#I've always found it interesting that he references Achilles to state his willingness to

[46ten]

AH: marriage and military service should not mix

The summary of this post: A lot of historians have noted how important AH’s marriage to EH was to his future, a true before and after marker in his life. But the strangeness of it has gotten less attention - AH married while the war was going on, and even wrote of not hanging around the army at all in order to setup for his life with his new wife. Once one sees the oddity of that, a lot of other things fall into place in his 1780/81 letters.  

For the past few years, I’ve wanted to work more on the theory that although marriage was generally expected of the 18th century Anglo-American colonial man (see prior posts here and here), the elite in AH’s circle did not marry until their military obligations and other duties were complete. From their examples and a few phrases here and there, getting married seemed to have been frowned upon, perhaps because of the uncomfortable examples of general’s wives and this idea that romantic love with a woman was a weakness that interfered with duty and hindered one’s commitment to military glory. (I am familiar with the challenges faced by Martha Washington, Catharine Greene, and Lucy Knox; Philip Schuyler refused a return to military assignment and presidency of the Continental Congress after the death of a newborn, among other things, in 1778). AH is an exception among his circle, with Meade, in getting married during the war itself - nearly everyone else who is unmarried waits until after their military service is complete (and sometimes well after) to marry. Not enough is made of the oddity of his courtship and marriage, within his circle, while the war is ongoing.

Now to modern thought, the title of this post makes a lot of sense - relationships are often strained when one partner is in military service, and the hows and whys are very familiar to us. But for the 18th century, when adult manhood was tied to matrimony, avoiding matrimony seems odd, as does the length of some of the courtships of AH’s friends: two years for William Jackson, about the same for Tilghman, four years of flirtation for McHenry. At a time when engagements lasted a matter of weeks (and AH notes that his own is unusually long - it’s lasting “an age” in one of his letters to ES), the delay in taking the next step is notable. Even in the prior generation, although Philip Schuyler was sexually intimate with Catharine Van Rensselaer, he continued his military service and did not marry her until it became unavoidable by decency standards (CVR was 4 months pregnant). 

So what’s with AH and ES wanting to get married in such a hurry, comparatively, besides the obvious emotional ones? Maybe he really was 26-27 years old and time was running out! Another obvious possibility, noted then and noted by biographers since, was the benefits of their marriage on a personal and political dynastic level. @aswithasunbeam has noted a contemporary article (sourced from Mitchell) about what Philip Schuyler had to gain through the new attachment between himself and Washington’s aide-de-camp. (And look how quickly P. Schuyler had AH working to get GW to visit them.) The advantages for AH were obvious to, as the Marquis de Fleury stated outright to AH: “ I congratulate you heartyly on that conquest; for many Reasons: the first that you will get all that familly’s interest, & that a man of your abilities wants a Little influence to do good to his country. The second that you, will be in a very easy situation, & happin’s is not to be found without a Large estate.”

I also suspect part of AH’s decision to hurriedly marry was tied to getting a command and spending the rest of his time studying the law.* I agree with most biographers that he never takes the steps of leaving Washington’s family and asking for (Nov 1780) and then demanding (June 1781) a command without being Philip Schuyler’s son-in-law. (I also think the break with GW doesn’t happen without AH feeling VERY confident in his relationship with his new wife. EH should have been a better patriot - as in other times - and seemed less happy in her marriage, or at least not let AH read her letter to her sister.) I think that’s what Laurens knew while on parole in Phil. and causes the minor flurry of letters in late August/September 1780, when P. Schuyler was briefly at HQ and then sending lots of letters about Congress to GW, AH was going on about his planned six month leave, McHenry was writing a love poem about AH and ES and trying to get AH to get P. Schuyler’s help in getting him a command, etc . AH and ES likely intended to marry in October/early November, but both Meade and Harrison took leave instead, and AH had to stay, though he would leave in late November before their return (in fact, Harrison and Meade never returned.)

