The Conqueror

II

In May and Ju­ly there were il­lus­tri­ous ad­di­tions to Wash­ing­ton's fam­ily,--John Lau­rens and Lafayette. Both be­came the in­ti­mate friends of Hamil­ton, the for­mer one of the few pas­sion­ate at­tach­ments of his life. Al­though Hamil­ton was by no means in­dif­fer­ent to the af­fec­tion he in­spired in nine-​tenths of the peo­ple he met, he did not him­self love eas­ily. He was too an­alyt­ical, he saw peo­ple too pre­cise­ly as they were, and his ac­quain­tance with hu­man na­ture had made him too cyn­ical to per­mit the flood gates of his af­fec­tions to open ex­cept un­der un­com­mon stress. He dread­ed dis­ap­point­ment. For Troup, Fish, Stevens, Meade, and Tilgh­man he had a deep af­fec­tion and served their in­ter­ests ar­dent­ly; for Wash­ing­ton a con­tra­dic­to­ry bud­get of emo­tions, which were some­times to be head­ed “re­spect­ful af­fec­tion,” at oth­ers “ir­ri­tat­ed re­sent­ment,” now and again a mo­ment of ado­ra­tion. While he could not pay suf­fi­cient trib­ute to Wash­ing­ton's mag­na­nim­ity and gen­eros­ity, he had by now seen him in too many tem­pers, had been ground too fine in his greedy ma­chine, to think on him al­ways with un­qual­ified en­thu­si­asm. Lafayette, bril­liant, volatile, ac­com­plished, bub­bling with en­thu­si­asm for the cause of Lib­er­ty, and his own age with­in a few months, he liked sin­cere­ly and al­ways. There was no end to the favours he did him, and Lafayette loved no one bet­ter in his long and var­ious ca­reer. Wom­en, Hamil­ton fan­cied sharply and for­got quick­ly.

But Lau­rens, the “young Ba­yard of the Rev­olu­tion,” fresh from the col­leges and courts of Eu­rope, a man so hand­some that, we are told, peo­ple ex­pe­ri­enced a cer­tain shock when he en­tered the room, court­ly, ac­com­plished to the high­est de­gree, of flaw­less char­ac­ter, with a mind as no­ble and el­evat­ed as it was in­tel­lec­tu­al, and burn­ing with the most el­evat­ed pa­tri­otism,--he took Hamil­ton by storm, cap­tur­ing judge­ment as well as heart, and lov­ing him as ar­dent­ly in re­turn.

Like Hamil­ton, Lau­rens was of Huguenot de­scent; he was born in South Car­oli­na, of a dis­tin­guished fam­ily. Against the ex­pressed wish of his fa­ther he had re­turned to Amer­ica, made his way to Head­quar­ters and of­fered his ser­vices to Wash­ing­ton, who im­me­di­ate­ly at­tached him to his mil­itary house­hold. The un­hap­pi­est of men, pray­ing for death on ev­ery bat­tle­field, he lived long enough to dis­tin­guish him­self by a brav­ery so reck­less, by such startling hero­ic feats, that he was, be­yond all ques­tion, the pop­ular young hero of the Rev­olu­tion. He wor­shipped Wash­ing­ton as one might wor­ship a de­mi-​god, and risked his life for him on two oc­ca­sions. But Hamil­ton was the friend of his life; the bond be­tween them was ro­man­tic and chival­rous. Each burned to prove the strength of his af­fec­tion, to sac­ri­fice him­self for the oth­er. Lau­rens slaved at Wash­ing­ton's less im­por­tant cor­re­spon­dence, and Hamil­ton's turn came lat­er. The age has passed for such friend­ships; but at that time, when young men were nur­tured on great ideas, when they were sac­ri­fic­ing them­selves in a sa­cred cause, and had seen next to noth­ing of the frivoli­ties of life, they were un­der­stand­able enough.

