Jefferson and Hamilton

by John Ferling

  38. John Selby, The Revolution in Virginia, 1775–1783 (Williamsburg and Charlottesville, Va., 1988), 209.

  39. Alf Mapp, Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1987–1991), 1:128–29.

  40. TJ to Lee, June 17, 1779, PTJ 2:298; TJ to William Phillips, June 25, 1779, ibid., 3:15.

  41. TJ to William Phillips, June 25, 1779, PTJ 3:15; Fleming to TJ, May 22, 1779, ibid., 2:269.

  42. TJ to John Jay, June 19, 1779, PTJ 3:5; Michael Kranish, Flight from Monticello: Thomas Jefferson at War (New York, 2010), 114–17; Michael A. McDonnell, The Politics of War: Race, Class, and Conflict in Revolutionary Virginia (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2007), 343–44.

  43. GW to TJ, December 11, 1779, PTJ 3:217.

  44. Board of War to TJ, December 23, 1779, PTJ 3:238–40; TJ to Benjamin Harrison, December 23, 1779, ibid., 241; TJ to Lee, January 2, 1789, ibid., 3:260.

  45. TJ to the Board of War, November 15, 18, December 23, 1779, January 19, 1780, PTJ 3:186, 193–94, 240, 264; Board of War to TJ, November 15, 16, December 11, 16, 23, 1779, March 23, 1780, ibid., 3:187–89, 215, 223, 238, 330; TJ, Instructions to Inspector of Stores and Provisions, January 25, 1780, ibid., 3:269.

  46. McDonnell, Politics of War, 277, 393–94, 411–19; L. Scott Philyaw, “A Slave for Every Soldier: The Strange History of Virginia’s Forgotten Recruitment Act of 1 January 1781,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 109 (2001), 367–86; Kranish, Flight from Monticello, 130; TJ to GW, December 16, 1779, PTJ 3:228; TJ, Form of Recruiting Commission, [November 28, 1780], ibid., 3:330; Henry to TJ, February 15, 1780, ibid., 3:293.

  47. TJ to Lee, June 17, 1779, PTJ 2:298; TJ to GW, June 19, 1779, ibid., 3:6; TJ to George Rogers Clark, January 1, 1780, ibid., 3:258.

  48. TJ to GW, September 26, 1779, December 13, 1780, PTJ 3:665; 4:204; TJ to Clark, December 25, 1780, February 19, 1781, ibid., 4:233, 653.

  49. GW to Lafayette, March 8[– 10], 1779, WW 14:219; GW to Committee of Conference, January 8, 1779, ibid., 13:485–91; GW to TJ, April 15, 1779, PTJ 3:352; Ferling, Almost a Miracle, 347.

  50. TJ to GW, February 17, 1780, PTJ 3:297.

  51. TJ to Philip Mazzei, May 31, 1780, PTJ 3:405.

  52. TJ to Lee, September 13, 1780, PTJ 3:642.

  53. TJ to Samuel Huntington, June 9, 1780, PTJ 3:427; TJ to GW, June 11, 1780, ibid., 3:432; TJ to Horatio Gates, August 4, September 3, 1780, ibid., 3:526, 588.

  54. TJ to GW, July 2, 1780, PTJ 3:478.

  55. GW to TJ, July 18, 1780, PTJ 3:489–90.

  56. Ferling, Almost a Miracle, 437–43.

  57. AH to Boudinot, July 5, 1778, PAH 1:512; AH to James Duane, September 6, October 18, 1780, ibid., 2:420–21, 479; AH to ESH, September 6, 1780, ibid., 2:422.

  58. TJ to Gates, September 3, 1780, PTJ 3:588; TJ to Huntington, September 3, 14, 1780, ibid., 3:589–90, 647–48; TJ to North Carolina Board of War, September 23, 1780, ibid., 3:659; TJ to GW, September 23, 1780, ibid., 3:660.

  59. TJ to Huntington, October 25, 1780, PTJ 4:67; GW to TJ, September 11, October 10, 1780, ibid., 3:639; 4:27. TJ also thought the British unlikely to send a large force southward so long as the French fleet, superior in size to the Royal Navy in the Chesapeake region, remained in North American waters. See TJ to Huntington, September 14, 1780, ibid., 3:647.

  60. Thomas Nelson to TJ, October 21, 1780, PTJ 4:54–55; TJ, Steps to Be Taken to Repel General Leslie’s Army, October 22[?], 1780, ibid., 4:61–63; TJ to Gates, October 28, 1780, ibid., 4:78; Ferling, Almost a Miracle, 477.