Take Laurens (left wife and daughter he’d never see in England) and Lafayette (absent from France from March 1777 to Feb 1779 and March 1780 to early 1782). Both of them left wife and child(ren) behind, and here AH was planning a long absence from military service and telling his fiancee that he’ll leave it entirely if that’s her wish. AND Meade is discussing doing exactly that! [So Laurens presumably wrote to AH - we don’t have that letter - that he hopes AH will get over this quickly, and AH wrote back that he won’t, but I’m getting ahead of myself.]

I offered to make a comparison of AH’s letters to Laurens vs Elizabeth Schuyler - while revealing of personal feelings, in content and expression they are more different than they are similar - but I think I first need to set up that major transition that’s occurring in AH’s life in 1780/81. To the extent Laurens may have objected to AH’s excitement about ES and their impending nuptials (and there’s only one phrase in one letter, and that from AH to Laurens, from which it can be interpreted that those were Laurens’ feelings), and AH felt embarrassed about conveying the news of his engagement, it was because it interfered with a (believed to be mutual) sense of military obligation and public duty and dismissal of marriage and its attendant obligations. I touch on it in a response here; I’ll try to elaborate on it in upcoming posts. [I will get into why this makes the most sense, and why claims of AH trying to spare any romantic feelings JL may have felt, quite frankly, do not make sense in a later post. Spoiler: AH wrote absurdly callous stuff re ES and his relationship with her in his letters to JL if he was hoping to spare JL’s feelings.]

I already put some of my thoughts on this in old posts that may have some helpful content and may spare me having to repeat myself too much, and then I’ll also provide some quotes from letters to get started, limited to 1777-1782 and then probably the most famous quote from 1799. 

Hamilton on marriage part 1 (overview)

Hamilton on marriage part 2 (feelings on marriage 1777-early 1780)

Hamilton-Schuyler engagement (early 1780-mid 1780)

Hamilton on marriage part 3 (my breakdown of the July-Oct 1780 letters to ES)

Hamilton on marriage part 4

Reynolds Pamphlet, part 2

And a post (not my own) about how much AH’s military involvement as Inspector General was affecting his family financially. 

Letter quotes [my emphases]: 

You and I, as well as our neighbours, are deeply interested to pray for victory, and its necessary attendant peace; as, among other good effects, they would remove those obstacles, which now lie in the way of that most delectable thing, called matrimony;—a state, which, with a kind of magnetic force, attracts every breast to it, in which sensibility has a place, in spite of the resistance it encounters in the dull admonitions of prudence, which is so prudish and perverse a dame, as to be at perpetual variance with it. AH to Catharine “Kitty” Livingston 11Apr1777

Do I want a wife? No—I have plagues enough without desiring to add to the number that greatest of all; and if I were silly enough to do it, I should take care how I employ a proxy. AH to John Laurens 1779 [likely from mid-April up to July - this letter is actually undated, and the April date is based on other mentions in the letter; both JCH and Lodge dated it December 1779]

The most determined adversaries of Hymen can find in [ES] no pretext for their hostility, and there are several of my friends, philosophers who railed at love as a weakness, men of the world who laughed at it as a phantasie, whom she has presumptuously and daringly compelled to acknowlege its power and surrender at discretion. I can the better assert the truth of this, as I am myself of the number. She has had the address to overset all the wise resolutions I had been framing for more than four years past, and from a rational sort of being and a professed contemner of Cupid has in a trice metamorphosed me into the veriest inamorato you perhaps ever saw. AH to Margarita Schuyler, Feb1780

I would add to this by way of consolation, or rather of countinance, that the family since your departure have given hourly proofs of a growing weakness. Example I verily believe is infectious. For such a predominancy is beauty establishing over their hearts, that should things continue to wear as sweet an aspect as they are now beheld in, I shall be the only person left, of the whole household, to support the dignity of human nature. But in good earnest, God bless both you, and your weakness, and preserve me your sincere friend James McHenry to AH, 18March1780 [this was during the time of AH’s courtship of ES]