Hamil­ton was obliged to share his room with both the young men, and they slept on three lit­tle cots in a small space. When the nights were in­suf­fer­ably hot they would go out and lie on the grass and talk un­til they were in a con­di­tion to sleep any­where. Hamil­ton would fore­cast the next move­ment of the en­emy; Lau­rens and Lafayette would tell all they knew about mil­itary sci­ence in Eu­rope; and then they would dis­cuss the fu­ture of the lib­er­at­ed coun­try and the great ide­als which must gov­ern her. And when men can be ide­al­is­tic while fight­ing the Jer­sey mosquito, it must be ad­mit­ted that they are of the stuff to serve their coun­try well.

But all this de­light­ful in­ter­course was in­ter­rupt­ed in Au­gust. Wash­ing­ton gave bat­tle to the British at Brandy­wine, was de­feat­ed, and in the fol­low­ing month sur­prised them at Ger­man­town, and was de­feat­ed again. Nev­er­the­less, he had as­ton­ished the en­emy with his strength and courage so soon af­ter a dis­as­trous bat­tle. To hold Philadel­phia was im­pos­si­ble, how­ev­er, and the British es­tab­lished them­selves in the Cap­ital of the colonies, mak­ing, as usu­al, no at­tempt to fol­low up their vic­to­ries.

Wash­ing­ton went in­to tem­po­rary quar­ters near the vil­lage of Whitemarsh. His own were in a ba­ro­nial hall at the head of a beau­ti­ful val­ley. Old trees shad­ed the house, and a spring of pure wa­ter bub­bled in a foun­tain be­fore the door. The men were en­camped on the hills at the north.

There was a great hall through the cen­tre of the man­sion, and here Wash­ing­ton held his au­di­ences and coun­cils of war. The house through­out was of ex­treme el­egance, and much to the taste of the younger mem­bers of the fam­ily, par­tic­ular­ly of Hamil­ton, who spent the greater part of his leisure in the li­brary. But his en­joy­ment of this un­com­mon lux­ury was brief.

Wash­ing­ton must have re­in­force­ments or his next en­gage­ment might be his last. There was but one source from which he could ob­tain a con­sid­er­able sup­ply, and that was from the army of Gates in the North. But Gates was swollen with the vic­to­ry of Sarato­ga and the cap­ture of Bur­goyne, and was sus­pect­ed to be in the thick of an in­trigue to de­throne Wash­ing­ton and have him­self pro­claimed Com­man­der-​in-​chief. At the mo­ment he was the idol of the army, and of the north­ern and east­ern States, for his vic­to­ries were tan­gi­ble and bril­liant, while Wash­ing­ton's sur­er pro­cess­es were lit­tle ap­pre­ci­at­ed. There­fore to get troops from him would be lit­tle less dif­fi­cult than to get them from Lord Howe, short of a pos­itive com­mand, and this pre­rog­ative Wash­ing­ton did not think it politic to use. He called a coun­cil of war, and when it was over he went to his pri­vate of­fice and sent for Alexan­der Hamil­ton.

He looked hag­gard, as if from sleep­less nights, and for a mo­ment af­ter Hamil­ton en­tered the room, al­though he waved his hand at a chair, he stared at him with­out speak­ing. Hamil­ton di­vined what was com­ing--he at­tend­ed all coun­cils of war--and sat for­ward ea­ger­ly. The prospect of a hol­iday from cler­ical work would alone have filled him with youth, and he knew how great a ser­vice he might be able to ren­der the cow­er­ing Re­pub­lic.

