The Conqueror

I

Hamil­ton's body suc­cumbed to the cli­max of Tren­ton and Prince­ton up­on months of hard­ship and ex­po­sure, and he was in hos­pi­tal for a week with a rheumat­ic fever. But Troup, whose ex­change had been ef­fect­ed, was with him most of the time, and his con­va­les­cence was made agree­able by many charm­ing wom­en. He was not the on­ly bril­liant young man in the army, for Troup, Fish, Burr, Mar­shall, were with­in a few months or, at most, a year or two of his age, and there were many oth­ers; men had ma­tured ear­ly in that hot pe­ri­od be­fore the Rev­olu­tion, when small boys talked pol­itics, and even the wom­en thought of lit­tle else; but Hamil­ton, through no fault of his, had in­spired his friends with the be­lief that he was some­thing high­er than hu­man, and they nev­er tired of sound­ing his prais­es. More­over, Wash­ing­ton had not hes­itat­ed to say what he thought of him, and the mere fact that he had won the af­fec­tion of that aus­tere Chief­tain was enough to give him celebri­ty. At all events, he was a daz­zling fig­ure, and pret­ty wom­en soothed many a weary hour. As for Troup, who was un­pleas­ant­ly anatom­ical, he had a fresh sto­ry for ev­ery day of the hor­rors of the prison cat­tle-​ship _Men­tor_, where half the pris­on­ers had died of filth, star­va­tion, and fever, from pu­trid wa­ter and bru­tal treat­ment.

But nev­er was there a more im­pa­tient in­valid than Hamil­ton. He was as­ton­ished and dis­gust­ed that his body should de­fy his mind, and at the first mo­ment pos­si­ble he was up and about his du­ties with the army at Mor­ris­town. Troup was or­dered to join the army un­der Gates in the North.

Mor­ris­town was a nat­ural fortress, a large fer­tile val­ley, pro­tect­ed by pre­cip­itous hills and forests, yet with de­files known to the Amer­icans, through which they could re­treat if nec­es­sary. It was with­in strik­ing dis­tance of New Brunswick and Am­boy, in which towns Wash­ing­ton kept the British cooped up for months, not per­mit­ting them to cut a stick of for­est wood with­out fight­ing for it. “Here was seen,” to quote Hamil­ton, “the spec­ta­cle of a pow­er­ful army strait­ened with­in nar­row lim­its by the phan­tom of a mil­itary force, and nev­er per­mit­ted to transgress those lim­its with im­puni­ty; in which skill sup­plied the place of means, and dis­po­si­tion was the sub­sti­tute for an army.”

Congress had in­vest­ed Wash­ing­ton with such ex­traor­di­nary pow­ers af­ter the bril­liant ex­ploit at Tren­ton, that in Eu­rope he was called “The Dic­ta­tor of Amer­ica.” There­in lay the sole cause of the ul­ti­mate vic­to­ry of the Rev­olu­tion­ists, and had the States been more gen­er­ous, and less jeal­ous of del­egat­ing pow­ers to Congress, he would have driv­en out the British in short or­der.

Mrs. Wash­ing­ton had joined her Gen­er­al--she kept an eye on him--at Free­man's Tav­ern, which had been con­vert­ed in­to com­fort­able head­quar­ters, and he was hap­py in his mil­itary fam­ily: Colonel Har­ri­son, in­de­fati­ga­ble and fear­less, af­fec­tion­ate­ly known as “Old Sec­re­tary”; Tench Tilgh­man of Mary­land, young, ac­com­plished, cheer­ful, de­vot­ed to Wash­ing­ton and serv­ing with­out pay, for his for­tune was con­sid­er­able; Richard Kid­der Meade, spright­ly, en­thu­si­as­tic, al­ways will­ing to slave; and John Fitzger­ald,--all in an at­ti­tude of per­pet­ual ado­ra­tion. But he lacked a sec­re­tary of the req­ui­site abil­ity, and as soon as he heard of Hamil­ton's re­turn to camp he sent for him.