  61. Quoted in Carl P. Borick, A Gallant Defense: The Siege of Charleston, 1780 (Columbia, S.C., 2003), 230, 233.

  62. Ferling, Almost a Miracle, 451–63.

  63. See Theodore Thayer, Nathanael Greene: Strategist of the Revolution (New York, 1960); Terry Golway, Washington’s General: Nathanael Greene and the Triumph of the American Revolution (New York, 2005); Gerald M. Carbone, Nathanael Greene: A Biography of the American Revolution (New York, 2010).

  64. General Greene’s Requisition for the Southern Army, November 20, 1780, PTJ 4:133–34; Greene to TJ, November 20, 1780, ibid., 4:130–32.

  65. TJ to Friedrich von Steuben, December 4, 6, 8, 21, 30, PTJ 4:178, 185, 188–89, 219–20, 250; Steuben to TJ, December 28, 1780, ibid., 4:244; Greene to TJ, December 6, 1780, ibid., 4:183.

  66. TJ to Steuben, December 21, 1780, PTJ 4:219.

  67. TJ to Virginia Delegates in Congress, October 27, 1780, PTJ 4:4:77; Kranish, Flight from Monticello, 138–39.

  68. TJ to GW, October 22, 1780, PTJ 4:60; Page to TJ, December 9, 1780, ibid., 4:192. On GW’s despair in the dark days of the New York campaign in 1776, see GW to John Augustine Washington, September 22, 1776, PGWR 6:371–74.

  69. GW to TJ, November 8, December 9, 1780, PTJ 4:105, 195.

  70. TJ, Diary of Arnold’s Invasion and Notes on Subsequent Events in 1781 [The 1796? Version], December 31, 1780, January 1, 1781, PTJ 4:258; Arnold’s Invasion as Reported by TJ in the Virginia Gazette, January 13, 1781, ibid., 4:269.

  71. For the account of Arnold’s invasion and raid on Richmond, see TJ, Diary of Arnold’s Invasion, January 2–5, 1781, PTJ 4:258–59; TJ, Virginia Gazette, January 13, 1781, ibid., 4:269–70; Depositions of Archibald Blair, Daniel Hylton, and James Currie, October 12, 1796, ibid., 4:271–72; TJ to GW, January 10, 1781, ibid., 4:333–35; TJ to George Weedon, January 10, 1781, ibid., 4:335–36; Kranish, Flight from Monticello, 167–99; Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 222–25.

  72. Willard M. Wallace, Traitorous Hero: The Life and Fortunes of Benedict Arnold (New York, 1954), 274.

  73. Quoted in McDonnell, Politics of War, 402.

  74. Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 223–24; John Ferling, Setting the World Ablaze: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and the American Revolution (New York, 2000), 232. The Page and Pendleton quotes can be found in Kranish, Flight from Monticello, 203–4.

  75. Kranish, Flight from Monticello, 216–17; TJ to J. P. G. Muhlenberg, January 31, 1781, PTJ 4:487.

  CHAPTER 5: “OUR AFFAIRS SEEM TO BE APPROACHING FAST TO A HAPPY PERIOD”: GLORY FOR HAMILTON, MISERY FOR JEFFERSON

  Chernow, AH, 154–66; Miller, AH, 62–79; Flexner, Young AH, 330–74; Mitchell, AH, 1:222–61; Malone, TJ, 1:330–69; Peterson, TJ, 203–40.

  1. James Lovell to JA, January 2, 1781, LDC 16:537; John Ferling, Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence (New York, 2007), 468–69, 476.

  2. AH to Robert Morris, April 30, 1780, PAH 2:605, 633.

  3. AH to Laurens, September 12, 16, 1780, PAH 2:428, 431.

  4. AH to Laurens, February 4, 1781, PAH 2:550; AH to Duane, September 6, 1780, ibid., 2:421.

  5. AH to Schuyler, February 18, 1781, PAH 2:565–67, 566n; AH to James McHenry, February 18, 1781, ibid., 2:569.

  6. AH to Schuyler, February 18, 1781, PAH 2:563–68; AH to Greene, April 19, 1781, ibid., 2:595.

  7. AH to GW, April 27, 1781, PAH 2:600–601; GW to AH, April 27, 1781, ibid., 2:601–3.

  8. Greene to TJ, February 15, 1781, PAH 4:615.

  9. Lawrence E. Babit, A Devil of a Whipping: The Battle of Cowpens (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1998).

