Alexander traveled to Philadelphia to march in the funeral procession, and ordered the soldiers who remained in his army to wear black armbands in honor of their commander-in-chief. With that position now sadly vacant, he’d every expectation that he should fill it. As vindictive as ever, President Adams refused. By the middle of May 1800, he’d ordered the corps disbanded. Alexander reviewed them one last time, resigned his commission, and left off wearing the blue and gold uniform that he’d worn so handsomely. He’d given two years of his life and two years’ worth of energy to the army, and all he’d gained from his efforts was disillusionment and unhappiness, and the empty title of General Hamilton.
There was further disappointment in May as well. New York decided its votes for presidential elections based on the results of the earlier elections for the state legislature. New York City had long been a Federalist stronghold, and Alexander worked hard to keep it that way, canvassing in the streets and making daily speeches to all who’d listen. In a similar capacity for the Democratic-Republicans stood Aaron Burr, who was likewise much in evidence before the elections. But the results were shocking, at least in our house: for the first time, the Democratic-Republicans easily won the majority. As a reward for his efforts, Colonel Burr became the Republican candidate for vice president, to run with Thomas Jefferson against President Adams.
For Alexander it was a hellish choice, and he could endorse none of the three, preferring a gentleman from South Carolina, Charles Coatsworth Pinckney, as the Federalist candidate. But instead of simply supporting Mr. Pinckney for president, he began a sustained attack upon President Adams, in essays, in newspapers, and in letters to friends. As can be imagined, the letters were far more personal and sharp, and when choice excerpts were anonymously shared and reprinted in the Republican newspaper, the result was sensational.
As talented as my husband was, he was not without flaws, and ironically his greatest could also be construed as a virtue. He could not refrain from telling the truth, no matter who or how that truth might wound. He had done it to me when he’d published the pamphlet with his confession regarding Mrs. Reynolds, and he did it again with another pamphlet. The Letter from Alexander Hamilton, Concerning the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq., President of the United States was fifty pages long, and revealed all of President Adams’s weaknesses and missteps in stunning, critical detail.
He presented it proudly to me, the way he did with all his most important writings, and I sat with him to read it in his library. I was pleased that he sought my opinion, but wary because he hadn’t asked for it earlier, while the piece was being composed. This would be entirely his work and opinion, without any tempering from another voice, and because I knew his hatred for the president, I was leery.
“Oh, Alexander,” I said as I finally turned the last of the fifty pages. “You cannot publish this.”
His brows rose sharply with surprise. “Can you deny that there’s a single word therein that’s not the truth?”
“But that’s exactly why you can’t publish it,” I said. “It’s too much truth, and not enough discretion.”
“Betsey, my dear,” he said indulgently. “There is no such thing as too much truth.”
“In this there is,” I said, tapping my fingers on the front page. “I know you believe that you’re showing President Adams in his truest light, but that light will reflect back upon you, and not well.”
“I believe I can withstand the glare,” he said, smiling. “It’s better for voters to benefit from my personal experience with the man, and judge for themselves exactly what manner of man they choose to lead them.”
“Please, my love,” I said seriously, and I didn’t smile. How could I? “They’ll judge you to be the petty and vindictive one, not him, no matter if that’s the truth or not.”
He didn’t listen to me, preferring to trust the judgment of those faceless, noble voters over mine, and published it anyway in October 1800.
As I feared, the pamphlet was widely regarded as one of the most powerful and influential pieces in the presidential campaign, but not in the way that Alexander had intended. It secured the presidency for Thomas Jefferson, and the vice presidency for Aaron Burr. It also destroyed the Federalist Party from within, and any hope that Alexander may have himself harbored of obtaining another political position for himself.
He refused to see the connection, let alone admit it to me. Instead he felt evermore the outsider, and despaired that he no longer belonged in a world he’d helped create. The despair that I’d first glimpsed over the army’s demise seemed to have deepened and taken a firmer hold upon his thoughts. I worried for his health, and his welfare.
Yet what he did soon after the election might have been perhaps a kind of apology. One afternoon he took me and the younger children, squeezed together into the chaise, on a long drive to the far end of Manhattan Island, in amongst the farmlands and forests of Haarlem and high above the Hudson and East Rivers. There was still enough color, red and gold and orange, remaining in the leaves of the trees to make a brilliant contrast to the blue sky overhead and the steep stone cliffs of the Palisades across the Hudson in New Jersey.
I knew this to be one of Alexander’s favorite places, and he came here whenever he could spare the time to hunt. We had rented a house here last fall when yellow fever had broken out in the city, and together we’d come to love the peace of the area.
He stopped the chaise near a walled pasture, telling the children that the farmer wouldn’t mind if they ran about the land. They promptly climbed the wall and scattered into the field, running and wheeling about and bellowing with delight in ways that were not permitted on our part of Broadway.
Alexander and I sat on the wall ourselves, I with baby Elizabeth in my lap, and we breathed deeply of air that was free of the chimney smoke and soot of farther downtown. I shifted closer to him, and rested my head against his shoulder.
“I wish that we could live here,” I said wistfully. “Away from the city, and away from the noise and racket.”
He slipped his arm around my waist. “Do you think you’d be content here?”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “I’ve always told you I’ve more the soul of a stout farmer’s wife than a lady of fashion.”
He chuckled, running his hand fondly up and down my arm. “Would you like to try?”
I glanced at him sideways, not considering his question with any seriousness.
“Oh, yes,” I said. “We’ll become that old couple we passed earlier down the road, each with a clay pipe as they sat on their stoop amongst the chickens.”
“I’m not jesting, dearest,” he said, though his eyes twinkled. “This week I bought this land, and I don’t believe the farmer who sold it would be agreeable to returning my money.”
“This land?” I repeated, shocked. “You bought this?”
“From this road, here,” he said, turning to point, “to that stand of trees, there, and to those bluffs. It’s all General Hamilton’s property now.”
I gasped, and pressed my hands to my cheeks. “We’ve never owned property like this. Oh, Alexander, can we afford it?”