Community Library Notes
“My Dear Hamilton” by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie is a wonderful novel about Eliza Schuler Hamilton. She tells in her own words the story of her life and the story of this country. As she works in her garden, James Monroe waits in her parlor. She is silent; silence is the best weapon women have, she says. This is in 1825. She goes back in her mind to 1777, when she’s the daughter of a disgraced general, ministering to wounded soldiers of both sides. Her older sister, Angelica, has run off to marry her lover, and Peggy, her younger sister, loves pretty clothes. Her mother calls her Betsy.
In 1780, she carries a letter to General Washington; and Kitty Livingston travels with her. Martha Washington answers the door in homespun and apron, looking like the maid. That evening, Washington puts on a winter ball with over 60 gentlemen and only 16 ladies. Betsy has a wonderful evening, dancing with a handsome Alexander Hamilton and a jealous Colonel Tilghman who remembers her fondly from a few years before.
The following day she goes to the hospital, and Hamilton is surprised to see her there. He walks her home and tells her they are losing the war, because of mutiny among the troops and the decreased value of their currency. If France will help them, they might have a chance. Hamilton is impressed with her intelligence. He admits he’s from the West Indies and has no property in America. Betsy doesn’t care. Angelica tells her Hamilton is ambitious. Betsy wants to elope but Hamilton wants to ask her father for her hand. He wins and they wait.
After their wedding, they receive a letter from Lafayette. He has returned from France with supplies: money, and a fleet of ships. It could turn the war. However, when they go to headquarters, mutiny is in the air because Congress has claimed no legal power to tax and raise funds for the army. Tension is in the camp. Benedict Arnold has joined the redcoats and captured Richmond for the British.
Instead of Hamilton resigning his commission, Washington gives him his own battalion to command in New York, a light infantry. After he leaves in the morning, Betsy realizes she is pregnant. He’s ecstatic and the next day, when he leaves for the battle, he puts her in a carriage to return to her father’s home. When enemies invade their home, Peggy tells them help is on its way and they leave.
In the winter of 1781, she meets Aaron Burr and likes him. He tells her Hamilton had led his troops to victory at Yorktown. Burr calls him a hero. She gives birth to a baby boy and Hamilton studies to become a lawyer and vows to build a stronger America.
In 1783, Betsy — now known as Eliza — is a Congressman’s wife, living in Philadelphia. James Madison often comes to the back door to discuss their ideas in private to accomplish tasks in Congress, such as the debt of the war and the solution of a federal tax. Eliza and Hamilton move to New York where he sets up a law practice. The Treaty of Paris has been signed making America independent. The British sail out of New York harbor and Washington and his army retake New York. The American flag is raised to cheers. Hamilton refuses to go to Washington’s farewell party because he can’t bear to say goodbye. All his service friends are gone, he has no family, no friends. But Lafayette returns and calls Alexander “My Dear Hamilton.”
By 1786, Eliza has three children and Hamilton is paid with whole hams in place of worthless money. He and James Madison work in secret every night to write the Federalist Papers to create a unified country under a ratified constitution. Eliza is proud to act as a courier of their papers to the publisher. Finally, Virginia and New York ratify the new constitution and Hamilton, as the main author, is feted by New Yorkers at last.
As treasurer, Hamilton proposes a tax on whiskey and a Bank of the United States. They build a bigger, more majestic house across from the president’s mansion in Philadelphia. Hamilton has become a more important, powerful person in the new government. Eliza and Hamilton’s firstborn, Philip, dies in a duel. He had shot at the sky and the other man killed him. This is the saddest scene in the book.
In 1804, a young man comes to Eliza’s door with a carriage to take her to Hamilton’s bedside. He’s dying of a gunshot wound, just as Philip had. He has been shot by Aaron Burr and she vows to bring Burr to trial. The coroner’s jury declares Burr guilty of murder and Eliza will never allow him in New York again. She plans to build a small house with a library with Hamilton’s
papers and essays, articles, speeches and ideas. She helps to found the Orphan Asylum Society to help poor, hungry orphans of New York.
When Lafayette returns to see Eliza, he brings his son Georges with him. Lafayette is old and stooped, but Eliza’s daughter, Lysbet, swoons over the son. Eliza and Lafayette go to Hamilton’s grave and Lafayette tells her to forgive her husband’s transgressions. He says the sum of a person’s deeds, good and bad, is how he should be judged.
Although the musical “Hamilton” is about the same subject, this novel goes into more depth and detail of this extraordinary wife, Eliza. Find this excellent novel at your Mendocino Community Library.