Interviewer (3:37)

Schuyler was named one of four major.

Host (3:39)

Generals in the Continental army during the American Revolution.

Interviewer (3:43)

What would you say was his biggest success in the American Revolution and what was his toughest failure?

Amanda Vail (3:50)

Well, his greatest success was probably the thing that he didn't get credit for, which was the Battle of Saratoga. He had been relieved of his command before the battle by Horatio Gates, who was deeply jealous of him and wanted to be what he had been promised by John Adams he would be, which was a little king in the north, and he wasn't, because Philip Schuyler was in the way as the commander of the Northern department. And Schuyler had put into place all these plans for meeting the British as they marched south into America, into the colonies, in the hopes that they would drive a wedge between New England and the middle Atlantic colonies and by cutting the head off, essentially deprive the whole of life. And if it had not been for Schuyler strategizing and his putting all of these pieces into place, the Battle of Saratoga would probably not have been won. Burgoyne would have beat the Americans and then gone on to victory, and that would have been the end of the war. Schuyler's greatest defeat, if you don't count his being supplanted by Horatio Gates, was probably the thing that brought him to court martial, which was the loss of Fort Ticonderoga to the British, which happened largely because the Continentals, the Americans, were outgunned, literally. There were guns. The British brought guns and placed them on mountains around Fort Ticonderoga and fired on the garrison and therefore took over. And Skyler had actually been complaining that the position was not defensible. And he had tried very hard to get the Continental army and the Continental Congress, which was the boss of everybody. It was a commander in chief, essentially, more than Washington. He'd been trying to get them to pay attention to this, but they didn't want to. And when he lost the. The fort, he was later subjected to a court martial for having done so, and he would emerge victorious, which at least salvaged his reputation. But he was very bruised by the experience.

Interviewer (6:26)

Skyler was married to Catherine Van Rensselaer. Am I saying her name correctly? Mm. Yes. They were parents to 15 children eight who survived into adulthood. Were they people who were active in their children's lives?

Amanda Vail (6:41)

They were very active in their children's lives. Philip Schuyler was a really hands on parent and brought all kinds of wonderful things into the kids lives. His daughters, his first three daughters were the three eldest children. So in fact they were, they were the ones that were the first beneficiaries of his parental oversight. And he loved them. He sent them to schools where they learned a great deal more than many young women of their generation did. They not only learn to read and write, which, you know, many young women did not even do that, but I learned to write very fine handwriting, which was considered a refinement in those days. They learned languages, they learned music, they learned all the accomplishments of a lady like embroidery and singing and dancing and so forth. But Schuyler also had wonderful things like a telescope and a magic lantern that he had brought back from England. And he let the children have access to all those things, to his books in his very, very formidable library. And so they were really exposed to a great deal more than a lot of young women of their time would have been. And the boys too, the girls. In addition, at least Eliza was taken with him on one of his missions to go and deal with the Native American tribes who lived in the area around Albany. And little Eliza was taken to a conclave of the Onondagas and learned how to speak their language and was, was given an honorary membership. She was accepted into the tribe. She remembered this years years later as an old lady. She told the story to a little girl about how she had done this and how they had named her. And they, they gave her a name that meant one of us in their language, which she was always very proud of. And I think, you know, Skyler was an important. He opened many horizons to these girls.

Interviewer (9:02)

The family often resided at the Pastures. Where was this land?

Host (9:07)

Can you describe it for us?

Amanda Vail (9:09)

Well, the Pastures was called that because it had been Pastures beforehand, but it was a very grand house built in the English style on land just south of the. The city wall of Albany. And Philip Schuyler had acquired this land and built what was to be a great mansion to show off his social prominence and his wealth in Albany, where he then lived. And the Schuylers also had a house in Saratoga that was kind of their getaway place. It was there where the farming and forestry and fishing parts of the Schuyler enterprise took place. And so it provided them with some closeness to that. But it was also their country getaway and they came to New York all the time as well on the Hudson river sloop, which was kind of like, you know, the East Hampton Jitney all the time.

Host (10:13)

My guest is Amanda Vail. She's the author of Pride and the Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution. It's our choice. For full bio, we're gonna concentrate on the three oldest, Angelica, Eliza and Peggy. We'll mention the others as well, but I'd like to start with Peggy because she only lived to be 42 years old. She was born Margarita Schuyler on September 18, 1758. What adjectives would you use to describe Peggy?

Amanda Vail (10:49)

Ultimately, I guess I would say she was traditional, which is kind of an odd thing to say given that her two older sisters were somewhat revolutionary. But Peggy, while very beautiful, while very learned, while very charming, did exactly what her mother and father, but more particularly her mother always wanted her daughters to do. She married a really wealthy boy of Dutch extraction, and that was what, you know, Katherine Van Rensselaer Schuyler. This was her dream. And Peggy married the somewhat younger than she, six years younger than she, Stephen Van Rensselaer, who was the patroon of vast estates vaster than the Schuylers. It was like, you know, I don't know, some randomly rich person marrying the Vanderbilts. That's really, really a lot of money.