Here we are my love in a house of great hospitality—in a country of plenty—a buxom girl under the same roof—pleasing ⟨expect⟩ations of a successful campaign—and every thing to make a soldier happy, who is not in love and absent from his mistress. ... Assure yourself my love that you are seldom a moment absent from my mind, that I think of you constantly and talk of you frequently, I am never happier than when I can engage Meade in some solitary walk to join me in reciprocating the praises of his widow and my betsey. AH to ES, 6July1780  

I hope for a decisive campaign. No one will desire it more than me; for a military life is now grown insupportable to me because it keeps me from all my soul holds dear. Adieu My love. Write to me often I entreat you, and do not suffer any part of my treasure, your sweet love, to be lost or stolen from me. AH to ES, 20Jul1780

Impatiently My Dearest have I been expecting the return of your father to bring me a letter from my charmer with the answers you have been good enough to promise me to the little questions asked in mine by him. ... Meade2 just comes in and interrupts me by sending his love to you. He tells you he has written a long letter to his widow asking her opinion of the propriety of quitting the service; and that if she does not disapprove it, he will certainly take his final leave after the campaign. You see what a fine opportunity she has to be enrolled in the catalogue of heroines, and I dare say she will set you an example of fortitude and patriotism. I know too you have so much of the Portia in you, that you will not be out done in this line by any of your sex, and that if you saw me inclined to quit the service of your country, you would dissuade me from it. I have promised you, you recollect, to conform to your wishes, and I persist in this intention. It remains with you to show whether you are a Roman or an American wife. AH to ES, Aug1780

But now my love to speak of the practicability of complying with both our wishes in this article—There is none, I am obliged to sacrifice my inclination to ⟨my public⟩ ch⟨aracter.⟩ Even though my presence shou⟨ld n⟩ot be essential here, yet my love I could not with decency or honor leave the army during the campaign. This is a military prejudice which while I am in a military station I must comply with. No person has been more severe than I have been in condemning other officers for deviating from it. I have admitted no excuse as sufficient, and I must not now evince to the army, that the moment my circumstances have changed, my maxims have changed also. This would be an inconsistency, and my Betsey would not have me guilty of an inconsistency. Besides this my Betsey, The General is peculiarly averse to the practice in question. If this campaign is to end my military services, ’tis an additional reason for a constant and punctual attendance, if it is not my leaving the army during the campaign would make it less proper to be away all the winter ’till late in the spring. In one case, my honor bids me stay, in the other my love. AH to ES, 31Aug1780

Pardon me my love for talking politics to you. What have we to do with any thing but love? Go the world as it will, in each others arms we cannot but be happy. ...I was once determined to let my existence and American liberty end together. My Betsey has given me a motive to outlive my pride, I had almost said my honor; but America must not be witness to my disgrace. AH to ES, 6Sept1780

I have told you, and I told you truly that I love you too much. You engross my thoughts too intirely to allow me to think of any thing else—you not only employ my mind all day; but you intrude upon my sleep. I meet you in every dream—and when I wake I cannot close my eyes again for ruminating on your sweetness. ‘Tis a pretty story indeed that I am to be thus monopolized, by a little nut-brown maid like you—and from a statesman and a soldier metamorphosed into a puny lover. I believe in my soul you are an inchantress; but I have tried in vain, if not to break, at least, to weaken the charm—you maintain your empire in spite of all my efforts—and after every new one, I make to withdraw myself from my allegiance my partial heart still returns and clings to you with increased attachment. To drop figure my lovely girl you become dearer to me every moment. I am more and more unhappy and impatient under the hard necessity that keeps me from you, and yet the prospect lengthens as I advance. AH to ES, 5Oct1780

