Hamilton Studies Law, 1782 (Hamilton 40)

By late December 1781, Alexander Hamilton was recovering from the Yorktown campaign at the Schuyler family mansion in Albany - still so exhausted that he hardly wrote any letters (see…

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Hamilton Returns to New York, 1781-1782 (Hamilton 39)

In October 1781, immediately after the British surrendered at Yorktown, Hamilton set off on the three-week trip to Albany, arriving there in November. By December 29, 1781, he was writing to his…

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Columbus Day Salute

Washington Irving on Columbus Certain it is that at the beginning of the fifteenth century, when the most intelligent minds were seeking in every direction for the scattered lights of…

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Yorktown: “The World Turned Upside Down”? (Hamilton 38)

Chernow's Alexander Hamilton, Fleming's Beat the Drum: The Siege of Yorktown, and dozens of other scholarly works state that at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, when the British marched out to surrender to the…

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Manship’s Group of Bears (New York City sculpture)

This is one of more than sixty narrations that I wrote for the Guides Who Know app on Central Park. On February 17, 1913, at Lexington Avenue and 25th Street, a…

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Yorktown, October 19, 1781, and the Aftermath (Hamilton 37)

According to eyewitness accounts of the British surrender at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, the British were valiant enemies, cowardly, and drunk; the Americans were ragged, brave, and snide; and…

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Mother Italy (New York City sculpture)

A short description and history of the sculpture, and then: how do I feel about this piece, and why? Stats Sculptor: Giuseppe Massari Medium and size: Bronze, 9 feet wide,…

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Yorktown, October 16-18, 1781 (Hamilton 36)

Like 9/11, the British surrender at Yorktown was recognized as a world-changing event at the very moment it happened. Everyone remembered where they were and what they saw and did. We…

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