Host (11:58)

It's interesting, though, she was 25 when they eloped, right?

Amanda Vail (12:03)

Yeah.

Host (12:04)

So was the age difference an important issue at the time?

Amanda Vail (12:08)

I beg your pardon?

Host (12:10)

Was her age difference between the two of them? Was that an important issue at the time?

Amanda Vail (12:14)

Well, in fact, it was considered slightly scandalous that she had bagged this slightly younger young man. And indeed, one of his college mates wrote a real tut tutty letter about it to another of their classmates. And. But the fact is, he had been a friend of her younger brother, Johnny, and they had run around together. They'd lived it kind of the way children do in those big families. They all played together and then they got to be adolescents, and they probably played at other things together. And the. It was quite customary. This happened to Alexander Hamilton as well in the family of Governor Livingston of New Jersey, where an older young woman, daughter of Governor Livingston, in this case Peggy and Stephen Van Rensselaer, the older young woman sort of practiced flirting with the younger guy. And then in the case of Peggy and Steven Van Rensselaer, it went a little further, and then a little further than that. And they had what was by all accounts a really blissful, happy marriage, which was really Saddened only by the fact that she was an invalid for much of it and lost several children to childhood disease or miscarriage or whatever. And she, you know, that was a tragic thing. And then she died at a young age.

Interviewer (13:54)

There is a story about Peggy, and I want to see how much is true and how much is apocryphal or if it's a mix of the two, that she was a bit of the hero in the family, that during the revolution, the family's house was raided and her quick thinking saved the lives of a child in danger. Would you share that story with us and how much of it is true?

Amanda Vail (14:19)

Well, the story is. And of course, like many of these stories, it may be partially, maybe fully mythologized. But a group of British loyalists and possibly some Native Americans, all of them disguised in varying sorts of feathers and buckskins and God knows what, attacked Philip Schuyler's house and with the intent of kidnapping Skyler and raiding the house of whatever valuables they could get. And this was in 1781, in this summer. And Peggy had the brilliant. Apparently thought to run downstairs during this raid. The family had all run up to the bedrooms, but they had left behind the youngest Skyler child, who had just been born, that, you know, months before little Katharina or Kitty or Katie Schuyler, who was a babe in a cradle. And, you know, they had been. All the family had been sitting down in the heat of the. After the heat of the day, in the cool of the day, they were sitting down there in the salon in front of the open doorway, and this raid occurred, and all the family rushed upstairs and they left the baby. So Peggy, discovering that this had happened, raced downstairs, down the stairs into the front hall, where all of a sudden there was all this fighting and there were. The guards that the general had set around his property were contending with the raiders. And there were shots being fired and people screaming. And it was d. Because nobody had, you know, it was starting to be dark and nobody had any lights. And it was. There was confusion everywhere. And she grabbed the baby out of the cradle and ran with her upstairs. And according to legend, one of the raiders hurled a tomahawk at her and it nicked one of the balusters on the stairway. And the baluster still has, you know, a notch in it, which is considered to be circumstantial proof that this happened. Of course, the notch could have happened from somebody kicking it with their hobbit boot. Who knows what? But it makes a wonderful story. And Peggy was A pretty spunky girl. And, and the raid itself is documented. It happened and Skyler himself wrote about it in a letter to Governor Clinton. It's all very well documented. So, you know, it's, it's not unlikely that this happened.

Interviewer (17:17)

That was Amanda Vale, the author of Pride and the Schuyler Sisters in the Age of Revolution. After the break, we'll learn about the two other Schuyler sisters and the family's involvement with incitement. You're listening.

Host (17:39)

Skylars had two other daughters. They were much younger, Cornelia and Katie. Cornelia, another Eloper, her father did not like that marriage. Katie was the baby of the family, as we just heard. What did it mean to be the baby of this extraordinary family?

Amanda Vail (17:58)

Well, you know, first of all, what it means is that your eldest sisters are old enough to be your mother. I mean, that's a start. And so there's a really already you have an interesting relationship with people who are meant to be your siblings, but they really are people old enough to be your parent. So I think it must have been sort of odd to be that person. She also had growing up, I think this formidable, the formidable reputations of certainly her two eldest sisters, one of whom married a war profiteer and had a glitt life in Europe after the revolution was over, the other of whom is married to the Treasury Secretary of the United States and is, you know, in amongst all of the doings of the young Republic, she is in the room where it happens, literally. And so there you are, you're a little girl and you're growing older and you have, these women have sort of shown you what's possible and I think you maybe have a sense that you need to measure up to this. At any rate, young Kitty or Katie developed a reputation as a fearsome flirt kind of marriage mad girl.

Interviewer (19:24)

And.