“Hamil­ton,” said Wash­ing­ton, fi­nal­ly, “you are as much in my se­cret thoughts as I am my­self. If I at­tempt­ed to de­ceive you, you would di­vine what I with­held. It is a re­lief to speak frankly to you, I dare not de­mand these troops from Gates, be­cause there is more than a pos­si­bil­ity he would de­fy me, and that the Congress and a large part of the army would sus­tain him. He has giv­en suf­fi­cient ev­idence of his tem­per in send­ing me no of­fi­cial no­tice of the bat­tle of Sarato­ga. But un­less I am to meet with over­whelm­ing dis­as­ter here, I must have re­in­force­ments. It may be pos­si­ble to ex­tract these by diplo­ma­cy, and I have se­lect­ed you for the mis­sion, be­cause I feel sure that you will not for­get the is­sues at stake for a mo­ment, be­cause you nev­er lose your head, and be­cause you will nei­ther be over­awed by Gates's im­me­di­ate splen­dour, nor will you have any young de­sire to as­sert the au­thor­ity which I give you as a last re­sort. There is an­oth­er point: If you find that Gates pur­pos­es to em­ploy his troops on some ex­pe­di­tion, by the pros­ecu­tion of which the com­mon cause will be more ben­efit­ed than by their be­ing sent down to re­in­force this army, you must sus­pend your con­sid­er­ation for me. God knows I am ten­der of my rep­uta­tion, and I have no wish to be dis­graced, but we are or should be fight­ing for a com­mon cause and prin­ci­ple, and should have lit­tle thought of in­di­vid­ual glo­ry. How­ev­er, I do not be­lieve in the dis­in­ter­est­ed­ness of Gates, nor in his ef­fi­cien­cy on a large scale. But I leave ev­ery­thing in your hands.”

Hamil­ton stood up, his chest ris­ing, and stared at his Chief.

“Sir,” he said, af­ter a mo­ment, “do you ap­pre­ci­ate that you are plac­ing your good name and your fu­ture in my hands?” For a mo­ment he re­al­ized that he was not yet of age.

“You are the on­ly be­ing to whom I can con­fide them, and who can save this ter­ri­ble sit­ua­tion.”

“And you have the mag­na­nim­ity to say that if Gates has a chance of oth­er vic­to­ries to let him go un­hin­dered?” He had one of his mo­ments of ado­ra­tion and self-​ab­ne­ga­tion for this man, whose par­tic­ular virtues, so lit­tle called up­on in or­di­nary af­fairs, gave him so lone­ly a place among men.

Wash­ing­ton jerked his head. There was noth­ing more to say. Hamil­ton's head dropped for a mo­ment, as if he felt the weight of an iron hel­met, and his lips moved rapid­ly.

“Are you say­ing your prayers when your lips work like that?” asked Wash­ing­ton, cross­ly.

Hamil­ton threw back his head with a gay laugh. His eyes were sparkling, his nos­trils di­lat­ing; his whole bear­ing was im­pe­ri­ous and tri­umphant. “Nev­er mind that. I'll un­der­take this mis­sion glad­ly, sir, and I think I'll not fail. My old friend Troup is his aide. He will ad­vise me of many things. I'll bring you back those reg­iments, sir. One way or an­oth­er a thing can al­ways be man­aged.”

The light in Hamil­ton's face was re­flect­ed on Wash­ing­ton's. “You are my good ge­nius,” he said short­ly. “Take care of your­self. You will have to ride hard, for there is no time to lose, but be care­ful not to take cold. I shall give you or­ders in writ­ing. Come back as soon as you can. I be­lieve I am not lack­ing in courage, but I al­ways have most when you are close by.”

There is a print some­where rep­re­sent­ing Hamil­ton set­ting forth on this mis­sion. He is mount­ed on a hand­some white horse, and wears a long green cloak, one end thrown over a shoul­der. His three-​cor­nered hat is pulled low over his eyes. In the rear is an or­der­ly.

He start­ed on the 30th of Oc­to­ber, rid­ing hard through the torn des­olate coun­try, to­ward New­burg on the Hud­son. He was three days mak­ing the dis­tance, al­though he snatched but a few hours' rest at night, and but a few mo­ments for each meal. From New­burg he crossed to Fishkill and, act­ing on his gen­er­al in­struc­tions, or­dered Put­nam to despatch south­ward three brigades; and on his own ac­count despatched sev­en hun­dred Jer­sey mili­tia on the same ex­pe­di­tion.

