As it happened, Ogden had not forgotten Burr. Rather, he’d done for Burr what Burr would likely never have done for him. He’d secured Burr a chance to experience one of those “caresses of the great”—by serving on the staff of General Washington. Washington responded to the good word from Ogden by issuing Burr an invitation to meet him at Richmond Hill in early June. Burr had been released to New York by the time that message arrived, and he arrived at Washington’s headquarters with alacrity. The tall, taciturn commander looked over this intrepid young soldier and briskly appointed him a member of his staff—or “family,” as he preferred to say, stressing the loyalty and intimacy of the arrangement.
Burr was gone ten days later, never to speak of the matter again. Nor did Washington. So it is unknown what transpired. Obviously, Burr rubbed Washington the wrong way. Burr’s coppery self-assurance and innate hauteur may have irritated a commander in chief; his air of mystery may have incurred mistrust from a man who lived by candor; or his passion for romance may have struck Washington as unsoldierly. Or it might be that Burr simply did not find himself suited for a desk job and preferred to win glory in the field. In the face of any such profound difference, Washington was not inclined to make an accommodation for someone so untried, and Burr was never one to conform. Ever after, Washington dismissed Burr as an “intriguer” and never again welcomed him into his inner circle. Burr never returned to Richmond Hill during the war, but afterward, when he emerged as a prosperous lawyer in the city, he purchased Richmond Hill as his own estate.
ELEVEN
When in the Course of Human Events
TRUST WAS ESSENTIAL, for there were indeed intriguers everywhere. In June of 1776, the former royal governor and other loyalists in New York City had gotten to a member of Washington’s personal guard, Sergeant Thomas Hickey, and persuaded him to use his proximity to murder Washington, whereupon other conspirators would descend with knives on his staff officers. The plot was exposed in time, and Hickey was taken to the gallows, defiant until nearly the end, when he burst into tears at the sight of the noose dangling before him. Hamilton had been sending dispatches back to readers on Saint Croix, and he delivered an excited account of the “barbarous and infernal plot” but ended on a more sober note: “It is hoped that the miscreants now in our possession will meet with a punishment adequate to their crimes.”
There was an eerie stillness to New York through the month, as the few thousand patriots who dared remain waited for the British fleet to come. And then, on July 2, the British sailed into the harbor—an unimaginably vast armada of three hundred ships that clogged the sea with their massive, battle-ready hulls and filled the skies with their flapping sails, altogether a prodigious sight. Staring from rooftops, the motley Continental Army watched agog. “I thought all London was afloat,” said one soldier. The ships anchored off New Jersey’s Sandy Hook, tauntingly visible from the city, and then, to a lively tune that echoed contemptuously across the water, they disgorged an astounding thirty-two thousand redcoats, including more than eight thousand of the fearsome Hessian mercenaries, a vaster count than the population of New York even at its height, let alone then, when so many citizens had fled. Washington had put that beefy Bostonian Henry Knox in charge of the fortifications, and he’d shifted Hamilton’s artillery company, now bolstered by thirty-two-pounders, to star-shaped Fort George down on the Battery. From there, Hamilton had a clear line of sight at this display of might across the water and wisely kept his guns silent.
Two days later, as if in response, came July Fourth, when America officially broke from England with a ringing declaration of war from Philadelphia called the Declaration of Independence. The announcement went unnoticed elsewhere that day since it took riders several days more to fan out through the colonies with the news. As it happened, Hamilton passed the Fourth hunting for a pocketbook he’d left somewhere around the fort. It was stuffed with nearly all the money he possessed, but he could be clumsy about such things. He ended up placing an advertisement for the missing item in one of the loyalist newspapers, the only ones still operating, which was likely greeted only with derision. The pocketbook never turned up.