Amanda Vail (19:27)

The most egregious example of her marriage mad behavior or her flirtatious and outrageous behavior occurred when she went to Washington's funeral in 1799 in Philadelphia. And she found when her sister Angelica was there with Alexander Hamilton. Eliza Hamilton had stayed home in New York City. She had just had a baby and she wasn't traveling. So Angelica had gone to accompany her brother in law. Gossip already was putting the two of them together with many, many question marks garlanding the two of them. And it could not have helped matters when young Kitty found one of Angelica's shoe rosettes that come off on the floor and she put it into Hamilton's lapel and said, there, brother, I've made you a Knight. And Angelica said to her, well, what kind of knight could you possibly be making him because we don't have Knights of the Garter in America. And little Kitty apparently audaciously replied, nobody could be a Knight of the Bedchamber if you would let him.

Interviewer (20:49)

Oh, oh. Little sister had something to say.

Amanda Vail (20:53)

Yeah, little sister was really, you know, little sister was watching. I'm not sure what she was watching, but she was watching.

Interviewer (21:01)

There were three boys who survived, John, Philip and Renslayer. Of the three, who would prove to be the most successful at the time?

Amanda Vail (21:12)

Well, really, of the three boys, Philip was the one who was successful. John was kind of a ne' er do well, who was more concerned with fashionable clothing and got mixed up in a scandal where it was a real me too moment.

Interviewer (21:29)

He.

Amanda Vail (21:31)

Assaulted or was overly familiar with, depending on who you spoke to a young woman on the street in Albany. It was in a public street, so not too much could have happened. But he ended up getting hauled in front of a magistrate for this. And his father just was really in despair over Johnny, as he was called in the family. He really thought he was kind of a simpleton and kept hoping that marriage or giving him property to manage was going to make him grow up and turn out better, but it never did. And Johnny then ended up dying of one of those dreadful malignant fevers that people used to get and die of in like overnight practically. And he was the oldest son. And Philip Schuyler was devastated because he loved all of his children, even when he was exasperated by them. But Philip named after his father after first disappointing his father by marrying a young woman who Philip Schuyler disapproved of and thought was stupid and not very interesting, she then, fortunately for the family, she then died and young Philip married a very, very glamorous, wealthy, well connected and actually sort of proto feminist young woman from Massachusetts, Marianne Schuyler. And he became a one term representative to the United States Congress where he voted against admitting Kansas as a slave state to the Union. Because he, by that time, this man who had been. He'd had enslaved servants in his house as a young man. But he had turned over time and by the time of the Missouri Compromise he was anti slavery and voted for it. Yeah, his principles.

Interviewer (23:35)

Yeah, I did want to bring up that issue about enslaved people. There were many children, multiple homes. What was the Schuyler's involvement with enslavement?

Amanda Vail (23:44)

Well, you know, like virtually everyone of their time, of theirs, not even just of their social class, they had enslaved people working on their estate. And because they had a large estate, they had more enslaved people than, say, a small farmer in Massachusetts. It's pretty shocking for us, I think now, to realize because for centuries, I think we've told ourselves, well, you know, New England was different. Nobody had slaves. Well, they did. And in small New England homesteads, there were enslaved people working in many cases alongside their enslavers, which is a kind of fascinating thing. You don't, you don't think about that either. But there would be, you know, the, the lady of the house doing the laundry on laundry day next door to the, with the, the women who were her enslaved servants. And it's just, you know, kind of odd to see that that was happening, but it was. But over time, when you think, you start, I'm starting this book in 1750s, in the 1750s, and I go through until the 1850s. Philip Schuyler died in 1804. And this man who'd had, you know, easily, there were, I think, 14 enslaved people working in his house in Albany. And this is not including whoever was on the estate in Saratoga by the time he died, he, I, his executors manumitted every single person who was enslaved and working in his household, with the exception of two people who were, I believe, too old to have been manumitted people. It was not considered proper, safe, kind, legitimate, barely legal to manumit people when they were past the age of being able to fend for themselves. So, you know, you were basically obligated to support them until the end of their life. But everyone else, they were freed. And you, so what you're seeing is you're seeing people get to this completely different frame of mind. They start thinking, well, of course, everybody's always done this. This is the way we do it. And then you get to, no, we don't do this anymore. And Eliza Morton Quincy, who was a woman, who was the actually sister in law of the Schuyler sisters her brother had married. Cornelia, the second youngest daughter, wrote a memoir in which she said that she had been brought up in New Jersey with enslaved people working on her family's estate and that they had none of them thought about it until she said, someone explained that this was wrong. And she said our minds had not been turned to reason on the subject, but then they were. And, you know, you realize this people needed to be told and taught and to learn, and many of them did, and I want to give them credit for it. And to the people that it didn't happen to, I don't want to blame them for behaving the way they did.

Interviewer (27:31)

That was Amanda Vale, the author of Pride and the Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution. Tomorrow the Life and Times of Angelica Schuyler.

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