I would not have you imagine Miss that I write to you so often either to gratify your wishes or to please your vanity; but merely to indulge myself and to comply with that restless propensity of my mind, which will not allow me to be happy when I am not doing something in which you are concerned. This may seem a very idle disposition in a philosopher and a soldier; but I can plead illustrious examples in my justification. Achilles had liked to have sacrificed Greece and his glory to his passion for a female captive; and Anthony lost the world for a woman. I am sorry the times are so changed as to oblige me to summon antiquity for my apology, but I confess, to the disgrace of the present age, that I have not been able to find many who are as far gone as myself in such laudable zeal for the fair sex. AH to ES, 13Oct1780

How often have I with Eloisa exclaimed against those forms which I now revere as calculated to knit our union together by new and stronger bands...Meade already begins to recant. I have received a letter from him on the Journey2 in which he tells me he finds he must return to the army. This will be a new proof to you that I cannot leave it, as we both so ardently desire. AH to ES, 27Oct1780

You possess a heart that can feel for me; you have a female too that you love. I was reduced at one period to entreat, threat, kiss, but all to no purpose; her fears were for my safety, mine for hers. You must imagine to make out the tragedy all that I am incapable for want of words to express. After placing her with at least Twenty other females & children at a safe distance I immediately returned, & joined the Baron about the time the Enemy left Richmond in order to render him all the aid I could being intimately acquainted with the Country for many miles in the vicinity of the Enemy & on their return down the river I left him to go in pursuit of a residence for a favorite Brother who was driven from his home & obliged to attend to his Wife & a family of little children. Was it not cruel my dear fellow that my matrimonial enjoyments should have been interrupted thus soon; not more than one month had passed when the damned invasion seperated us, & we have yet to meet again, for 60 miles divides us. You know I am a Philosoper my dr fd & prepared to meet much more serious disappointments. This gives me an opening to speak of my return to the army. I have been long wishing your advice in full on the occasion; you are acquainted with the arguments I have used in favor of my stay here. I have now but one to add to them, the experience of that happiness I ever expected to enjoy with the best of Women. She loves not less than your Betsy, & I fear could not bear a seperation. I have not however as yet thrown off the uniform, but I am inclined to believe that it must be the case. Meade to AH, 13Jan1781

I was cherishing the melancholy pleasure of thinking of the sweets I had left behind and was so long to be deprived of, when a servant from Head Quarters presented me with your letters. I feasted for some time on the sweet effusions of tenderness they contained, and my heart returned every sensation of yours. Alas my Betsey you have divested it of every other pretender and placed your image there as the sole proprietor. I struggle with an excess which I cannot but deem a weakness and endeavour to bring myself back to reason and duty. I remonstrate with my heart on the impropriety of suffering itself to be engrossed by an individual of the human race when so many millions ought to participate in its affections and in its cares. But it constantly presents you under such amiable forms as seem too well to justify its meditated desertion of the cause of country humanity, and of glory I would say, if there were not something in the sound insipid and ridiculous when compared with the sacrifices by which it is to be attained.

Indeed Betsey, I am intirely changed—changed for the worse I confess—lost to all the public and splendid passions and absorbed in you. Amiable woman! nature has given you a right to be esteemed to be cherished, to be beloved; but she has given you no right to monopolize a man, whom, to you I may say, she has endowed with qualities to be extensively useful to society. Yes my Betsey, I will encourage my reason to dispute your empire and restrain it within proper bounds, to restore me to myself and to the community. Assist me in this; reproach me for an unmanly surrender of that to love and teach me that your esteem will be the price of my acting well my part as a member of society. AH to EH, 13Jul1781

Don’t think me unkind for not talking of your making a journey to the Southward. It would put us to a thousand inconveniences and would in fact be of no avail; for while there I must be engrossed in my military duties. Heaven knows how much it costs me to make the sacrifice I do. It is too much to be torn away from the wife of my bosom from a woman I love to weakness, and who feels the same ardent passion for me. I relinquish a heaven in your arms; but let me have the happiness to reflect that they ever impatiently wait my return sacred to love and me. Give your Mama, your sisters and the whole family every assurance of the warmest affection on my part. Indeed I love them all.