Washington received a full copy of the Declaration several days later and ordered it to be read out to the regiments “with an audible voice.” It was just words, not ships or guns or soldiers, words that may have seemed beside the point, like responding to a cannonball with a puff of feathers, but those words had power, and they did much to counter the daunting arrival of the British armada. “When in the course of human events . . .” The words were a lyric that created its own music. For all the swelling rhetoric, the most powerful line was probably the first one about the “thirteen united States of America.” Not colonies of Britain, but states of America. The break was made. Never before in all of history had a colony turned against the mother country, let alone tried to establish itself as a democracy, a form of government that had not been tried since the Romans, and put forth high-flown principles about liberty and equality among all men, universal principles that had never before, anywhere in the world, been considered a basis of existence. Yet this document did all this in a manner that was both credible and inspiring. Hamilton heard Thomas Jefferson’s words in his dress uniform with the rest of his artillery company on the New York Common, the confident, lyrical phrases spreading through the troops like a fresh breeze. Everyone listened in awed silence, stirred by the sudden contact with eternity, and then, electrified, many of the soldiers burst off the common to go rampaging through the streets, knocking down British pub signs, tipping the massive equestrian statue of George III—gilded, in Roman garb—off its pedestal, and hauling it away to melt down for bullets.
WHEN HAMILTON RETURNED to his post at Fort George, he was alert for any sign that the British were preparing to bombard the city, and on July 12, the sign was unmistakable: a huge forty-four-gun warship, the Phoenix, and a smaller frigate, the Rose, raised their sails, detached themselves from the rest of the fleet, now anchored off Staten Island, and made for the Hudson, firing their big guns on the city as they went. Fort George took a heavy pounding, which Hamilton tried to return with his own much smaller cannon—until catastrophe struck. One of his cannons exploded, sending hunks of red-hot lead everywhere, killing six of his men and injuring maybe a dozen more. It appeared the gunners had gotten drunk to celebrate the Declaration and failed to swab the cannon shaft properly. Afraid he might be held responsible, Hamilton was furious. But already admired by his superiors, he faced no official reprimand.
With the British assault, Washington ordered the last New Yorkers, about five thousand in all, to leave the city, turning New York into a ghost town except for the soldiers girding to defend it. Anticipating an invasion of British troops but not knowing where, Washington spread his own meager forces out over Manhattan and across the East River to Brooklyn. Hamilton was with his artillery company posted at Brooklyn Heights, ready to move in any direction. But the British only pretended to be preparing an invasion on Manhattan. The crafty General Sir William Howe—brother to Admiral Howe, who directed the fleet—was in charge of the invading land forces, and he shifted his troops to the undefended Long Island coast, well to the east.
After the falling-out with Washington, Burr by this time had found a more congenial post, as aide-de-camp to General Israel Putnam, or “Ol’ Put,” as Burr called him, the kind of nickname he would never have given Washington. Although Burr’s was fundamentally a desk job, Putnam gave him freedom to take the field, and, sensing the British might land on Long Island, he’d gone prowling out there largely on his own. Convinced that was the invasion point, Burr raced back to Putnam, who rushed his troops there, but it was too late. The British were already pouring onto Long Island, overwhelming the sparse resistance, and then pushing inexorably toward Brooklyn, slaughtering any Americans they encountered along the way. Burr dropped back with Putnam’s men to Brooklyn, too, and there Washington scrambled to shore up the ci
ty’s emplacements along the East River, barring the way to the prize of Manhattan.
Hamilton and his artillery company were up in Brooklyn Heights when the British attacked the patriots arrayed haphazardly about Brooklyn, and he could do little to halt the redcoats’ merciless advance. The invaders were bent on pushing all of Washington’s army into the East River. By luck, the skies darkened late that afternoon, a drenching rain started to fall, and General Howe suspended his attack, figuring he would kill off the rest of Washington’s army in the morning. But the night was moonless, the waters of the East River were enfolded in darkness, and the rain muffled the movements of Washington’s men. Washington was able to evacuate what was left of them to Manhattan in dozens of commandeered skiffs, while the exhausted British soldiers slumbered not far away. Hamilton’s men stood guard while Burr’s company rowed across. His own squad was one of the last to be ferried across, but, when his men were safely across, Washington himself took the final boat.