He then start­ed hot and hard for Al­bany, a dan­ger­ous as well as ex­haust­ing jour­ney, for nei­ther sav­age tribes nor red­coats could be far in the dis­tance. His men­tal anx­iety by now wore as severe­ly as the phys­ical strain. None knew bet­ter than he that his tal­ents were not for diplo­ma­cy. He was too im­pa­tient, too im­pe­ri­ous, too di­rect for its sin­uous meth­ods. On the oth­er hand, he had a the­ory that a first-​rate mind could, for a giv­en time, be bent in any di­rec­tion the will com­mand­ed, and he had ac­quired an ad­mirable com­mand of his tem­per. But the re­spon­si­bil­ity was ter­rif­ic, and he was half ill when he reached Al­bany. He pre­sent­ed him­self at Gen­er­al Gates's head­quar­ters at once.

Gates, like Lee, was a sol­dier of for­tune; and low-​born, vain, weak, and in­sane­ly am­bi­tious. He had been ad­vised of Hamil­ton's com­ing, and had no in­ten­tion of giv­ing Wash­ing­ton an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ri­val his own achieve­ments and reestab­lish him­self with the army and the Congress. He re­ceived Hamil­ton sur­round­ed by sev­er­al of his mil­itary fam­ily; and for the first time our for­tu­nate hero en­coun­tered in high places ac­tive en­mi­ty and dis­like. He had in­curred widespread jeal­ousy on ac­count of his in­flu­ence over Wash­ing­ton, and for the im­por­tant part he was play­ing in na­tion­al af­fairs. To the en­emies of the Com­man­der-​in-​chief he rep­re­sent­ed that ex­alt­ed per­son­age, and was par­tic­ular­ly ob­nox­ious. Nev­er was a youth in a more dif­fi­cult po­si­tion.

“I can­not ex­pose the finest ar­se­nal in Amer­ica,” said Gates, pompous­ly, “to the pos­si­bil­ity of de­struc­tion. Sir Hen­ry Clin­ton may re­turn at any minute. Nor could I en­ter­prise against Ticon­dero­ga were my army de­plet­ed. Nor can I leave the New Eng­land States open to the rav­ages and the depre­da­tions of the en­emy.”

These state­ments made no im­pres­sion on Hamil­ton, and he ar­gued bril­liant­ly and con­vinc­ing­ly for his ob­ject, but Gates was in­flex­ible. He would send one brigade and no more.

Hamil­ton re­tired, un­easy and de­ject­ed. Gates had an air of om­nipo­tence, and his of­fi­cers had not con­cealed their scorn. He hes­itat­ed to use his au­thor­ity, for a bold de­fi­ance on the part of Gates might mean the down­fall of Wash­ing­ton, per­haps of the Amer­ican cause. That Wash­ing­ton was prac­ti­cal­ly the Amer­ican army, Hamil­ton firm­ly be­lieved. If he fell, it was more than like­ly that the whole tot­ter­ing struc­ture would crum­ble.

An­oth­er rea­son in­clined him not to press Gates too far. He had been able to or­der sev­en­ty-​sev­en hun­dred troops from Fishkill, which was more than Wash­ing­ton had ex­pect­ed, al­though by no means so many as he need­ed. He there­fore wrote to the Chief at length, sent for Troup, and threw him­self on the bed; he was well-​nigh worn out.

Troup was al­ready in search of him, and met the mes­sen­ger. Big and bronzed, burst­ing with spir­its, he seemed to elec­tri­fy the very air of the room he burst in­to with­out cer­emo­ny. Hamil­ton sat up and poured out his trou­bles.

“You have an affin­ity for posts of dan­ger,” said Troup. “I be­lieve you to be walk­ing over a pow­der-​mine here. I am not in their con­fi­dence, for they know what I think of Wash­ing­ton, but I be­lieve there is a ca­bal on foot, and that Gates may be in open re­bel­lion any minute. But he's a cow­ard and a bul­ly. Treat him as such. Press your point and get your troops. He is but the tool of a fac­tion, and I doubt if they could make him act when it came to the point. He wants to make an­oth­er grand coup be­fore strik­ing. Look well in­to what reg­iment he gives you. Which are you to have?”

“Gen­er­al Pat­ter­son's.”