  10. Greene to TJ, February 15, 28, March 10, 1781, PTJ 4:615–16; 5:23, 111–12.

  11. GW to TJ, February 6, 1781, PTJ 4:543–44; TJ to Steuben, January 14, February 7, 12, 16, March 10, 1781, ibid., 4:357–58, 555, 592–93, 633; 5:117–20; Michael Kranish, Flight from Monticello: Thomas Jefferson at War (New York, 2010), 224–26.

  12. GW to TJ, February 6, 1781, PTJ 5:543.

  13. TJ to Huntington, January 15, 1781, PTJ 4:399; TJ, Circular Letter to the Members of the Assembly, January 23, 1781, ibid., 4:433–34; TJ to Steuben, January 29, 1781, ibid., 4:477; TJ, Proclamation, February 2, 1781, ibid., 4:505.

  14. TJ to Huntington, January 15, 1781, PTJ 4:370.

  15. GW to the Marquis de Lafayette, February 20, 1781, in Stanley J. Idzerda, ed., Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution: Selected Letters and Papers (Ithaca, N.Y., 1977), 3:333–34.

  16. GW to TJ, February 21,
1781, PTJ 4:683; TJ to Lafayette, March 2, 1781, ibid., 5:43; Lafayette to TJ, March 3, 1781, ibid., 5:49–51; Steuben to TJ, March 5, 1781, ibid., 5:66.

  17. Ferling, Almost a Miracle, 502–3; Lafayette to TJ, March 26, 1781, PTJ 5:261; Lafayette to GW, March 26, 1781, Idzerda, Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution, 3:417–18.

  18. Greene to TJ, March 10, 16, 1781, PTJ 5:112, 156; Lawrence E. Babit and Joshua B. Howard, Long, Obstinate, and Bloody: The Battle of Guilford Court house (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2009).

  19. Greene to TJ, March 23, 31, 1781, PTJ 5:215, 301–2.

  20. Steuben, Proposal for an Expedition Against Cornwallis, March 27, 1781; Idzerda, Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution, 3:419–20; Lafayette on Steuben’s Proposed Expedition, March 27, 1781, ibid., 420–21; Lee to TJ, March 27, 1781, PTJ 5:252; George Weedon to TJ, March 27, 1781, ibid., 5:267; Harry M. Ward, Duty, Honor or Country: General George Weedon and the American Revolution (Philadelphia, 1979), 177–82.

  21. Greene to TJ, April 6, 1781, PTJ 5:361. The Weedon quotation is in Peterson, TJ, 226. Greene’s “lifeless” quotation is in Kranish, Flight from Monticello, 204.

  22. TJ to Chevalier la Luzerne, April 12, 1781, PTJ 5:421–22.

  23. For a general account of Greene’s war in the South, see Ferling, Almost a Miracle, 463–66, 477–500, 505–16.

  24. TJ to Speaker of the House of Delegates, May 10, 1781, PTJ 5:626; Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 272–74; Kranish, Flight from Monticello, 233, 240–51.

  25. TJ to James Wood, October 5, 1780, PTJ 4:14–15; TJ to the Virginia Delegates to Congress, October 27, 1780, ibid., 4:76–77; TJ to Lee, September 13, 1780, ibid., 3:642.

  26. See David Ramsay, The History of the American Revolution (reprint, Indianapolis, 1990), 2:27; and Ferling, Almost a Miracle, 386–87.

  27. TJ to la Luzerne, April 12, 1781, PTJ 5:421.

  28. Ferling, Almost a Miracle, 508–9.

  29. TJ to Those Appointed by Lafayette to Remove Horses out of the Route of the Enemy, [May 15, 1781], PTJ 5:655; TJ to GW, May 9, 1781, ibid., 5:623.

  30. The quotations can be found in James Haw, John and Edward Rutledge of South Carolina (Athens, Ga., 1997), 123–24.

  31. TJ to GW, May 28, 1781, PTJ 6:33.

  32. Lafayette to TJ, April 25, 1781, PTJ 5:554.

  33. Baron Ludwig von Closen, The Revolutionary Journal of Baron Ludwig von Closen, 1780–1783, ed. Evelyn Acomb (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1958), 86; Conference with Rochambeau, May 23, 1781, WW 22:105–7; GW to Greene, June 1, 1781, ibid., 22:146; Edward G. Lengel, General George Washington (New York, 2005), 329–30. The quotations are in James T. Flexner, George Washington and the American Revolution, 1775–1783 (Boston, 1968), 429, 430.

