![]() Now, in the summer of 1781, it seemed as if his wishes would come true. Washington's aide-de-camp earlier in the year, Alexander had hoped (and begged) for a field command with the army. After resigning from his position as Gen. They had spent most of their short marriage together, and this was the first lengthy separation they'd faced. He and Eliza had been married about seven months. Love me and let your happiness always consist in lovingĪlexander wrote this letter on July 13, 1781. Give my love to your mother sisters and brothers. "I write your father all the news we have. 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. 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. 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. "Indeed Betsey, I am intirely changed-changed for the worse I confess-lost to all the public and splendid passions and absorbed in you. 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. 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. ![]() ![]() I struggle with an excess which I cannot but deem a weakness and endeavour to bring myself back to reason and duty. Alas my Betsey you have divested it of every other pretender and placed your image there as the sole proprietor. I feasted for some time on the sweet effusions of tenderness they contained, and my heart returned every sensation of yours. 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 pass a great part of my time in company but my dissipations are a very imperfect suspension of my uneasiness. "With no object of sufficient importance to occupy my attention here I am left to feel all the weight of our separation. I acquainted you with the assurances that had been given me with respect to command, and bad you dismiss all apprehensions for my safety on account of the little prospect of activity. "I have received my angel two letters from you since my arrival in Camp with a packet of papers, and I have written to you twice since I saw you. Here's a transcription of the entire letter, thanks to the National Archives: The ink has faded, the paper is stained and worn and torn, yet still the words - and love - remain. While the letter from fifteen-year-old Philip Hamilton to his father Alexander in the same exhibition was quite legible, this letter from Alexander to Eliza is a challenge to read today. ![]() This is another of the letters that I saw last week at The Morgan Library as part of the Treasures from the Vault exhibition, on display through March 11, 2018.
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