Hamil­ton was feel­ing al­most well, and he walked rapid­ly across the vil­lage green to head­quar­ters, de­light­ed at the prospect of see­ing Wash­ing­ton again. He had ac­quired a mil­itary air and walked more erect­ly than ev­er, for he was some­what sen­si­tive of his ju­ve­nile ap­pear­ance. He found Wash­ing­ton in a front room on the sec­ond floor. The Gen­er­al wore his usu­al blue and buff, and looked less ha­rassed and worn than when he had last seen him. He rose and shook hands warm­ly with Hamil­ton, who thanked him again for the mes­sages he had re­ceived while in hos­pi­tal.

“I would have had you brought here if there had been any place to make you com­fort­able; and I am go­ing to ask you to come and live with me now--as my aide and sec­re­tary.”

Hamil­ton sprang to his feet im­petu­ous­ly. “Oh, sir!” he ex­claimed, “I don't want to leave the reg­ular line of pro­mo­tion! I don't want to leave my men. I'm much at­tached to them. And I'll not de­ny my am­bi­tion, sir; I want op­por­tu­ni­ties to dis­tin­guish my­self. I've al­ready re­fused two gen­er­als. This war will last for years. There is no rea­son in the world why I should not be a gen­er­al in three.”

“No,” said Wash­ing­ton, “there is none; there is ev­ery pos­si­bil­ity of your be­com­ing one of the most bril­liant fig­ures on the rev­olu­tion­ary bat­tle­fields. I ad­mit that, and I un­der­stand your am­bi­tion. Nev­er­the­less, I think I can prove to you that there is an­oth­er way in which you can serve your coun­try bet­ter. I know your un­com­pro­mis­ing sense of du­ty and your high pa­tri­otism, and I am sure you will ac­cept my in­vi­ta­tion when I prove to you that while there are hun­dreds to fight val­or­ous­ly, even bril­liant­ly, there is scarce­ly a man I can get to write my let­ters who can do more than punc­tu­ate prop­er­ly or turn a sen­tence neat­ly. You must know the in­ex­press­ible val­ue of a bril­liant ac­com­plished ver­sa­tile sec­re­tary, with a brain ca­pa­ble of grasp­ing ev­ery ques­tion that aris­es--and you can imag­ine how many of that sort have come my way. I have been driv­en near­ly dis­tract­ed, dic­tat­ing, ex­plain­ing, re­vis­ing--when I have so much else to think of. Be­sides the con­stant cor­re­spon­dence with the Congress and the States, some­thing else is al­ways turn­ing up--to-​day it is the ex­change of pris­on­ers, a most im­por­tant and del­icate mat­ter. Were you my sec­re­tary, you would al­so be my brain: a word would be suf­fi­cient. I could trust you so im­plic­it­ly that if mat­ters pressed I could con­fi­dent­ly sign my name to what­ev­er you wrote with­out read­ing it over. There is no one else liv­ing of whom I can say that. You are the most use­ful young man in Amer­ica, and if you will give your great brain to this coun­try from this time on, she will be far more grate­ful to you than if you mere­ly con­tin­ued to fight, splen­did­ly as you have done that. And _I_ need you--I have no words to tell you how much.”

“Sir,” said Hamil­ton, deeply touched, “no hu­man be­ing could with­stand such an ap­peal, and your words of praise are glo­ry enough. I will come as soon as you say, and do the best I can.”

“Come at once. The British per­sist in treat­ing us as rebels. It is for you, with your in­spired pen, to force and coax them to re­gard us with the re­spect an ed­ucat­ed think­ing peo­ple--not a horde of ig­no­rant rebels, as they imag­ine--de­serve. If you do that, you will do a greater ser­vice to your coun­try than if you rose to be first in mil­itary rank. Here are some notes. When you have fin­ished, write to Congress and ask for the rank of Lieu­tenant-​Colonel; and move up here to-​day, if pos­si­ble. I can­not tell you how hap­py I shall be to have you a mem­ber of my fam­ily.”

