Dawn came early, as it does in June, and already the sky was a brilliant blue with only the merest puffs of snowy clouds along the horizon. If I’d been home in Albany, this would have been a perfect day for the languid pursuits of early summer: a walk in the shade beneath the fruit trees in the orchard, or picking strawberries warm and sweet from the sun, or perhaps a row in a skiff on the pond.
But this was 1780, not 1770, and I wasn’t at my parents’ house, but instead in Lady Washington’s chamber in headquarters. Early as it was, I’d known she’d be awake and already at her day’s business; His Excellency himself never lay abed past dawn, and his entire Family took their cue from his habits. I’d been sent here by my mother, who was suffering mightily from her queasy belly. Two days before, Lady Washington had offered Mamma a special elixir of peppermint from her own recipe by way of relief, and from respect for Lady Washington’s station and generosity, I’d come to collect the bottle myself instead of sending a servant.
While I waited for Lady Washington to decant the elixir in her closet, I sat beside the open window, halfheartedly watching the soldier who’d escorted me here and another man throwing a stick for a spotted dog in the front yard. The sentry at the front door—by now I recognized all of them, and they me—had told me that His Excellency was meeting in his office with his aides-de-camp. I’d hoped to steal a hasty moment or two with Alexander, but if he were already deep embroiled in the general’s work of the day, then he likely wouldn’t be free until this evening, if then.
As I watched, the soldier who’d been my escort suddenly turned, staring down the road with the stick now forgotten in his hand. Seeing him look, the other soldier turned, too, leaving the dog to dance impatiently between them. Now I, too, could hear the sound of an approaching horse, its rider spurring onward toward the house. The rider was dressed in the makeshift uniform of a New Jersey militiaman, and he’d ridden hard, and in great haste. The horse’s sides were flecked with foam and the man’s clothes were stained with gunpowder, grime, and sweat, and when he reached the house, he slid swiftly from the saddle, tossed the reins to a bystander, and ran to the front door.
I leaned from the window, curious to hear what news the man was bringing. Alas, he kept his voice too low for me to overhear, yet whatever he said to the sentries was important enough for him to be swiftly ushered into the house. The news likewise sent a ripple of excitement through the house, audible in the rise in men’s voices, their hurried steps across the floorboards, and doors opening and shutting. The men out of doors were shouting, too, calling back and forth to one another as they rushed this way and that with fresh purpose, while even the dog, too, ran back and forth, barking loudly with the same excitement.
“What a prodigious racketing!” Lady Washington exclaimed as she returned to the chamber with the bottled elixir. “Whose dog is that?”
“I don’t know, madam.” I rose swiftly from the chair, determined to learn more. After so many months of inactivity for the army at the camp, the excitement was contagious, and I hurried across the room toward the doorway. “But a militiaman has only just arrived in great haste with some sort of news for His Excellency. Permit me to go learn more so that we might—”
“Thank you, Eliza, but such an alarm is neither necessary, nor proper,” Lady Washington said. “We shall learn the news when the gentlemen decide to share it with us.”
I stopped, but my excitement still raced on. Surely all those raised voices around us must be signs of celebration! “But what if there’s been a great victory, madam? What if—”
“Hush, Eliza, and calm yourself.” She didn’t raise her voice, but the firm dignity of her tone made it impossible to ignore. “You’re the daughter of a general, and you intend to marry another officer. You know as well as I that it is not our place to meddle in the military affairs. If the news pertains to us, then we shall be told in due time, and not before.”
I dropped my hands to my sides, instantly sobered by her experience and wisdom, and feeling myself a young and giddy fool. Why had I let myself be carried away, and assume a victory—or even a battle or skirmish—simply because I’d heard the excitement of others? Papa had always cautioned us that this was precisely how wartime rumors began, born of half-truths, misread observations, and wishful thinking, and here I’d been no better than the rest. What sorry kind of wife would I make to Alexander, with thoughts as distracted as these?
Yet Lady Washington continued as if nothing at all were amiss, as if the men’s voices growing louder and more insistent in the house and in the yard were only a mere inconvenience.
“Instruct your mother to take three drops of this mixed in a dish of weak tea,” she said, pressing the little bottle into my hand. “She may sip the tea if that is less taxing to her, but she must finish it if she is to achieve relief.”
She covered my hand with her own, not only to make sure that in my agitation I would not drop it, but also to comfort me.
“There is nothing to be gained by fretting and fussing over the matters we have no power to effect, my dear,” she said gently, her plump, small hand remaining over mine. “We must be brave, and we must be strong. It’s far better to place our faith and prayers in God, and our trust in the men whom we love to do what is right.”
Her smile was warm but there was an undeniable tension around the corners, and I realized then that she knew exactly what was happening, and exactly what I had been denying to myself for Alexander’s sake. I could hear the drums outside now, marshaling the troops to battle. Tears stung my eyes, and as I bowed my head over the bottle so she wouldn’t take note, I thought of how our hands were clasped together around the bottle as if in prayer.
It was at that exact moment, too, that the chamber’s door opened and His Excellency himself came striding into the room. I’d always found him a powerful, even daunting, figure, but to see him now, with his eyes flashing with resolution, he seemed the most impressive of leaders, and the one hero our foundering country needed most.
Yet at that moment, he clearly desired to speak to his wife, not to me. He frowned briefly when he saw me with her, then with gentlemanly grace even in a time like this, he managed to smile at me.
“Miss Schuyler, good day,” he said. “I regret that I must ask you to return to your own quarters at once, and remain there with your mother until your father joins you later today. One of the men will see you there.”