Page 3 of My Dear Hamilton
Chapter Two
There is a spirit of dissatisfaction prevailing among the soldiers and even the officers.
— M AJOR G ENERAL L AFAYETTE TO G EORGE W ASHINGTON
February 19, 1778
Albany
M EN THINK STITCHERY the most demure of occupations—all they see is gently bred girls, their heads bent in domestic pursuit, their hands kept busy and out of mischief. But my mother knew sewing circles for the wheels of conspiracy that they actually are. At least amongst sisters. Which was why Mama wasn’t about to leave us to our own devices.
Papa might have forgiven me, but my mother was still wroth. “You girls are dallying,” she accused from her rocking chair in the yellow parlor, her own knitting needles clicking and clacking under her experienced hands. “Especially you, Betsy.”
I pressed my lips together without offering a defense of myself, intent on not losing count of my stitches. But Peggy lifted her pretty head of dark curls to complain. “We’ve been knitting since sunrise; if we don’t take a rest, we’re going to split stitches and ruin the stockings.”
“There’s no time to worry about workmanship,” Mama snapped. Her special urgency was because the Committee of Safety and Correspondence was offering eight shillings to the first family in Albany to produce three pairs of two-threaded stockings for the soldiers billeted in our town.
Being one of the wealthiest families, we would not take the money, of course. But because we were beset by recent scandals, and Papa’s court-martial had not yet been convened to clear his name, Mama wished to burnish our reputation by knitting stockings for the cause. After all, with Albany consumed in a near hysteria of suspicion and accusation, our jail was currently filled with formerly prominent citizens accused of being enemies to this country .
I was still desperate to do something to redeem myself and my family—something more than knitting stockings in a warm parlor with frost on the windows. Fortunately, an opportunity presented itself when my father emerged from his study and called for Prince to fetch him his hat and coat.
“I’m going to the hospital,” Papa announced.
He was restless. For years, urgent letters from General Washington had come to us day and night, under seal and from riders on frothing mounts, but once the British were gone from our home, we no longer received any word from headquarters at all.
And the silence was deafening.
In what seemed almost a fit of defiance, Papa rebuilt our Saratoga house in a mere twenty-nine days, salvaging nails and hinges and knobs. Then he paced at the windows, staring beyond the fine trees to a country that was still at war... without him. He was a general without a command. A soldier without a battle to fight.
And somehow, I felt that way, too. As my father stooped to kiss Mama on his way out, I quickly finished my stocking and asked, “Can I go with you, Papa?”
I think he knew that I shared his restlessness and discontent, because Papa rescued me from my mother’s withering glare by asking, “Can you spare Betsy? She’d be a help today. Peggy doesn’t have the stomach for it, but Betsy’s good with the soldiers. And Arnold likes her.”
Benedict Arnold, he meant. The Hero of Saratoga.
Having led a charge in the battle amidst a hailstorm of grapeshot and musket balls, General Arnold had taken a bullet to the leg that shattered his bone. And his patriotism was so unimpeachable that his friendship bolstered Papa’s badly bruised reputation.
It was probably for that reason that Mama agreed to part with me. I was a little sorry to abandon Peggy, who feigned the long-suffering look of a wounded soldier left behind. Still, Papa wasn’t wrong about Peg’s delicate stomach; she’d retched at the sight of a soldier whose face had been half torn off by a cannonball and none of the doctors wanted her back, whereas I knew how to make myself useful.
“Hurry while the horses are being brought out,” Papa whispered. “Before your mother changes her mind.”
I grinned. It was a grin that faded when we neared the barracks and passed a small gathering of patriot soldiers huddled together around campfires upon which they made paltry cakes of nothing more than water and flour.
These men did not salute.
One of them even spat as we passed.
Green Mountain Boys, I thought. Rude backwoods riflemen Papa once commanded who adored General Gates and had spread the rumor about Papa’s supposed treason. Dr. Franklin famously said we must all hang together, or we would surely hang separately. Well, I wished he’d told the militia.
But if Papa feared them, he didn’t show it.
Instead he rode on, contemptuous of the insult. Still, I knew he felt it, because he said, “I spoke for independence when I served in the Continental Congress. Now, blood has been spilled, widows made, children orphaned, and soldiers left half-naked, sick, and starving. I count it my duty to do for them what I can, whether I am in uniform or not, with rank and dignity, or without. Whether they spit at me for it, or not.”
Letting go the reins of my mare for a moment, I reached with one mittened hand to touch him on his mount beside me, to let him know how much I felt pride in being his daughter.
And I hoped to make him proud of me, too.
When we reached the piazza at the two-story hospital, I dismounted like a soldier and collected a parcel of shirts and bandages from the saddle, tucking it under my arm. Then I took a deep breath, knowing the hospital air was often putrid.
And yet, those lingering in either of the hospital wings were the lucky ones. They had a roof and walls to protect them against the snowfall. The hospital could only accommodate five hundred beds—and even the floor of our church at the center of town had no more room, so many wounded soldiers had to make do with tent covers. And there weren’t enough of those either.
