said. “He’s an upright patriot from a very fine family.”

  “A Loyalist family, though.” Kitty sighed, as if that ruled him out. “It is rather a wonder that Washington trusts him and keeps him so close. I cannot imagine the pain of being at such odds with your own relations.”

  I couldn’t imagine it either. That night I slept with my sister and her babies in a canopied bed that took up most of the little front guest room with its corner fireplace. And as we curled round each other for warmth, I felt content as I hadn’t in years. The scent of Angelica’s hair, so familiar and comforting. The way she whispered stories in the dark that made me laugh—prompting our uncle to thump on the wall in the next room to hush us.