Even if it meant his death . . .
Chapter Six
February 1780
Morristown, New Jersey
I MET HIM DURING the worst winter anyone could remember, and in the darkest hour of the war, during a year that would see the literal blotting out of the sun and make us wonder if it were the end of days. No one could remember such a winter, so cold that one couldn’t write a letter except by the fire or the ink would freeze. The river iced over so solidly, even at the widest part, that the British could wheel artillery across it. No ship could come in or out of any port. And the young officers in my military escort were forced to stop every so often to knock shards of ice loose from the wheels of the coach, wary of catching a glimpse of the king’s soldiers.
They had good reason to be wary, for I carried a letter from my father to General Washington. There was also the matter of my traveling companion, a fair and feisty beauty by the name of Kitty Livingston, my cousin and childhood friend. Kitty was the daughter of New Jersey governor William Livingston—one of the most forceful and influential men of the revolution, perpetually on the run from the British, who desperately wanted to make an example of him. And there had recently been, at the Livingston family home, Redcoats pounding upon the door at midnight, forcing their way in at the point of bayonet, demanding that the governor’s daughters betray their father’s hiding place—which they steadfastly refused to do.
“I was certain they’d burn the house.” Kitty’s breath puffed steam into the air as she nestled closer to me beneath a quilt. “Though, God forgive me, at this moment, I’d gladly see Liberty Hall engulfed in flames if only to warm my feet near the conflagration.”
If God wouldn’t forgive her, I would, because the coals in our foot warmer had burned out. But I told myself to endure it because I was soon to see my sister.
It’d been nearly three years since Jack Carter spirited Angelica away to Boston. Now my brother-in-law’s business dealings—which I never sufficiently understood—had brought him back into service as a commissary. Angelica had written that he’d been sent on a foraging expedition, and that, in the meantime, she was with the army in Morristown. Where I was determined to join her.
Given that British raiding parties skulked everywhere along the Hudson, throwing torches into homes, courthouses, and churches along the way, I expected my mother to balk at the idea of my journey. But the revolution was still, for us, a family affair. My aunt Gertrude, whose husband, Dr. Cochran, was George Washington’s personal physician, invited me to visit, with a pointed reminder that Washington’s officer corps was comprised almost entirely of well-educated bachelors from good families, in dire need of brides.
I was more interested in the knowledge that they were also in need of nurses.
And so I went.
When our coach came to a stop we heard a watchman call, “Who comes there?”
Standing upon a muster ground of muddied slush, an irritated sentry all but encased in ice demanded our papers. And when I leaned out to see him, I was greeted with the welcome sight of smoke billowing from a tavern chimney amidst a little cluster of peaked roofs. The tavern gave us hope of a warm drink, but when the sentry saw the direction of our eyes, he said, “Don’t bother. They’ll slam the door in your faces.”
That’s when I noticed the dark glances of the townsfolk trudging past. Startled, I asked, “They’re Tories here in Morristown?”
“Aye. And they’re just sick to death of us, miss.” The sentry pointed down the lane. “Your kin are staying less than a mile that-a-way. Your sister, Mrs. Carter, is already in camp.”
Angelica. The thought of her alone was enough to warm me. And my excitement was rewarded when, before our coach even came to a full stop in front of a neat little white house with a picket fence half-buried in snow, my older sister flung herself out the front door. We both cried at once:
“Angelica!”
“Betsy!”
Thereupon we flew into each other’s arms and squeezed so tightly we could scarcely breathe for the sweet pain of it. I couldn’t stop looking at her because she had become, it seemed, even more beautiful as a consequence of motherhood, her bright black eyes shining over an elegantly long nose that was pink just at the tip.
From the doorway, stout Aunt Gertrude fussed, “Let’s get you girls in out of the cold before you catch your deaths!” She ushered Kitty, my sister, and me inside a small front parlor where a corner fireplace blazed with the most welcome fire I’d ever seen.