It is
seldom that the world so generously gives its blessing, but it might
have withheld it, for all that Hamilton and his bride would have cared.
Hamilton's honeymoon was brief. There was a mass of correspondence
awaiting him, and no place for a bride in the humble Dutch house at New
Windsor where Washington had gone into winter quarters. But the distance
was not great, and he could hope for flying leaves of absence.
Washington was not unsympathetic to lovers; he had been known to unbend
and advise his aides when complications threatened or a siege seemed
hopeless; and he had given Hamilton the longest leave possible.
Nevertheless, the bridegroom set forth, one harsh January morning, on
his long journey, over roads a foot deep in snow, and through solitary
winter forests, with any thing but an impassioned desire to see General
Washington again. Had he been returning to the command of a corps, with
a prospect of stirring events as soon as the snow melted, he would have
spurred his horse with high satisfaction, even though he left a bride
behind him; but to return to a drudgery which he hated the more for
having escaped it for three enchanted weeks, made his spirit turn its
back to the horse's head.
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