The Newburgh Mutiny, Spring 1783 (Hamilton 44)

As I read about the 1782-1783 session of the Continental Congress, I started to wonder whether New York State's legislature sent Alexander Hamilton as a delegate to Congress because they…

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How Does History Differ from Art? (Hamilton 43)

Last week, I intended to post on Hamilton's 1782-1783 term in Congress, but got distracted by Hamilton's role in the Newburgh Conspiracy (March 1783), which could have led to a…

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The United States after Yorktown, 1782 (Hamilton 41)

In early 1782, the Siege of Yorktown was over, but the British government had not yet admitted defeat. Without hindsight, it was impossible to know whether or not the Revolutionary War…

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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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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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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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