Yrs. with unalterable tenderness and fidelity AH to EH,  25Aug1781

Early in November, as I promised you, we shall certainly meet. Cheer yourself with this idea, and with the assurance of never more being separated. Every day confirms me in the intention of renouncing public life, and devoting myself wholly to you. AH to EH, 6Sept1781

My heart disposed to gayety is at once melted into tenderness. The idea of a smiling infant in my Betseys arms calls up all the father in it. In imagination I embrace the mother and embrace the child a thousand times. I can scarce refrain from shedding tears of joy. But I must not indulge these sensations; they are unfit for the boisterous scenes of war and whenever they intrude themselves make me but half a soldier. AH to EH, 12Oct1781

You cannot imagine how entirely domestic I am growing. I lose all taste for the pursuits of ambition, I sigh for nothing but the company of my wife and my baby. The ties of duty alone or imagined duty keep me from renouncing public life altogether. It is however probable I may not be any longer actively engaged in it.

I have explained to you the difficulties which I met with in obtaining a command last campaign. I thought it incompatible with the delicacy due to myself to make any application this campaign. I have expressed this Sentiment in a letter to the General and retaining my rank only, have relinquished the emoluments of my commission, declaring myself notwithstanding ready at all times to obey the calls of the Public.4 I do not expect to hear any of these unless the State of our Affairs, should change for the worse and lest by any unforeseen accident that should happen, I choose to keep myself in a situation again to contribute my aid. This prevents a total resignation.

You were right in supposing I neglected to prepare what I promised you at Philadelphia. The truth is, I was in such a hurry to get home that I could think of nothing else. AH to Meade, March 1782 (from a JCH transcription)

You were right, My dear General, in saying that a Soldier should have no Other wife than the service...William North to AH, 12Nov1799

AND just for amusement:

I thank you My Dear Sir for the military figures you have sent me. Tactics you know are literally or figuratively of very comprehensive signification. As people grow old they decline in some arts though they may improve in others. I will try to get Mrs. Hamilton to accompany in games of Tactics new to her. Perhaps she may get a taste for them & become better reconciled to my connection with the Trade-Militant. AH to McHenry, 21June1799

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*I broke this down in a prior post too, but I’ll repeat it here again: I think the clearest statement of his plan left to us is from the draft of the letter he sent to Philip Schuyler explaining why he wants to break with GW (18Feb1781): 

As I cannot think of quitting the army during the war, I have a project of re-entering into the artillery, by taking Lieutenant-Colonel Forrest’s10 place, who is⟩ desirous of retiring on half pay. I have not however made up my mind upon this , Start insertion,head, End,, as I should be obliged to come in the youngest Lt Col instead of the eldest, which I , Start deletion,should, End, , Start insertion,ought to, End, have been by natural succession had I remained in the corps; and , Start insertion,at the same time, End, to resume studies relative to the profession which, to avoid inferiority, must be laborious.

If a handsome command for the campaign in the , Start insertion,light, End, infantry should offer itself, I shall ballance between this and the artillery. My situation ⟨in the latter⟩ would be more , Start deletion,substantial, End, , Start insertion,solid, End, ⟨and permanent;⟩ but as I hope ⟨the war will not last long enough to make it progressive, this consideration has the less force. A command for the campaign would leave me the winter to prosecute studies relative to my future career in life. With⟩ respect to the former, I have been materially the worse for going into his family.11

I have written to you on this subject with all the freedom and confidence to which you have a right and with an assurance of the interest you take in , Start deletion,what, End, , Start insertion,all that, End, concerns me.

This letter implies 1) he had a plan post-military; 2) he had discussed with PS what that plan was, and possibly that six month leave (that never happened because of illness and unavailability) was tied to undertaking some of those studies to be a lawyer, to put himself in better shape to support a family. Being able to do so was important to AH - Philip Hamilton was born Jan 1782, and Angelica would not be born until Sept 1784.