  34. AH to ESH, July 10, 1781, PAH 2:647; AH to GW, May 2, 1781, ibid., 2:636–38.

  35. TJ to the Members of Assembly for Fluvanna and Certain Other Counties, May 1, 1781, PTJ 5:585. The “unmolested” quotation is in Kranish, Flight from Monticello, 269.

  36. Lafayette to GW, May 24, 1781, Idzerda, Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution, 4:130–31; Ferling, Almost a Miracle, 511–12.

  37. TJ, Diary of Arnold’s Invasion [The 1796? Version], PTJ 4:260–61; TJ, Speech to Jean Baptiste Ducoigne, June 1, 1781, ibid., 6:60–63; TJ to François de Barbé-Marbois, March 4, 1781, ibid., 5:58.

  38. TJ to the Speaker of the House of Delegates, May 10, 1781, ibid., 5:627; Michael A. McDonnell, The Politics of War: Race, Class, and Conflict in Revolutionary Virginia (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2007), 462.

  39. TJ to Joseph Reed, June 3, 1781, PTJ 6:74; TJ to the Surveyor of Monongalia County, June 3, 1781, ibid., 6:76.

  40. TJ, Diary of Arnold’s Invasion [The 1796? Version], PTJ 4:261.

  41. Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (New York, 2008), 138–39.

  42. Kranish, Flight from Monticello, 283–84.

  43. JMB 1:510, 510–11n; Kranish, Flight from Monticello, 286.

  44. JMB 1:511; Kranish, Flight from Monticello, 284; TJ to William Gordon, July 16, 1788, PTJ 13:363.

  45. TJ to Edmund Randolph, September 16, 1781, PTJ 6:118.

  46. John Beckley to TJ [Enclosing a Resolution of the House of Delegates], June 12, 1781, PTJ 6:88; Archibald Cary to TJ, June 19, 1781, ibid., 6:97; TJ to George Nicholas, July 28, 1781, ibid., 6:105.

  47. Huntington to TJ [Enclosing a Resolution of Congress Appointing Peace Commissioners], June 15, 1781, PTJ 6:94–95.

  48. George Nicholas to TJ, July 31, 1781, PTJ 6:105–6; Charges Advanced … with Jefferson’s Answers [After July 31, 1781], ibid., 6:106–8.

  49. AH to ESH, July 10, 13, PAH 2:647, 652–53; GW, General Orders, July 31, 1781, ibid., 2:658.

  50. AH to ESH, July 13, 1781, PAH 2:652.

  51. AH, “The Continentalist,” nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4 [July– August 1781], PAH 2:649–52, 654–57, 660–65, 669–74. The quotes can be found in ibid., 2:651, 652, 661, 663, 673.

  52. Lengel, General George Washington, 332; GW to Rochambeau, June 13, 1781, WW 22:208; Conference at Dobbs Ferry, July 19, 1781, ibid., 22:396–97; Donald Jackson et al., eds., The Diaries of George Washington (Charlottesville, Va., 1976–1979), 3:397, 399, 404–5.

  53. Jackson, Diaries of George Washington, 3:406, 407, 409, 413, 414–16; Richard M. Ket-chum, Victory at Yorktown: The Campaign That Won the Revolution (New York, 2004), 151, 159; Lengel, General George Washington, 333, 335; Ferling, Almost a Miracle, 523–30; Flexner, George Washington and the American Revolution, 441, 444; Douglas Southall Freeman, George Washington: A Biography (New York, 1948–1957), 5:314, 525–28; GW to Lafayette, August 21, September 10, 1781, WW 23:11, 34; Lafayette to GW, August 25, 1781, Idzerda, Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution, 4:357.

  54. AH to ESH, August 16, 22, September 6, 15–18, October 12, 1781, PAH 2:666, 667, 675, 678.

  55. AH to ESH, September 6, 1781, PAH 2:675.

  56. AH to GW, April 27, 1781, PAH 2:601.

  57. AH to ESH, October 12, 1781, PAH 2:678.

  58. AH to ESH, October 16, 1781, PAH 2:682.

  59. AH to Lafayette, October 15, 1781, PAH 2:679–82. For GW’s laudatory comments about AH’s bravery, see Mitchell, AH, 1:259.