“I thought as much. It is the weak­est of the three now here, con­sists of but about six hun­dred rank and file fit for du­ty. There are two hun­dred mili­tia with it, whose time of ser­vice is so near ex­pir­ing that they will have dis­solved ere you reach Head­quar­ters.”

Hamil­ton had sprung to his feet in a fury. He for­got his pains, and let his tem­per fly with sat­is­fac­tion in the ex­er­cise. “If that is the case,” he cried, when he had fin­ished his anath­ema of Gates, “I'll have the men;” and he dashed at his writ­ing ma­te­ri­als. But he threw his pen aside in a mo­ment. “I'll wait till to-​mor­row for this. I must be mas­ter of my­self. Tell me of Sarato­ga. You dis­tin­guished your­self might­ily, and no one was more glad than I.”

Troup talked while Hamil­ton rest­ed. That evening he took him to call at the Schuyler man­sion, high on the hill.

Philip Schuyler was the great feu­dal lord of the North. He had served the colo­nial cause in many ways, and at the out­break of the Rev­olu­tion had been one of its hopes and props. But bril­liant as his ex­ploits had been, the in­trigues of Gates, af­ter the fall of Ticon­dero­ga, had been suc­cess­ful, and he was de­prived of the army of the North be­fore the bat­tle of Sarato­ga. The day of ex­on­er­ation came, but at present he was liv­ing qui­et­ly at home, with­out bit­ter­ness. A man of the most ex­alt­ed char­ac­ter, he drew added strength from ad­ver­si­ty, to be placed at the ser­vice of the coun­try the mo­ment it was de­mand­ed. Mrs. Schuyler, her­self a great-​grand­daugh­ter of the first pa­troon, Kil­lian Van Rens­se­laer, was a wom­an of strong char­ac­ter, an em­bod­ied type of all the virtues of the Dutch pi­oneer house­wife. She had a live­ly and tur­bu­lent fam­ily of daugh­ters, how­ev­er, and did not pre­tend to man­age them. The spir­it of our age is fee­ble and bour­geois when com­pared with the in­de­pen­dence and ro­man­tic tem­per of the stormy days of this Re­pub­lic's birth. Lib­er­ty was in the air; there was no talk but of free­dom and ex­ecra­tion of tyrants; young of­fi­cers had the run of ev­ery house, and Claris­sa Har­lowe was the mod­el for ro­man­tic young “fe­males.” An­gel­ica Schuyler, short­ly be­fore the bat­tle of Sarato­ga, had run off with John Bark­er Church, a young En­glish­man of dis­tin­guished con­nec­tions, at present mas­querad­ing un­der the name of Carter; a pre­sum­ably fa­tal du­el hav­ing driv­en him from Eng­land. Sub­se­quent­ly, both Peg­gy and Cor­nelia Schuyler climbed out of win­dows and eloped in a chaise and four, al­though there was not an ob­sta­cle worth men­tion­ing to union with the youths of their choice. It will shock many good moth­ers of the present day to learn that all these mar­riages were not on­ly hap­py, but set with the bril­liance of wealth and fash­ion. When Hamil­ton was in­tro­duced to the fa­mous white hall of the Schuyler man­sion on the hill, Cor­nelia and Peg­gy were still free in all but fan­cy; Eliz­abeth, by far the best be­haved, was the hope of Mrs. Schuyler's well-​reg­ulat­ed soul and one of the belles of the Rev­olu­tion. Hamil­ton was en­chant­ed with her, al­though his mind was too weight­ed for love. Her spir­its were as high as his own, and they talked and laughed un­til mid­night as gai­ly as were Gates's army march­ing south. But Hamil­ton was a philoso­pher; noth­ing could be done be­fore the mor­row; he might as well be hap­py and for­get. He had met many clever and ac­com­plished Amer­ican wom­en by this, and La­dy Kit­ty Alexan­der and Kit­ty and Su­san Liv­ingston were bril­liant. He had al­so met An­gel­ica Church, or Mrs. Carter, as she was called, one of the clever­est and most high-​spir­it­ed wom­en of her time. It had crossed his mind that had she been free, he might have made a bold dash for so fas­ci­nat­ing a crea­ture, but it seemed to him to-​night that on the whole he pre­ferred her sis­ter. “Bet­sey” Schuyler had been giv­en ev­ery ad­van­tage of ed­uca­tion, ac­com­plish­ment, and con­stant in­ter­course with the best so­ci­ety in the land. She had skill and tact in the man­age­ment of guests, and with­out; be­ing by any means a wom­an of bril­liant parts, un­der­stood the ques­tions of the day; her brain was in­formed with shrewd com­mon sense. Hamil­ton con­clud­ed that she was quite clever enough, and was de­light­ed with her beau­ty, her charm of man­ner, and style. Her lit­tle fig­ure was grace­ful and dis­tin­guished, her com­plex­ion the hon­ey and claret that artists ex­tol, and she had a pair of big black eyes which were al­ter­nate­ly rogu­ish, mod­est, ten­der, sym­pa­thet­ic; there were times when they were very live­ly, and even sug­gest­ed a tem­per. She was bright with­out at­tempt­ing to be wit­ty, but that she was deeply ap­pre­cia­tive of wit Hamil­ton had sooth­ing cause to know. And he had learned from the ad­mir­ing Troup that she was as in­trepid as she was whol­ly and dain­ti­ly fem­inine. Al­to­geth­er, Hamil­ton's fate was sealed when he bent over her hand that night, al­though he was far from sus­pect­ing it, so heav­ily did du­ty press the mo­ment he was alone in his rooms.

