The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers (32 page)

Once the baby was born, Hamilton told Betsey about the forthcoming confession. She decided to retreat with the infant to her parents’ home in Albany. This was a graphic statement of how deeply Hamilton had wounded her. Angelica, perhaps sensing that she was partly responsible for the affair with Maria, did her utmost to repair the damage. She wrote her sister a long letter, describing how depressed Hamilton was when he returned from escorting Betsey to the Hudson River sloop to Albany. “You were the subject of his conversation the rest of the evening,” she wrote. She begged Eliza (the name that gradually replaced the youthful “Betsey”) to “tranquilize your kind and good heart” and accept her ordeal as almost inevitable for a woman married to a man who achieved fame. If she had married less “
near the sun
[her italics],” Eliza would never have experienced “the pride, the pleasure, the nameless satisfactions.”
²⁴

In her girlhood home, Elizabeth tried to ignore the shrieks of the Republican press when the confession appeared. In the
Aurora
, Benjamin Franklin Bache cried: “He acknowledges…that he violated the sacred sanctuary of his own house, by taking an unprincipled woman…to his bed.” New York editor James Cheetham expressed shock that Hamilton had “rambled for 18 months in this scene of pollution and squandered about $1,200 to conceal the intrigue from his loving spouse.” Another Republican paper found humor in Mrs. Reynolds’s “violent attack” on “the virtue of the immaculate secretary…in Mr. Hamilton’s own house.”
²⁵

On her knees, Eliza Hamilton sought the sort of help that was beyond the reach of her worldly older sister. She struggled to forgive her sinner husband, as Jesus had forgiven the woman taken in adultery. It was not easy. Only a few weeks earlier, in July 1797, Eliza had come across a copy of the
Aurora
in which Bache had mockingly asked how she could tolerate Maria Reynolds as her husband’s mistress. Eliza had handed the newspaper to John Barker Church with a gesture of contemptuous dismissal. Church had told Hamilton that the accusation “made not the least impression on her.” She assumed the story was concocted by a conspiracy of scoundrels. Now she had to somehow accept the harsh truth.
²⁶

Hamilton did his utmost to testify to his continuing love for her by becoming extraordinarily attentive to their children. He hoped Eliza would see this as a kind of penance—as well as a way of saying that their wounded love still shared this form of devotion. About a month after the Reynolds pamphlet was published, their oldest son, fifteen-year-old Philip, contracted typhoid fever. Hamilton left him in the care of a physician he did not know well, Dr. David Hosack, and departed to argue a legal case in Hartford, Connecticut.

Philip grew alarmingly ill, and Hosack sent a messenger galloping to Hartford urging Hamilton to return immediately. As Philip’s pulse fluttered and his eyes grew vacant with impending death, his mother was so violently upset that Hosack decided on extreme measures. He immersed the dying boy in a tub of hot water full of Peruvian bark and literally restored him to life. Hamilton arrived later in the crisis-thick night and thanked Hosack with tears streaming down his cheeks.

For the next several days, Hamilton became Philip’s nurse. Dr. Hosack later wrote that he administered “every dose of medicine or cup of nourishment that was required.”
²⁷
But this attempt to make amends would soon be overshadowed by a new opportunity to pursue that irresistible prize, fame.

O
ver the next year, the Hamiltons struggled to restore their damaged marriage. The Jeffersonian Republican press was no help. Robert Troup told a mutual friend, “For this twelvemonth past this poor man…has been violently and infamously abused by the democratical party. His ill-judged pamphlet has done him incomparable injury.”
¹

For a while he remained a power behind the scenes thanks to his influence over President Adams’s cabinet. But Hamilton repeatedly told Eliza that he had lost his enthusiasm for public life. “In proportion as I discover the worthlessness of other pursuits, the value of my Eliza and of domestic happiness rises in my estimation,” he told her. When Elizabeth made another visit to Albany, her absence made him realize “how necessary you are to me.” He looked in vain for “that satisfaction which you alone can bestow.” When one of New York’s senators resigned and Federalist governor John Jay offered to appoint Hamilton in his place, he ostentatiously declined.

In 1798, George Washington offered Hamilton command of the army that Congress had created to confront the threat of a French attack. Hamilton accepted instantly. It was a temptation he could not resist. It turned Washington’s forgiveness for the Maria Reynolds affair into a public political redemption. Hamilton again became a contender for the loftiest ranks of fame.

The appointment soon became the most time-consuming and controversial public office Hamilton ever held. Eliza Hamilton must have wondered about her husband’s apostrophes to the joys of domestic happiness while he traveled continually to Philadelphia and other cities to confer with fellow generals and stimulate recruiting. Meanwhile, President John Adams’s hatred and the opposition of the Jeffersonian Republicans transformed what seemed the realization of a lifelong dream into a nightmare. Adams avoided a war with France and soon dissolved General Hamilton’s army. Hamilton retaliated with his savage attack on Adams, virtually guaranteeing Thomas Jefferson’s election as president. Almost simultaneously, George Washington died, leaving Hamilton without the huge advantage of his support. In a single stunning year, Hamilton went from being the commander of the American Army and the leader of the ruling Federalist Party into an ex-general and a defeated, discredited politician.

