The Hamiltons: Epilogue

The letter had been placed on Eliza's dresser while she was asleep. She noticed it when she sat down to brush her hair.

Cracking open the seal, she recognized Alexander's handwriting.

"This letter, my very dear Eliza," it read, "will not be delivered to you, unless I shall first have terminated my earthly career, to begin, as I humbly hope from redeeming grace and divine grace, a happy immortality."

A political quarrel with Vice President Burr had turned ugly over the past few months and reached its inevitable conclusion, inevitable because men could not seem to solve their differences without shooting at each other.

"If it had been possible for me to have avoided the interview, my love for you and my precious children would have been alone a decisive moment. But it was not possible, without sacrifices which would have rendered me unworthy of your esteem. I need not tell you of the pangs I feel, from the idea of quitting you and exposing you to the anguish which I know you would feel. Nor could I dwell on the topic lest it unman me."

Eliza read these words countless times. Not for the first time, Alexander was doing something he knew would hurt her and clothed it in the excuse that it would not be helped and half-hearted attempts at an apology. But the phrase "But it was not possible, without sacrifices which would have rendered me unworthy of your esteem" stuck with her. To back out of an affair of honor was to bring great shame upon not only yourself but also your family. Was part of his reason for doing this to prove to her that he was a man of honor?

"The consolations of religion, my beloved, can alone support you; and these you have a right to enjoy. Fly to the bosom of your God and be comforted. With my last idea; I shall cherish the sweet hope of meeting you in a better world.

Adieu, Best of Wives and Best of Women."

This letter summed up their marriage: flowery, and perhaps sincere, professions of love and a callous disregard for her; martyr like devotion and self-serving hubris. There had always been two men, the noble hero she loved and the weak, flawed man she hated, living in one body.

Which one was the real Alexander, she could spend the rest of her life trying to figure out and never succeed.

Eliza folded up the letter and continued about her day as normally as she could. But all she could do was wait for news of Alexander and live the terrible day that Philip died all over again.

Why had she not woken up in time to see him leave for his fateful meeting with Mr. Burr and tell him what he wanted to hear, that neither Maria Reynolds nor Joseph Ackerman had changed a thing about she felt for him.

The bullet had lodged between Alexander's ribs and he knew that the wound would be fatal. He was rowed back across the river from Weehawken to Manhattan and brought to his sister-in-law Angelica's home. Angelica sent for Eliza and the children.

The pain in his side where the bullet had lodged was worse than anything Alexander had ever known, even the kidney ailment he had suffered from for many years. He welcomed death if only so his suffering could be over.

Eliza and her fine, handsome brood walked into the bedroom where Alexander had been laid up. He kissed each of the children and told them that he loved them.

Ann stroked the hair off of his forehead and whispered, "Darling Papa."

"My poor, sweet girl," he thought.

Ann had been a shadow of herself since Philip's death. She spent most of her days playing the piano, lost in a faraway world which no one could drag her away from.

Eliza knelt by his bedside and took his hand, holding it to her cheek. He could feel her warm tears run through his fingers.

Alexander smiled to see her cry.

"Remember my Eliza," he said, "you are a Christian."

Kneeling there by his side, weeping with 24 years of love and anguish in her eyes, she had never looked more beautiful to him.

"Soon you will be free of me, my love," he thought.

The hours passed by in an endless blur of unbearable agony, more mental than physical. Looking back on his life, he saw that he had achieved more than could be imagined: rose from a penniless bastard orphan in the Caribbean to someone who had helped destroy the old order and been the architect of a new order. But whatever he had accomplished would forever be tainted by his greatest failures. History would remember him as a great man but not a good man.

Eliza may have forgiven him but forgiving himself was something he found impossible. He did not deserve forgiveness. She should not be there weeping by his deathbed.

"Soon you will be free of me, my love."

He was gone and Eliza did not know how she should feel about it: grief for a beloved husband or relief that a hated enemy had disappeared? She had wished this would happen many times in the past and said as much to his face.

Thoughts once turned into words were no longer under one's control.

Their life together had contained some of the happiest moments of her life as well as the most miserable. Happiness, misery, love, and hate were all muddled up together and she could not sort them out.

She had loved a part of Alexander and she had been happy with him at some points. It would be best to keep and cherish the best of their marriage and bury the worst along with Alexander's earthly body. The noble hero would live on and the weak flawed man would rot.

Eliza Schuyler Hamilton outlived her husband by 50 years. She took up causes such as speaking out against slavery, raising funds to build the Washington Monument, and helping to found The New York Orphan Asylum Society which still exists today, and ended her life feted as a relic of the Revolutionary War Era.

The cause dearest to her heart was preserving her husband's legacy.