Alex and Eliza: A Love Story(58)

And though Laurens and Lafayette liked to tease him for clerking away the war while other men his age risked his life, Alex had been on the battlefield. As General Washington’s chief aide-de-camp, he was never more than a few feet away from the center of command. But a modern general did not ride into the fray like a medieval king. He stood apart, usually on a hill or other prominence, observing the action and directing its course, and his secretaries were likewise sidelined. Alex had been present at battles on a half-dozen occasions, but in every instance save one he had never drawn his sword or fired his weapon. He had instead taken notes—of General Washington’s orders, of the enemy’s troop movements and the Americans’ response, of request for aid or supplies. The rules of engagement prohibited firing on commanding officers (although that didn’t prevent the occasional “mis-aimed” cannon from coming dangerously close), but Alex’s only real taste of combat had come at the Battle of Monmouth in 1778. When it seemed like Cornwallis’s forces would overcome the Americans, General Washington had ridden into battle and Alex had thrown aside his pen and paper and ridden after him. Together they had rallied the American troops and saved the day, and if the battle ultimately ended in a draw, the result was far better than the rout it could have been. Indeed, it was the first time that American troops had met the British counterparts on an equal basis and held their own, and reports of their bravery had inspired other battalions up and down the line.

Alex remembered little about the day save that it had been unbearably hot. Later it was discovered that more than half the men who lay dead on the battlefield were not wounded—they had died not of bullets or bayonets but of the heat itself. General Washington’s own horse, a magnificent white charger given to him by the governor of New Jersey, William Livingston, had died of heat stroke, and Alex’s own horse had fallen beneath him, from a bullet that could have just as easily killed Alex. The fall knocked him unconscious. His leg and arm had both been badly sprained, though by some miracle neither was broken. When he awakened, he found he had been dragged from the field. His clothes had been soaked in blood, though whether it came from his horse or the enemy he couldn’t have told you. His sword was also bloodstained, but he had no memory of running anyone through. He had been brave, yes, but no stories would be told about a man whose own horse had been the one to remove him from battle.

He needed to prove himself once and for all. For himself. For his country.

But above all, for Eliza.

It was just after two o’clock in the afternoon when Alex knocked on the door of the first-floor rear parlor that General Washington had taken as his private office, and let himself in.

“Your Excellency.”

Even seated, the blue-coated figure at the square, paper-covered desk cut an imposing figure, with his erect posture and broad shoulders and thick hair heavily dusted with powder. He did not look up immediately but continued with his writing for some minutes while Alex waited patiently.

At last the commander in chief of the Continental army placed his quill back in its holder. He sifted a little ash over the sheet of parchment in front of him to soak up any excess ink, then blew the ash to the floor and folded the parchment into thirds. On the outside of the letter he wrote a simple large M, and then, finally, he looked up at Alex with the letter in his outstretched hand.

“For Mrs. Washington,” he said.

Alex had already known to whom the letter was intended. The only correspondent to whom General Washington himself wrote was his wife.

General Washington turned back to his desk and reached for a passel of letters when he noticed that Alex had not left the room.

“Yes, Colonel? Have I overlooked something?”

“No, Your Excellency,” Alex said. “That is, I was hoping that I might have a word with you.”

General Washington paused a moment, considering Alex’s question as seriously as if he had been asked for a loan of a thousand shillings, or his decision on whether or not to execute an enemy soldier. At length, he said, “Tell me what is on your mind, Colonel.”

Alex would have liked to sit down, but General Washington was the kind of man who grew only more formal with those whom he spent the most time. There was a joke—a very private joke—that the M he wrote on the outside of letters to his wife was not for Martha but for Mrs., which was the only name by which anyone had ever heard him refer to her. Alex took a calming breath before addressing his general.

“It is about a matter we discussed last fall. You said that I should bring it up with you this spring.

“Ah,” Washington said, turning to the window. He gazed out over the snow-spotted boughs of an ash tree, and from thence to the fire in the hearth behind him that barely kept the outside chill at bay. “It does not look like spring to me.”

“It is the second of March, Your Excellency. The ice is cracking in the Passaic and Hudson Rivers. The war will resume sooner rather than later.”

“Indeed,” General Washington assented. “I wonder that you are so eager for the resumption of fighting. Most men would avoid it as long as possible.”

“I am eager to fight only in as much as the sooner we fight, the sooner we win, and free ourselves from having to fight again.”

“Indeed,” General Washington repeated. He looked at Alex. “May I assume that you are resuming your petition for a command of your own?”