We’d scarcely gone through the front door before a grizzled veteran with a bloodstained bandage tied about one eye actually had the temerity to shout in Papa’s face, “ Where’s our pay? ”
I wanted to say that he should ask Congress. But I was not tart by nature. Not like my sisters. I wasn’t pretty enough to get away with it. So I held my tongue.
Fortunately, we were spared of a reply when Benedict Arnold limped over and shoved the angry man with his crutch. “Shut your bone-box and mind your manners around Miss Schuyler,” Arnold growled at the veteran. “You’re not the only one who can complain about not being given his due...”
In the face of the Hero of Saratoga’s disapproval, the veteran went from steel to milk. “Yessir,” he murmured.
Not giving the surly veteran another moment of attention, Arnold turned to me. “Miss Schuyler. Always a pleasure.”
I bobbed my head, not put off by his growling, especially not when it was in defense of my papa. Arnold was simply gruff by nature, and it was a trait I knew the pain of his injury had worsened. “General Arnold.”
But as Papa took Arnold aside into a little room the hero had fitted for himself as an office, I heard the veteran behind us grum ble, “Guess it don’t matter when the pay comes, since we’re all soon to die on some snowy cliff in Canada.”
I didn’t blame the soldiers for their fear of the forthcoming winter campaign. The least we could do to encourage them was put warm clothes upon their backs, so I asked, “General Arnold, is there somewhere we can put these bundles of shirts to distribute to the men?”
“Leave them with Dr. Thacher,” Papa replied. “That’s not why we have come.”
I blinked. “It’s not?”
In answer, Papa turned to Arnold. “I thought you might like to borrow a horse and join me at the barracks in greeting my latest replacement as commander of the Northern Department.”
At this, Arnold barked out a bitter laugh. “Washington’s pet Frenchman? He’s not due for a week yet.”
Papa’s mouth quirked in the way it sometimes did when he had a secret no one else knew. “My scout spotted a group of horsemen and sleighs, French uniforms, some of them. My guess is that Lafayette will be at the barracks within the hour, if he hasn’t arrived already.”
Arnold rolled his broad shoulders, sighing ruefully. “I’m sorry, Schuyler. To think we must fete and flatter and give your command to a damned boy soldier of just twenty years in the hopes he can deliver us an alliance with King Louis...” He glanced at me and reddened. “I beg your pardon, miss, for coarse language.”
“Think nothing of it, sir,” I said, quickly. “I’m accustomed to soldiers.”
But inside, I railed at the very idea that the new general was my very same age. It was bad enough when they gave my father’s command to Gates. Why should Congress now entrust the entire Northern Army, and perhaps even the fate of the war, into the hands of an untested young foreigner? This was my father’s army . I could not be convinced otherwise.
And maybe Papa felt the same way, because he said, “If we get to Lafayette before anyone else, maybe we can talk sense into him about this campaign.”
The bull-necked Arnold scowled, leaning on his crutch. “Lafayette’s a lost cause. The lad was still in swaddling when you and I saw blood in the French and Indian War—but he thinks he’ll win laurels throughout Europe for chasing his death in Quebec, taking our soldiers with him. A vainglorious French stripling isn’t going to listen to reason.”
“Washington trusts him,” Papa said, simply.
“Lafayette is a titled nobleman, ” Arnold barked, as if he didn’t hear Papa speak. “He’ll think we’re insolent inferiors trying to undermine him.”
Seeing that Arnold was not to be convinced, my father gave a curt nod. “I understand if you want nothing to do with it; still, I must make the attempt. I’ll invite Lafayette to dine tonight. You’re welcome, too. Betsy, come along.”
I should’ve nodded and meekly followed my father out. But I’d taken what Arnold said very much to heart. The army was, officially, no longer my father’s responsibility or duty. There was a good argument to be made that he should simply return to his plantation and pull the gate closed until the war was over. Instead, he was taking what seemed to me a large risk. For a man under suspicion of treason and neglect of duty to speak against the new general’s plans for attacking the enemy...
If this Frenchman must be set straight about the folly of marching in winter, it would be better for Arnold to do it. The Hero of Saratoga would risk much less.
Betsy’s good with the soldiers, Papa had said . Arnold likes her.
That was true, in a fashion. Arnold had taken a liking to me—not, as my mother might have hoped, for any feminine charm—but for the same reason that most soldiers liked me; having spent most of my childhood tromping about the frontier, I carried myself with just enough boyishness to put them at ease. All the doctors complained that the thirty-six-year-old Arnold was a fractious patient, but I’d once helped to distract him from his pain with a game of backgammon. And I suddenly felt certain that Papa had taken me along with him to help convince Arnold to attend what might be the most important dinner of the war.
Because if we couldn’t stop this doomed winter campaign, all the soldiers I’d helped stitch back together in autumn might be dead by spring.
