I had tilted at a windmill and won.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
I would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station. I wish there was a war.
—ALEXANDER HAMILTON
October 1810
New York City
MY SONS WERE all in rebellion.
I returned from Washington City triumphantly, with arms full of notes and documents for the biography, only to learn that, in defiance of my wishes, twenty-two-year-old James had decided to marry his sweetheart. I suppose it was the Schuyler in him.
It wasn’t that I disapproved of his young lady. It was simply that, as a law clerk, James wasn’t yet established in the legal practice he was pursuing. Fortunately, Mary was a sweet girl who claimed to relish the position of wife to an impoverished young man. And I saw the wisdom in my father’s old admonition that it was sometimes best to frown, make them humble, and forgive.
Besides, it wasn’t only James who was in rebellion.
At Christmas, Alex told me he would sail to Europe. “You needn’t worry about the expense. My cousin Flip and I are going together, and Uncle Church has loaned us the money.”
Having denied my eldest surviving son the opportunity to make a merchant’s career in Boston, I wouldn’t now prevent him from exploring across the sea. For years, Alex had remained at my side, dutifully and uncomplainingly toiling in the law to support me and his siblings. No mother could ask more, and he’d earned a respite.
But what he said next chilled me to the bone. “I’m going to volunteer with the Duke of Wellington to fight Napoleon Bonaparte on the Peninsula.”
Alex wanted to go to war. For England. Horrified, I said, “You’re an American.”
His spine stiffened. “I haven’t forgotten. But when we were in Washington City, President Madison said I should take the opportunity to write to him. If I can report back to him on the goings-on in Europe—”
“Alex,” I said, more upset by the moment.
He took my hand. “Mother, there’s no way for a Hamilton to make his name in American politics. Business was foreclosed to me once I abandoned my position in Boston. That leaves only the battlefield. My father was a general. My grandfather was a general. Heroes, both of them, you’ve always told me. How can I want to be anything else?”
How could he want to be anything else, indeed? Alex had the right to determine his own fate. His father had fought for that principle, and I would uphold it. So, the following spring, I stood bravely next to Angelica at the docks as we tearfully saw our sons off to a war on foreign shores, grateful that they were, at least, together.
Just as we’d always been.
And a year later, Angelica and I were still together, worrying about our sons and taking coffee at the Tontine, as was our habit, while all the talk around us was of the war coming to our own shores. Because the British had never stopped visiting humiliations upon American ships—seizing them and impressing our soldiers. Behaving as if we’d never won our war of independence and were still merely a rebellious set of colonies.
This was the chatter of passersby that swirled around us while we warmed our hands against our coffee cups at the curbside table. My sister took hers with sugar and cream and always ordered a pastry that she never touched, saying she’d eaten too large a breakfast before offering it to me.
“I’m not a starving urchin,” I said, though those were, indeed, lean times. “If anything, you’re the one growing too thin.” There was a fragility to her delicate features that had never been there before. Worry over Flip, no doubt. Our fear for our boys was always present, even when we gave it no voice. Maybe especially then.
“I don’t want to grow as stout as Mama did,” Angelica said, pushing the plate to me. “I intend to fight for my beauty to the bitter end.”
Surrendering, I savored a sweet morsel of the pastry. “I believe your vanity is overcoming good sense.”
“You’re one to speak of good sense. You forget I have spies in your household.”
She did. My children told their beloved Aunt Angelica everything. “And what do they report?”
“That you’re considering a foolhardy trip into the wilds of western New York to visit an Indian school.”
It wasn’t just an Indian school, as she had good cause to know. It was the Hamilton-Oneida Academy that my husband helped to found for the advancement of our Indian allies, the plight of whom was always dear to my heart. “It’s soon to be chartered as Hamilton College, and I don’t see why I should not be present for its christening.”