Empty boots, empty saddle, empty hat, empty world.
The sad staccato of drums brought a keening sound from my poor children, all of whom lurched for the casket, as if to tear it open and lay eyes upon their father one last time. But I had the absurd thought that the casket, too, was empty.
That Alexander Hamilton wasn’t there.
Not in the mahogany coffin I chose for him. Not in the empty hat and boots and bed he left behind. Not in the city he loved. There was no part of him still here in this world. And I couldn’t be where any part of him was now.
Clutching the letter he left—which purported to explain everything, but explained nothing—I could not shake from my mind his conviction that he must die this way or be rendered unworthy of my esteem.
My God, had I driven him to this?
He’d been content to putter about our flower garden. To learn about the fattening of our chickens. To go duck hunting with our boys.
But I had not, like my mother before me, told him that all I needed for my happiness was his presence. Instead, I insisted he take up that court case, making himself a greater thorn in President Jefferson’s side. And I’d gloried in seeing the leonine spark return to his eye as he battled to keep Burr from the governorship.
My God, my God, I did drive him to it.
Before we married, Alexander asked again and again if I could happily live with him were he to lay down his sword to plant turnips. I’d promised that I could. But when it came to it, I’d wanted my soldier. I wanted the glory of Alexander Hamilton. I’d encouraged him to fight.
And now he was dead . . .
How long had he known about the duel, and how many times must he have wished to broach it with me? Was he thinking it even as he planned the ball he promised—had that been his final parting gift to me? Had he believed he’d return, or had he longed to go to Philip? I’d thought he’d been happy, that we’d been happy, but again, I’d missed all the signs. And I let him face it alone.
But I was not the only one to blame.
Four years earlier, Alexander had said he didn’t expect to have a head still on his shoulders unless he was at the head of a victorious army. And in a way, he’d been right. Later—much later—I would succumb to anger at Alexander for taking part in an immoral ritual that had already robbed me of a son and now condemned the rest of our children to a life without their father’s love. But then? Consumed in grief, the only respite I allowed myself in self-recrimination was in blaming Aaron Burr.
Our family now lay shattered by the man my husband always warned me was dangerous. Dangerous and despicable.
While the papers speculated about which insult or offense had precipitated this final, fatal confrontation, I knew the duel was merely the fruition of the conspiracy Alexander had long suspected. The same conspiracy that had dogged my husband’s heels from the moment he rose to prominence in opposition to the Virginians. I knew, as deeply as I knew anything, that Burr would not, without encouragement or inducement from the Jacobins, have murdered my husband in cold blood.
After all, Burr did nothing unless there was something in it for him.
No. I was certain that he’d made me a widow to win back the good graces of Jefferson—a man who may not have brought the guillotine to our shores, but who had the uncanny good luck to have his most formidable enemies meet strange fatalities. It had been many years since I’d seen Jefferson last, but I could never recount him without a chill. Never forget the way he’d haunted my life, like a patient thief in the night, waiting to steal my happiness away. And now he and his minions had done it.
The bullet that obliterated my world was an assassin’s shot. Alexander had thrown away his fire, then stood there vulnerable and without defense. Burr had shot him anyway. And now that Alexander’s lifeblood was drained away, spent in the service of an ungrateful nation, would that be enough for these hounds of hell?
They won’t be satisfied until there is nothing left of him, I thought. Until his memory is obliterated and they have filled the giant empty void of his life, and our nation, with lies.
But I wouldn’t let them.
That night I received mourners at the Church home, where ambitious young Federalist politicians strode about with smartly upturned collars, businessmen with pipes sent up a dizzying wreath of smoke, and ladies crowned in masses of coiffed curls bit their quivering lips while offering me words of comfort.
All the while, I nodded, forcing bland niceties. How kind of you to say. I appreciate hearing it. What a consolation it is to know he was so esteemed.