On the fol­low­ing morn­ing he asked for an in­ter­view with Gen­er­al Schuyler and sev­er­al oth­er mil­itary men whom he knew to be friend­ly to Wash­ing­ton, and they con­firmed the ad­vice of Troup. In the af­ter­noon he wrote to Gates a let­ter that was peremp­to­ry, al­though dig­ni­fied and cir­cum­spect, de­mand­ing the ad­di­tion of a su­pe­ri­or brigade. He ex­pressed his in­dig­na­tion in no mea­sured terms, and in more guard­ed phras­es his opin­ion of the flim­si­ness of the vic­to­ri­ous Gen­er­al's ar­gu­ments. Gates sent the troops at once, and despatched a vol­ume of ex­pla­na­tion to Wash­ing­ton.

Hamil­ton set out im­me­di­ate­ly for New Wind­sor, Troup bear­ing him com­pa­ny the greater part of the way, for he was feel­ing very ill. But he for­got his ail­ments when he ar­rived. To his fury he dis­cov­ered that not a reg­iment had gone south. Two of the brigades, which had re­ceived no pay for eight months, had mu­tinied, and he was obliged to ask Gov­er­nor Clin­ton to bor­row $5000, with which to pay them off. He had the sat­is­fac­tion of despatch­ing them, wrote a peremp­to­ry let­ter to Put­nam, who had oth­er plans brew­ing, an­oth­er to Gates, ask­ing for fur­ther re­in­force­ments, then went to bed in Gov­er­nor Clin­ton's house with fever and rheuma­tism. But he wrote to Wash­ing­ton, ap­pris­ing him of a scheme among the of­fi­cers of the north­ern de­part­ment to re­cov­er the city of New York, and de­nounc­ing Put­nam in the most em­phat­ic terms. Two days lat­er he re­cov­ered suf­fi­cient­ly to pro­ceed to Fishkill, where he wrest­ed troops from Put­nam, and as­cer­tained that heavy British re­in­force­ments had gone from that neigh­bour­hood to Howe. He wrote at once to Wash­ing­ton, ad­vis­ing him of his per­il, and en­deav­oured to push on; but his del­icate frame would stand no more, and on the 15th he went to bed in Mr. Kennedy's house in Peek­skill, with so vi­olent an at­tack of rheuma­tism that to his bit­ter dis­gust he was obliged to re­sign him­self to weeks of in­ac­tiv­ity. But he had the sat­is­fac­tion to re­ceive a let­ter from Wash­ing­ton ap­prov­ing all that he had done. And in truth he had saved the sit­ua­tion, and Wash­ing­ton nev­er for­got it.