Still on my knees, I peered at him. “Did you know?”
Hamilton swallowed and shook his head. He didn’t need to be told what I was asking. “Philip went to his uncle for advice.”
And for those pistols, I thought, bitterly. Philip should have come to us. I’d made plain my Christian opposition to dueling. Every parson and priest in the country decried duels. Even Alexander had issued a memo to curb the practice when he was general of the army.
But my son hadn’t come to us. He’d gone to his rich, swaggering uncle with his shining dueling pistols and a reputation for deadly aim.
No, no, no, I screamed inside my head. Bad enough that my son had involved himself in a duel that took his life. So much worse that he’d been the one to make the unholy challenge. I didn’t have to ask why. Church—our family expert on dueling—would have told my son that he couldn’t let an insult stand. Church would have told him he hadn’t any choice when it came to honor.
But what the devil did John Barker Church know about honor? He’d been born with it. He had the luxury as a young man to cast off a name and put it back on again as the circumstances suited him. He’d never had to scrape and claw to prove his worth.
Not like my husband, who took my hand in his trembling one, and tearfully said, “I learned of it only after Philip had issued the challenge.”
I gasped. Then he had known. He’d known before the deed had been done.
With desolate eyes, Alexander continued. “You must believe I tried to set him right. I told Philip it was ill-mannered to accost a man in the middle of a play and that he must apologize. I told him he wouldn’t want this man’s blood on his hands. I thought that would end the matter. I thought . . .” My husband’s head dropped. “Next I heard, the apology hadn’t been accepted and Philip was already rowing across the river to the dueling place. There was no time to do anything but race to find a doctor . . .” His voice broke off then, as if he could say no more. And yet, he did. “Why couldn’t I stop this from happening? I’ve stopped armies but I couldn’t stop a duel.”
My anger ebbed at the sight of his anguish. In its place, regret and pity rushed in for a father unable to save his son. My husband had led troops, advised a president, and built a nation, but he’d been powerless in that moment when it mattered most.
And now, from that prodigious mind, always spinning with plans and schemes, came an eerie vacancy. From that eloquent mouth, always arguing, proposing, and teasing, came a humbled silence. From those tireless hands, constantly scribbling out letters and essays and proposals, came only stillness.
And so, together, we were both vacant, silent, and still.
Our boy was dead. Dead for his own hubris, having initiated both a confrontation and a duel. I thought we’d taught him better. And it poured more sorrow into the bitter cup from which I was now forced to drink. All I had for consolation was the knowledge that he’d stood brave on that field, and that he hadn’t taken a life. Instead, he’d let a villain shoot him so he could keep his honor.
* * *
Never did I see a man so completely overwhelmed with grief as Hamilton has been.
—ROBERT TROUP
Winter 1801
Albany
“When is Philip coming home?”
The question came in the middle of the night, spoken by my seventeen-year-old daughter with a lantern in her hand. Disoriented and blinking against sleep, I was actually convinced for a moment that we’d come to the Pastures ahead of my eldest son. That he’d caught the next sloop, and would be with us by dawn. Then the crushing reality overtook me with all its accompanying heartbreak.
We’d buried Philip in the yard of Trinity Church, where, in dropping a handful of dirt onto our son’s casket in farewell, Hamilton faltered and was kept upright only by our friends. That was weeks ago. Since then, Papa had sent a coach to fetch us to Albany where he might care for us himself. In truth, I think it eased his own grief in the loss of Mama to tend us in our grief for Philip, a grief which Papa of course shared and, as a father who himself had survived several of his children, one which he understood.
But even as Alexander and I struggled to pull ourselves from bed and force small morsels of food down our throats, Ana now seemed to be caught in some blissful waking dream in which she believed Philip was still very much alive.
Throwing the blankets aside, Alexander rose from the bed to embrace her. “Philip has gone to heaven, my darling girl. A haven of eternal repose and felicity.”
Ana’s expression crumpled. “No. He’s only gone riding just this morning. I made a pie for his breakfast. Remember?”
She didn’t know where we were. She didn’t know when we were. She didn’t remember that Philip was dead. Truly, she didn’t. So for the next hour, she sat on our bed and asked question after question about how Philip died, her grief as fresh and raw as if she was reliving the nightmare.
And we lived it all again with her.
Worrying for my health and that of our unborn baby, Alexander insisted I go back to sleep and led Ana out of the room. But I awakened to the sound of splashing water in the upstairs hall, my daughter singing with her aunt Angelica. In coming with us to the Pastures, my sister had left her own husband and children behind to offer comfort to mine; now I found that Angelica had Ana in a copper tub and was brushing her hair as