Throughout this roller-coaster ride on fame’s treacherous trajectory, Hamilton remained conscious that he was a man with a marital debt to pay, even though he seemed to be in danger of defaulting on it. His letters to Eliza were a mixture of affection and apology for the hours he was spending away from her and the children. He frequently reiterated his devotion. “Indeed, my dear Eliza…your virtues more and more endear you to me and experience more and more convinces me that true happiness is only to be found in the bosom of one’s own family.” He wrote these words in 1801, when the Hamiltons had been married twenty years. In this perspective, the words acquire a somewhat artificial quality. Hamilton is virtually confessing that for most of these twenty years, Eliza’s virtues had not endeared her to him. Worse, it carelessly repeats the same sentiments he had written in the immediate aftermath of the Reynolds confession. The letter underscores the sad truth that Eliza was never Hamilton’s dearest friend at the level of sharing achieved by the Washingtons or John and Abigail Adams.

That same year, 1801, the year of Jefferson’s elevation to the presidency, brought excruciating personal grief. Hamilton’s oldest son, Philip, now nineteen, got into a nasty quarrel with one of Thomas Jefferson’s triumphant supporters, a twenty-seven-year-old lawyer named George Eacker. Philip took exception to a Fourth of July speech Eacker had made, in
which he portrayed President Jefferson as the rescuer of the Constitution against a coup d’etat by power-hungry General Hamilton. Philip and a friend named Richard Price climbed into Eacker’s box at the Park Theater and called him some extremely unpleasant names. Both intruders were probably drunk; around this time, Robert Troup, still one of Hamilton’s close friends, referred to Philip as a “sad rake.”
²

The confrontation led Eacker to call the two intruders “damned rascals.” This was a term no would-be gentleman of the era could tolerate. Philip and his friend Price promptly challenged Eacker to a duel. The lawyer exchanged four shots with Price, without spilling a drop of blood. Then it was Philip’s turn. Hamilton advised his son to fire in the air, a tactic called a
delope
. This alternative would enable Philip to escape the odium of killing Eacker. The
delope
was also a show of superior courage and often a statement of contempt for an opponent. Hamilton did not think he was putting his son in mortal danger. Only about one man in five was killed in a duel—and Eacker had already demonstrated he was a poor shot.

The two young men met in Paulus Hook, on the New Jersey shore of the Hudson River. Though dueling had been outlawed in New York, it was still legal in the Garden State. Philip, obedient to his father’s advice, waited for Eacker to fire. But Eacker also waited, obviously hoping that the quarrel could be settled with an apology. Finally, to draw Eacker’s fire, Philip leveled his pistol but did not fire. Eacker’s bullet ripped through Philip’s body and lodged in his arm. The young man died in agony twenty-four hours later. Beside him on the deathbed lay his weeping father and mother, frantically clutching him in their arms.

At the funeral, General Hamilton could barely stand erect. “Never did I see a man so completely overwhelmed with grief,” said Robert Troup. Not long after the funeral, Philip’s beautiful younger sister, Angelica, had a mental breakdown. She sank into a miasma of fear and confusion that made her incapable of a normal life. On the harp and piano, she played over and over again songs that Philip had loved.

Watching Eliza struggling for the strength to accept this double tragedy and continue to be a mother to their seven surviving children, Hamilton began to wish he still retained his youthful religious faith. It would give him a bond with his wife that was deeper than the dutiful love that seems to have been the best he could offer her.

II

Angelica Church was still very much in the picture, tempting Hamilton to reach for the consolation of the ecstatic eros that had led him into Maria Reynolds’s arms. Angelica’s admiration and devotion remained intense in spite of Hamilton’s fall from power. She made no secret of her hope that he could and would somehow transform his present humiliation into an even more spectacular return to fame’s summit.

In 1804, a worried Robert Troup began telling friends that Hamilton and Angelica had resumed their once torrid affair. Conclusive evidence has never been found, but Hamilton was obviously spending a great deal of time with her. Since 1798, Hamilton saw Elizabeth and the children only on weekends. They were living at The Grange, a handsome mansion he had built on Harlem Heights. He spent his weeknights at their New York City home on Cedar Street. Angelica was living only a few blocks away in the Church mansion, ignored by her dour husband, who spent almost all his nights gambling for high stakes at various card games.