  60. TJ to Thomas Mann Randolph Jr., July 13, 1806, Ford, WTJ 8:459.

  61. TJ to Lafayette, August 4, 1781, PTJ 6:111–12; TJ to Isaac Zane, December 24, 1781, ibid., 6:143.

  62. TJ, Diary of Arnold’s Invasion [The 1796? Version], PTJ 4:262; Resolution of Thanks to Jefferson by the Virginia General Assembly, December 12, 1781, ibid., 6:135–36.

  63. TJ to Lafayette, August 4, 1781, PTJ 6:112.

  64. AH to GW, March 1, 1782, PAH 3:4, 5.

  CHAPTER 6: “THE INEFFICACY OF THE PRESENT CONFEDERATION”: GRIEF AND INTRIGUE

  Brodie, TJ, 184–232; Cunningham, TJ, 84–89; Peterson, TJ, 241–96; Malone, TJ, 1:373–423; Chernow, AH, 167–84; McDonald, AH, 43–48.

  1. TJ to James Monroe, May 20, 1782, PTJ 6:184–86.

  2. TJ to McKean, August 4, 1781, PTJ 6:113; TJ to the Speaker of the House of Delegates, May 6, 1782, ibid., 6:179; TJ to Monroe, May 20, 1782, ibid., 6:184–86; TJ, Autobiography, in Padover, CTJ, 1156–57.

  3. TJ to Marbois, December 20, 1781, PTJ 6:141–42.

  4. Quoted in Kevin J. Hayes, The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 2008), 240.

  5. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, ed. William Peden (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1955), 87, 137–40.

  6. JA to TJ, May 22, 1785, AJL 1:21.

  7. TJ, Notes on the State of Virginia, 157–61. The quotation can be found on page 159.

  8. Ibid., 118–29, 209–22; TJ, Draft of a Constitution for Virginia, [May– June 1783], PTJ 6:294–308. On TJ’s three constitutional drafts in 1776, ibid., 1:337–65. Some in this paragraph draw on Peter S. Onuf, “Jefferson and American Democracy,” in Francis D. Cogliano, ed., A Companion to Thomas Jefferson (Chichester, England, 2011), 397–418.

  9. TJ to Mr. Lithgrow, January 4,
1805, L & B, WTJ 11:55–56.

  10. TJ to Thomas Pleasants, May 8, 1786, PTJ 9:473.

  11. TJ, Notes on the State of Virginia, 117–29, 164–65. My section on TJ and manufacturing draws on the insightful section in Jean M. Yarbrough, American Virtues: Thomas Jefferson on the Character of a Free People (Lawrence, Kans., 1998), 71–77.

  12. TJ, Notes on the State of Virginia, 121.

  13. Howard C. Rice Jr., ed., Travels in North America in the Years 1780, 1781 and 1782 by the Marquis de Chastellux (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1963), 1:2–24; 2:389–96.

  14. TJ to Monroe, May 20, 1782, PTJ 6:186; TJ to Chastellux, November 26, 1782, ibid., 6:203. The accounts left by Randolph and TJ’s daughter Martha can be found in ibid., 6:186–87n. On Martha Jefferson’s health and final illness, see Jon Kukla, Mr. Jefferson’s Women (New York, 2007), 78–85; and Virginia Scharff, The Women Jefferson Loved (New York, 2010), 142–50.

  15. TJ to Elizabeth Wayles Eppes, October 3[?], 1782, PTJ 6:198. For the inscription on the tombstone, see Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson (New York, 2010), 93.

  16. AH to Richard Kidder Meade, March 1782, PAH 3:69.

  17. AH to Lafayette, November 3, 1782, PAH 3:192; Duane to AH, May 5, 1782, ibid., 3:88.

  18. AH to Robert Morris, July 13, August 13, 1782, PAH 3:108, 135; AH, “The Continentalist,” nos. 5 and 6 [April 18 and July 4, 1782], ibid., 3:75–82, 99–106. The “great Federal Republic” quotation is on page 106.

  19. AH to Richard Kidder Meade, August 27, 1782, PAH 3:151; Morris to AH, September 12, 1782, ibid., 3:164, 164n; AH to Morris, September 28, 1782, ibid., 3:170; AH to the Public Creditors of the State of New York, September 30, 1782, ibid., 171–76. On the assembly’s resolution, see ibid., 3:241n.

  20. On JM’s background, see Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson; Lance Banning, The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic (Ithaca, N.Y., 1995); and Jack Rakove, James Madison and the Creation of the Federal Republic (Glenview, Ill., 1990). The foreign observer is quoted in Brookhiser, AH, 52. On JM’s view, see JM to TJ, April 22, 1783, PTJ 6:263.