The summer of 1794 brought all this to a head, and tested us both in ways that we hadn’t anticipated. The excise tax on distilled spirits (commonly called the Whiskey Tax) that Alexander had initiated in 1791 had never been popular, particularly along the western frontier. The odious beliefs of Mr. Jefferson and other Democratic-Republicans were widely accepted among the farmers and other rough men who chose to live far from the eastern cities. Their dislike for the tax and their loathing of government in general had been fueled by tales of the Jacobins in France, until in the spring, it had boiled over into open rebellion.
Some of the government’s tax collectors were tarred and feathered. Others were threatened, their homes burned and their personal property destroyed. That old symbol of rebellion, the Liberty Pole, sprang up in small towns and settlements, and the Republican societies that had begun as a dozen disgruntled men now numbered in the thousands. There were even rumors that the western rebels had ordered a guillotine from France, and were intending to use it.
Mindful of the events in France, Alexander believed that a strong show of force was imperative to put down the rebellion, and urged the president toward this path. If the government appeared resolute, he argued, then most likely the rebellion would melt away without any real resistance. Yet because the army had been dissolved at the end of the revolution, the federal government had only local militia at its disposal. President Washington was reluctant to call them out, knowing this would be unpopular in every quarter; there was also the very real chance that the militia might instead choose to side with the rebels.
As if this grim news were not difficult enough for my husband, our youngest son, Johnny, not even two, had developed a mysterious and worrisome ailment. At first I’d thought it only a cold or chill of the kind so common in young children, but day by day he worsened, with a low fever and a persistent cough, and as his appetite faded, he began to lose flesh. What frightened me most was how he didn’t cry, the way most babies did, but instead lay too quiet and still. Dr. Stevens had no answers, and neither did any of the other physicians we consulted. Every remedy was tried to no avail, and though no one would say it aloud, I feared that my baby was simply fading away.
I had his cot moved into our bedchamber to watch over him, his raspy breathing and rough little coughs waking me throughout the night. But on this night when I woke, the room was terrifyingly quiet. With sick dread, I turned swiftly toward his cot and reached for him.
The cot was empty and the sheets cold, and I gasped with uncertainty. Only then did I realize that Alexander’s side of the bed was empty, too, and that our bedchamber door stood open, and when I looked into the hall, I saw a sliver of light coming from beneath the door of his library. I wrapped a shawl around my shoulders, and opened the library door as quietly as I could.
By the light of a single candlestick, my husband was sitting at his desk with the usual piles of papers and letters before him. His hair was a tangle and his feet were bare, and wrapped in a blanket and resting against his shoulder was Johnny, his eyes half-closed in drowsy near-sleep, his breathing still raspy. They must have been there for a long while, for the baby’s half-parted lips had made a large blotch of dampness on the shoulder of his father’s silk dressing gown.
“How is he?” I asked softly, closing the door so we wouldn’t wake the other children.
“The same,” Alexander said, blunt and sad at the same time. “At least he’s sleeping now.”
“Not quite, but almost.” I sat on the edge of the second chair, anxiously watching Johnny. “I’m sorry he woke you.”
“I was awake already,” he said, glancing down at the papers. “This business to the west, Betsey—I cannot keep my thoughts from what is happening in France, and what could happen here. When a rabble is allowed to defy and trample laws that were passed for the common good, then what meaning can those laws have? What manner of society will be left without order, without reason or respect?”
I was so accustomed to his usual brisk and energetic way of addressing challenges that his pessimism now unsettled me. Perhaps we’d listened too much to the harrowing stories of the émigrés, or perhaps we both realized that in this monstrous society he described, he would be one of the rabble’s first targets.
“I don’t believe that you and President Washington will let it come to that,” I said, striving to convince myself as much as him. “This isn’t France.”
He continued to look down at the papers, his fingers tracing gentle circles between Johnny’s shoulder blades.
“We’re preparing for war,” he said quietly. “It’s not widely known, of course, but at the president’s orders, we are placing requisitions for everything our soldiers will need.”
I was acutely aware of Johnny’s breathing in the silence between us. The president and his cabinet had just sent envoys to Europe to keep peace, while all the time they’d been planning a war at home.
“When?” I asked finally.
“That will depend on the rebels, Betsey,” he said. “If they choose to abide by the laws and disperse, then there will be no need for a military endeavor. If they don’t, then I would imagine a campaign will begin in late summer, to conclude before winter.”
“The season for war,” I said, remembering. “At least this time you will be here, and safe from danger.”
Finally he looked up at me, and I knew even before he spoke.
“The president will once again assume his role as commander-in-chief to ensure our success,” he said. “He will lead the troops, and I will accompany him.”
I held his gaze, and I didn’t look away. I wanted him to see how much his decision was hurting me. Because it was his decision: not the president’s, not Congress’s. There was no urgent need for the secretary of the treasury to be part of a military expedition. Not even General Knox, the secretary of war, was going. Yet because my husband wanted to be there at the president’s side and likewise wanted the excitement (I cannot call it anything else) of riding out into the country before a shining show of guns and men, he would willingly put himself in harm’s way, before men who hated him and wished him harm. If he went riding off on this fool’s errand of a war, it was because he wanted to go, and he would choose that instead of me and his children.
“I’m pregnant, Alexander,” I said, the words sounding harsh and flat even to my own ears.
He flinched as if I’d struck him. “Are you certain?”
I nodded. It was a fair question to ask—my courses were never regular, and I’d only just weaned Johnny three months earlier—but the inherent doubt to it wounded me.
He nodded, recovering as he considered the news. No matter the circumstances, my husband was seldom at a loss for words.
“That’s splendid news, Betsey,” he said. “Most excellent. Truly, I am the most fortunate of husbands.”
I tried to smile, and tried harder not to cry. I knew this was the sixth time I’d made such an announcement to him, but oh, how perfunctory and formal his response had been!
“I would have told you before,” I said, my voice breaking. “If it weren’t for Johnny . . .”