Angelica—and Hamilton—listened to their mutual friend, Gouverneur Morris, who had accepted the appointment to the U.S. Senate that Hamilton had rejected. Morris’s loathing for Jefferson and his low-or-no-tax minimal style of government was pervasive. The disgusted senator repeatedly predicted the country’s imminent collapse. Not a few of Hamilton’s Federalist friends in New England were saying similar things. They feared that President Jefferson’s 1803 purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France was going to give the Virginian the power to create more states that would owe their allegiance to him. Rather than tolerate becoming a minority, the Yankees were proposing to secede from the union.

In 1804, the American political scene underwent a dramatic upheaval. President Jefferson and his vice president, Aaron Burr, quarreled, and Burr tried to launch a third political party, composed of moderates from both sides. He called it “a union of honest men.” As a first step, Burr announced he would run for the governorship of New York. He intimated that if he won, he would not be averse to joining the New England secession movement.

Hamilton detested and feared Burr even more than he loathed Jefferson. He considered Burr a demagogue and thought his third party was a sham. He was especially troubled by Burr’s tacit support of the secession movement, which Hamilton deplored. Hamilton tried to rally New York’s Federalists behind another gubernatorial candidate. They ignored him, underscoring how totally political power had slipped from his grasp. Hamilton was so disgusted by this rejection, he announced in the
New York Evening Post
that he would never again accept public office in either the state or federal governments. But he added a very significant exception: he would be willing to serve “in a civil or foreign war.”

President Jefferson urged his followers in New York, led by Hamilton’s old enemy Governor George Clinton, to destroy Aaron Burr. In one of the most viciously partisan campaigns on record, they smeared Burr as an embezzler of his legal clients, a womanizer who had destroyed dozens of marriages, and an abuser of the men he commanded during the Revolution. Burr lost badly, leaving him as powerless as Hamilton.

Deeply depressed, Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel for the harsh things he had said during his attempt to rally Federalists against the vice president. Hovering over the challenge was the knowledge both men possessed of New England’s plan to secede. If the Yankees acted on it, there would be a civil war. From it would emerge a victorious general who would restore the union by force of arms. If that man possessed political wisdom as well as military skills, he would achieve transcendent fame as the rescuer of the republic.

Alexander Hamilton wanted to be that man. So did Aaron Burr. Both knew that if Hamilton evaded Burr’s challenge by apologizing, he would never be acceptable to the nation’s soldiers. This irrepressible hunger for ultimate fame was why Hamilton refused to apologize to Burr for his largely ignored remarks and made a duel inevitable.

III

On July 4, 1804, with the time and place for the duel not yet chosen, Hamilton wrote a letter to his wife. It reveals a man struggling with terrific guilt. It also tells us how far Hamilton had traveled in his attempt to retrieve his lost Christian faith:

On the night before the duel, Hamilton wrote several letters that attempted to explain why he had accepted Burr’s challenge and how he planned to fight the duel. He was going to “throw away” his first shot, and possibly his second shot, if Burr’s first bullet missed him. The “scruples of a Christian” supposedly prompted this decision, he claimed. The real reason was Hamilton’s guilt for giving this advice to his son Philip. He felt compelled to take the same risk. But he also hoped his
delope
would enable him to triumph over Burr. If Hamilton survived, Burr would leave the dueling ground a humiliated, politically neutered man.

That same night Hamilton wrote another letter to Eliza, asking her to be generous to his mother’s aging needy cousin Ann Mitchell, who had tried to help him and his brother in St. Croix. To this request he added an impulsive postscript:

As the sun rose above the Weehawken dueling ground, Aaron Burr’s first shot struck Hamilton just above his hip and tore through his body to lodge in his spine. Hamilton convulsively clutched his trigger when the bullet hit, and his shot struck a tree limb high over Burr’s head. “This is a mortal wound, Doctor,” Hamilton gasped when Dr. Hosack rushed to his side. His friends brought him back to New York, where Hosack and several other doctors examined him; all agreed that Hamilton was right, the wound was mortal.

Hamilton asked his friend, merchant William Bayard, who had offered his riverside house on Jane Street to the dying man, to send for Benjamin Moore, Episcopal bishop of New York. The bishop responded, but he was unhappy to learn that Hamilton had been wounded in a duel, an activity Moore considered immoral. He was even more troubled when he learned that Hamilton had never joined the Episcopal Church, yet he wanted to receive holy communion. Moore declined to administer this central act of the Christian faith in such a situation. He feared it would imply that he condoned dueling. The bishop departed, declaring he wanted to give Hamilton “time for reflection.”

Hamilton sent for another clergyman, the Reverend John M. Mason, pastor of the Scotch Presbyterian Church, and asked him to administer communion. Mason regretfully informed Hamilton that his church did not believe in private communion. For them it was a public ceremony, available only on Sunday. He tried to reassure Hamilton that communion was not necessary to win God’s forgiveness for his sins if his faith in Christ was sincere. Hamilton shook his head frantically; he said he was aware of the power of Christ’s benevolence and that he wanted communion “only as a sign.”