page_title: Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton
section_title: Marriage
hierarchical_section_title: Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton / Marriage
caption_attribution_description: English: James Sharples (1751–1811), Portrait of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton seated in profile with her head turned to the left. Pastel on paper dating ca 1795, image size 7" x 9.5".PAINTER: Sharples, James (1751-1811) (attributed to)SUBJECT: Hamilton, Alexander, Mrs. (Elizabeth Schuyler)MEDIUM: Pastel on paperCONTROL NUMBER: IAP 9D640263DATA SOURCE: Art Inventories Catalog, Smithsonian American Art Museums
context_page_description: Elizabeth Hamilton, also called Eliza or Betsey, was a socialite and philanthropist and was married to American founding father Alexander Hamilton. She was a defender of his works and co-founder and deputy director of Graham Windham, the first private orphanage in New York City. Eliza is recognized as an early American philanthropist for her work with the Orphan Asylum Society.
context_section_description: In early 1780, Elizabeth went to stay with her aunt, Gertrude Schuyler Cochran, in Morristown, New Jersey. There she met Alexander Hamilton, one of General George Washington's aides-de-camp, who was stationed along with the General and his men in Morristown for the winter. In fact, they had met previously, if briefly, two years before, when Hamilton dined with the Schuylers on his way back from a negotiation on Washington's behalf. Also while in Morristown, Eliza met and became friends with Martha Washington, a friendship they would maintain throughout their husbands' political careers. Eliza later said of Mrs. Washington, "She was always my ideal of a true woman."
  It is said that after returning home from meeting her, Hamilton was so excited he forgot the password to enter army headquarters. The relationship between Eliza and Hamilton quickly grew; even after he left Morristown for a short mission to negotiate a prisoners exchange, only a month after Eliza had arrived. While gone on the prisoner exchange Hamilton wrote to Eliza continuing their relationship through letters. He then returned to Morristown where Elizabeth's father had also arrived in his capacity as representative of the Continental Congress. Also there had been some talk in at least one letter of a "secret wedding," by early April they were officially engaged with her father's blessing (something of an anomaly for the Schuyler girls—both Angelica and Catherine would end up eloping). Hamilton followed the Army when they decamped in June 1780. In September that year, Eliza learned that Major John André, head of the British Secret Service, had been captured in a foiled plot concocted by General Benedict Arnold to surrender the fort of West Point to the British. André had once been a houseguest in the Schuyler Mansion in Albany as a prisoner of war en route to Pennsylvania in 1775; Eliza, then seventeen, might have had a juvenile crush on the young British officer who had once sketched for her. Hamilton, while envious of André for his actions during the war, promised Eliza he would do what he could to treat the British intelligence chief accordingly; he even begged Washington to grant André's last wish of execution by firing squad, but to no avail. After two more months of separation punctuated by their correspondence, on December 14, 1780, Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler were married at the Schuyler Mansion.
  After a short honeymoon at the Pastures, Eliza's childhood home, Hamilton returned to military service in early January 1781. Eliza soon joined him at New Windsor, where Washington's army was now stationed, and she rekindled her friendship with Martha Washington as they entertained their husbands' fellow officers. Soon, however, Washington and Hamilton had a falling-out, and the newlywed couple moved, first back to Eliza's father's house in Albany, then to a new home across the river from the New Windsor headquarters. There Eliza busied herself in creating a home for them and in aiding Alexander with his political writings—parts of his 31-page letter to Robert Morris, laying out much of the financial knowledge that was to aid him later in his career, are in her handwriting.
  Soon, however, Eliza moved again, this time back to her parents' house in Albany. This may have coincided with the discovery that she was pregnant with her first child, who would be born the next January and named Philip, for her father. While apart, Alexander wrote her numerous letters telling her not to worry for his safety; in addition, he wrote her concerning confidential military secrets, including the lead-up to the Battle of Yorktown that autumn. Meanwhile, the war came close to home, when a group of British soldiers stumbled upon the Pastures, looking for supplies. According to some accounts, the family was spared from any losses thanks to her sister Peggy's quick thinking: she told the soldiers that her father had gone to town to get help, causing them to flee from the area.
  After Yorktown, Alexander was able to rejoin Eliza in Albany, where they would remain for a
caption: Elizabeth Hamilton, portrait by James Sharples, c. 1795
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