Hamilton and Burr may have intersected hours later, after Burr learned that a brigade under Knox’s command had been caught behind the British lines near Bayard’s Hill Redoubt, a fort up from the Hudson on the far side of the island. It was still pouring rain, and well past midnight, making it all the more difficult to find his way about. But from his visits to a country home nearby, and his rambles through the woods, most likely with a young lady, Burr picked a trail to the redoubt where he could safely gather Knox’s men. Hamilton and his men were in the vicinity, drowning in rain, and they may have needed Burr’s help, too, although neither man mentions it. Hamilton may not have wanted to portray himself as the rescued and not the rescuer, and Burr’s records are spotty in any case. If it did occur, it was the first actual contact between the two men, and the second looping of the spider’s thread. Burr’s commander, Brigadier General Gold Selleck Silliman, wished to keep his men at the fort, thinking escape was impossible, but Burr insisted he lead them away before the enemy converged on them. When Silliman refused, Burr charged off in a fury—only to double back to say that he’d received instructions from Washington for him to evacuate the position. That wasn’t true, but Silliman thought it was, and he obediently followed Burr up to Washington’s temporary headquarters in Harlem Heights. Hamilton found his way there, too, rain drenched and furious to have been separated from his horse, his baggage, and his company’s cannons. It was his first meeting with Washington, and it would lead to a collaboration that would win a war and create a country. It was Burr’s last. Having been banished from Washington’s so-called family, he would never restore himself to the commander in chief’s good graces. So when Hamilton and Burr met on the Heights, one was coming, the other going—establishing a pattern that would govern their interactions for the rest of their lives. Washington hovered over them both, not just inspiring Burr to purchase Richmond Hill but stirring Hamilton to build his dream house, the Grange, on the Heights.
From there, the men could see clear down to the city by the harbor, swarming now with fevered British troops and angry loyalists looting stores and burning buildings by the square block, sending up thick black plumes of smoke that rose to the low, gray clouds. King’s College had been commandeered by the British army, and all the school’s books torched, adding poignancy to the conflagration.
WHATEVER HE’D MADE of Burr, Washington could not fail to be impressed by this precise young captain Hamilton. When Washington retreated from New York in October, he ran into the British at White Plains, and the redcoats ripped the Americans apart while a military band played. Only Hamilton’s artillery company, up on a high ledge, performed brilliantly, as his men were able to pick off dozens of redcoats wading across the Harlem River. Forced again to retreat, Washington at least tried to hold the Hudson by erecting defensive forts on either side of the mouth of the river and running a vast chain across the water. But on November 16, when Washington was at Fort Lee on the New Jersey side gazing across at Manhattan’s Fort Washington, he watched through his spyglass in horror as the fort was stormed by a mass of British and Hessian soldiers, who butchered the Americans before his eyes. Fort Lee fell soon after. All the Hudson was Britain’s.
Washington withdrew to New Jersey to save what was left of his army. He’d thought of taking on the British at New Brunswick by the Raritan River but decided to send his troops splashing across the river in full retreat, while Hamilton’s company provided artillery cover. From there, Washington crossed the Delaware into Pennsylvania, playing possum, waiting to hit the British with surprise attacks on more favorable terms. For all Hamilton’s bravado, he collapsed under the strain, just as Burr had, that December. Desperate for a victory to boost morale, Washington roused Hamilton from his sickbed, and, ignoring the bitter cold and deep snow, the two men joined Lord Stirling’s company to pole a cargo boat back across the ice-cold Delaware and then haul two cannons eight miles through heavy snow to the British camp at Trenton. There, the day after Christmas, the Americans caught a Hessian detachment drowsing by campfires, tipsy from yuletide ale.
Hamilton’s artillery company fired off a series of thundering cannon blasts that shattered the camp and sent the groggy soldiers stumbling out into the snow. Woozy and baffled, a thousand Hessians were captured, by far the greatest American victory in the war.