“Oh, but General Arnold,” I rushed to say, “I’d be so disappointed to miss you at dinner. I haven’t had a good game in ages, and you did promise me a rematch, sir.” Arnold’s scowl lifted only a bit, and I wished I knew what else I could say to convince him. I’d never learned the art of wrapping a lock of hair around my fingertip and flashing my eyes at a man. That was the province of my sisters. But emboldened by what I took for encouragement in Papa’s eyes, I quite shamelessly added, “And my sister Peggy has been asking after you.”
The bachelor broke into a slow toothy grin. “Miss Peggy asked after me?”
Of course, my sister Peggy asked after every handsome soldier with the same interest and constancy she asked about ribbons, hats, and hair combs. But I nodded.
And Arnold seemed intrigued. “All right, then. I hate to disappoint a lady. But I fear Lafayette will not accept the invitation and we’ll dine alone.”
A happenstance I fretted about on the ride—which was mercifully short, given the difficulty Arnold’s injury gave him in staying upon his mount—through our greatly disordered town.
Before the war, winter in Albany had been a thing of enchantment. Pristine snow-covered hills sloped gently to a frozen river, where skaters had frolicked amongst sleds and sleighs. And up from the river stood a cluster of about three hundred Gothic New Netherlander houses, their windows frosted and glistening icicles ornamenting the gables that faced the neatly kept streets.
But our once bucolic paths were now trodden to slushy brown mud, with milk cows roaming the streets for want of a pasture, and we were desperate for everything: meat, money, firewood, doctors. The circumstances were so dire that only a selfish or sadistic commander would force these soldiers to march.
And I feared this young upstart Lafayette might be both.
We’d scarcely arrived at the barracks when a commotion erupted from the direction of the river. I turned to see a procession of sleighs carrying soldiers, their white infantry uniforms embroidered with the fleur-de-lis of French heraldry. But at their head, wearing American buff and blue, rode a lanky young officer, borne upon a majestic mount like a conquering Caesar.
This must be Lafayette, I thought. And I didn’t know whether to laugh or weep at the ridiculous sight of a baby-faced general who’d apparently traversed a wilderness in rain and snow, all while properly powdered and ornamented with gold braid and dainty lace. I confess that my first glimpse of him with one hand upon his hip, the other upon his sword in martial pose, was enough to convince me that he was exactly the young fool that Benedict Arnold supposed him to be.
But when my father moved forward to make introductions, Lafayette seemed to know him already, and snapped off a very correct salute. “Major Général Schuyler.”
The respectfulness softened me a little.
When Lafayette dismounted and greeted General Arnold as well, Papa said, “I present to you my second-eldest daughter, Elizabeth.”
Given the increasingly rigid revolutionary sentiment at the time, I was uncertain if I should curtsy to a nobleman like Lafayette lest I be thought a secret Tory. Before I could decide, Lafayette took my hand and pressed upon it an audible kiss. “ Enchanté, Mademoiselle Schuyler. I am Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette.” My eyes must have widened because Lafayette laughed and added, “It is not my fault, all these names. I was baptized like a Spaniard, with the name of every conceivable saint who might offer me protection on the battlefield so that I might be invincible.”
I could not help but smile at Lafayette’s jest, though I disliked the word invincible . I’d known too many soldiers who thought themselves invincible in this war and now found themselves moldering in graves. And if Papa couldn’t talk sense to this Frenchman, he was going to put many more into the ground besides.
Before Lafayette even inquired about quarters for his half-frozen men—or meeting the mayor who was, no doubt, scurrying out of his house now at the surprise arrival—he asked my father, “Report to me, please, the conditions of the forces here at Albany and their readiness for a winter campaign.”
This was the news that we wished to broach slowly, over a good meal and in front of a warm fire, with Arnold vouching for all Papa had to say. But the Frenchman was already demanding a report, and looking to Papa to give it. Oh, how I cringed to see my father make a report to Lafayette, a now superior officer, one much his junior in age, and a foreigner at that!
Still, the important thing was that the Frenchman heard the truth. Not enough gunpowder, muskets, or bullets. Too few provisions of every kind. Men without shoes, without coats, without medicines. It was an army that could scarcely defend the river, much less mount an invasion.
Lafayette listened to all this with a half-lidded, nearly inso lent gaze. It seemed to me that he didn’t believe my father, or perhaps didn’t wish to believe him. And rather than see Papa subjected to the further indignity of being dismissed, I was now eager to go.
Pretending at a chill I didn’t feel, I rubbed my hands together. “I’m quite cold, Papa.”
Knowing me to have the hardiest constitution of all his daughters, my father glanced at me with surprise, then back at Lafayette. “I should very much like to discuss this further, sir. I extend my hospitality to you and your officers for dinner this evening. And with that, General Lafayette, I take my daughter and my leave.”
But Lafayette’s gaze skimmed over the encampment of miserable soldiers, and he actually dared to arrest my father’s movement with a gloved hand tight upon his elbow. “I cannot let you go, Schuyler. For I see now that I am betrayed.”