Wash­ing­ton had won his point. A shrewd judge of men, he had cal­cu­lat­ed up­on Hamil­ton suc­cumb­ing to an ap­peal to his sense of pa­tri­ot­ic du­ty--the strongest pas­sion in his pas­sion­ate na­ture. Much as he loved Hamil­ton, he had no hes­ita­tion in us­ing him, and our pet­ted young hero was to learn what work meant for the first time in his life. He wrote most of the day, of­ten half the night; but al­though he chafed an­gri­ly at the con­fine­ment, beat many a tat­too on the floor with his heels, and went for a hard ride more than once that he might keep his tem­per, the re­sult was that mass of cor­re­spon­dence, signed “George Wash­ing­ton,” which raised the com­man­der of the Amer­ican forces so high in the es­ti­ma­tion of Eu­rope, adding to his mil­itary renown the splen­dour of a pro­found and lu­mi­nous in­tel­lect.

There was, al­so, some cor­re­spon­dence with the Congress re­gard­ing the dis­po­si­tion of his ar­tillery men. He in­sist­ed up­on def­inite pro­vi­sion for them, and they were per­mit­ted to en­list in the Con­ti­nen­tal Army. They loved him, and the fi­nal part­ing on March 18th, with can­non as well as men!--made him ill for half a day.

Oth­er­wise his life at Head­quar­ters was very pleas­ant Tilgh­man and Meade be­came two of the most con­ge­nial friends he ev­er made. The tav­ern was com­fort­able, and he had a room to him­self for a time. The din­ing room re­unions were agree­able in spite of their for­mal­ity. Be­sides the ami­able mil­itary fam­ily, and the most moth­er­ly of wom­en, who knit him stock­ings and kept his wardrobe in or­der, there were fre­quent vis­itors. The Liv­ingston girls were spend­ing the win­ter with their aunt, La­dy Ster­ling, and, with their beau­ti­ful cousin, the La­dy Kit­ty Alexan­der, of­ten drove over to a five o'clock din­ner or the more in­for­mal sup­per. The Boudinots and Mor­gans, the gen­er­als in camp at Mor­ris­town and their wives, and the more dis­tin­guished of­fi­cers, were fre­quent­ly dined at Head­quar­ters. Wash­ing­ton sat halfway in the ta­ble's length, with Mrs. Wash­ing­ton op­po­site. Hamil­ton was placed at the head of the ta­ble on the day of his ar­rival, a seat he re­tained while a mem­ber of the fam­ily. The Chief en­cour­aged him to talk, and it must be con­fessed that he talked from the time he sat down till the meal fin­ished. His ideas were al­ways on the rush, and talk­ing was mere­ly think­ing aloud. As he ex­pressed him­self with wit and el­egance, and on sub­jects which in­ter­est­ed them all pro­found­ly, il­lu­mi­nat­ing ev­ery­thing he touched, old men and young would lean for­ward and lis­ten with re­spect to the wis­dom of a young man who was yet an in­fant in the eyes of the law. How he es­caped be­ing in­suf­fer­ably spoiled can on­ly be ex­plained by the cease­less ac­tiv­ity of his brain, and the fact that the essence of which prigs are made was not in him. That he was ut­ter­ly with­out com­mon­place con­ceit is in­dis­putable, for he was the idol of the fam­ily. Har­ri­son chris­tened him “The Lit­tle Li­on,” a name his friends used for their aptest des­ig­na­tion as long as he lived, and as­sumed a pa­ter­nal re­la­tion which fin­ished on­ly with the old­er man's death. The La­dy-​in-​chief made such a pet of him that he was re­ferred to in the ir­rev­er­ent To­ry press as “Mrs. Wash­ing­ton's Tom-​cat.”

“Alexan­der,” said Kit­ty Liv­ingston to him, one day, “have a care. You are too for­tu­nate. The jeal­ous gods will smite you.”

But Hamil­ton, think­ing of those ter­ri­ble months in the pre­vi­ous year, of men­tal anx­iety and phys­ical hard­ship, when, in bit­ter weath­er, he had of­ten gone hun­gry and in­suf­fi­cient­ly clothed, and of his present ar­du­ous du­ties, con­clud­ed there was a fine bal­ance in his af­fairs which doubt­less would pla­cate the gods.