Flush with that conquest, Washington chased the British to their encampment in Princeton, where the troops were billeted in the vast Nassau Hall of Rev. Aaron Burr Sr. At least one American was able to idle at the sight. A senior officer recorded this image: “I noticed a youth, a mere stripling, with a cocked hat pulled down over his eyes, apparently lost in thought, with his hand resting on a cannon, and every now and then patting it, as if it were a favorite horse or pet plaything.” Then the stripling let loose with ferocious cannon blasts that drove two hundred British soldiers out into the yard to surrender.
After the battle, much of Washington’s army pushed on to winter quarters in Morristown, forty miles north of Princeton, but Hamilton’s artillery company made camp in the snow on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River, in Bucks County, to protect the fledgling colonial government in Philadelphia from any attack by Howe’s army. Still unwell, Hamilton himself retreated to the city, where he recuperated from an undescribed disease that Hugh Knox later called “a long and dangerous illness.” He was still ailing when this item appeared in the Pennsylvania Evening Post of January 25, 1777: “Captain Alexander Hamilton of the New York Company of Artillery, by applying to the printer of this paper, may hear of something to his advantage.” Hamilton didn’t have the strength to find out what, but he soon received the explanation from Washington, who sent him a note inviting Hamilton to join his staff as an aide-de-camp with a promotion to lieutenant colonel.
Lying back on his cot, still weak, Hamilton wasn’t entirely pleased. He’d always longed for the glory of a field command, the kind that Burr had possessed, not a desk job—“confined from morning to evening, hearing and answering . . . applications and letters.”
But there was no saying no, and Hamilton soon was able to rouse himself to find Washington’s Morristown headquarters in Jacob Arnold’s tavern, a stout building with a wide front porch, a rabbit warren of tight rooms and smoky fireplaces. The bare wooden floors must have drummed with all the heavy boots and deep voices. Twenty aides bent to tasks during the day, a half dozen sleeping to a room at night. Washington chose his men well: his personal lawyer Robert Hanson Harrison, Tench Tilghman, Richard Kidder Meade—they were all quick men, shrewd soldiers, and smart horsemen besides. Impressive as the others were, it wasn’t long before Hamilton, with his abundance of talents, emerged as Washington’s “principal and most confidential aide,” and the general’s voice boomed regularly throughout the house with one command: “Call Colonel Hamilton!”
At night, Hamilton shared the officers’ quarters with the commander. The two could hardly have looked more different. At six foot four, the heavyset, grim-faced Washington to
wered over the slender, youthful Hamilton, his ample hair that strawberry blond. Washington communicated best by not speaking—Adams said he had a “gift of silence.” No one ever said that of Hamilton. “A bright gleam of sunshine,” General Nathanael Greene called him, although another said Hamilton’s intensity drove others to “fear and hate him cordially.” Energetic, cogent, knowledgeable, quick-witted, a brilliant writer, he was made for impossible tasks. He had ready access to a tone of absolute authority, whether he’d been steeped in a subject for half an hour or for a lifetime; his writing voice had dropped a register to capture the basso profundo of a taciturn Virginian twice his age. As Hamilton’s mastery of military details expanded and solidified, Washington relied not just on his writing skills, but also on his judgment. The first dispatches revealed the range of the job: a bid to reduce the sentence of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell of the Seventy-First Regiment of the British army, who was being held prisoner in Concord, Massachusetts; a request to Major General Horatio Gates to inoculate two Virginia brigades; a letter to Benedict Arnold to discuss his plans to invade Rhode Island; a note to Brigadier General George Clinton that he should decide for himself where to place the cannons on the Hudson River, and so on. The dispatches were an education in the vast cosmology of war. Four days into it, in Washington’s name, Hamilton settled on the essential principles of prisoner exchange with the British in a letter to be forwarded to General Howe, the British Parliament, and King George III. Having dispensed with the details, he rounded off the letter on an orotund note that was not exactly Washington’s style but must have pleased him nonetheless, as Hamilton signed off by invoking “the principles of justice and humanity, and conformable to the most civilized customs and usages, for the greater ease, convenience, and security of all captives belonging to the armies under our respective command.” And then, with a flourish, Hamilton signed his own name directly below, as if he were Washington’s coequal:
War of Two : Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and the Duel That Stunned the Nation (9780698193901) Page 10
