Prologue

Despite being only twenty-six years old and still considered by elitists inside and outside the Continental Army as only a lowly immigrant and newcomer from the West Indies when situated just outside the British and Hessian defenses of Yorktown, Virginia, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton had gained one of the most important combat missions of the American Revolution in October 1781. However, Hamilton was a combat veteran and not concerned about the risks or dangers of the battlefield; this was exactly the kind of a vital assignment that he had long coveted. Of Scottish heritage on his father’s side and with handsome Scottish looks that were almost boyish—much to the delight of the ladies—Hamilton was every inch of a grizzled fighter, a distinctive quality of a Celtic heritage and his undying belief in the cause of liberty.

Not long after the red-streaked sunset of October 14, 1781, descended over the autumn-hued landscape of the Virginia Tidewater, Hamilton prepared to lead a desperate assault on one of the most formidable British defensive bastions along Yorktown’s siege lines, Redoubt Number Ten. If his relatively small force of Continental light troops could overwhelm the imposing earthen redoubt, and if the French allies could capture adjacent Redoubt Number Nine on this chilly autumn night, then Lord Charles Cornwallis, who had been handed the mission to conquer the South, would be forced to surrender his entire garrison.

As he fully realized, General George Washington had chosen precisely the right officer to lead this crucial attack on Redoubt Number Ten, which anchored Cornwallis’ left flank along with Redoubt Number Nine. Washington knew this highly capable native West Indian extremely well, ever since he had joined his staff at Morristown, New Jersey, on March 1, 1777. Therefore, Washington possessed complete confidence in what the newly married Continental officer could accomplish against any odds. No one in the Continental Army was quite like the irrepressible and brilliant Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton, and Washington had early realized as much.

As a tactically flexible leader on the battlefield, Hamilton had long ago far exceeded the highest of expectations as Washington’s invaluable right-hand man at his headquarters for most of the war. Most importantly, there was nothing insignificant about young Hamilton’s many outsized accomplishments on and off the battlefield, especially as Washington’s trusted chief of staff in the modern sense from March 1777 to early 1781. Hamilton’s tenure was not only the longest (nearly four years) of any member of Washington’s staff, but also by far the most important and crucial from beginning to end.

In a desperate dash across open ground in the autumn blackness, Hamilton led the charge on imposing Redoubt Number Ten, while sending a Continental battalion—under the command of his best friend, Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens—swinging around to gain the bastion’s rear: a clever pincer movement guaranteed to catch the enemy by surprise. Once again and as so often in the past, this gifted young man in a blue Continental officer’s uniform had proven that he could succeed in almost any goal that he sought to attain.

Hamilton’s remarkable tactical success in capturing this strategic redoubt, in conjunction with the capture of the adjacent redoubt by the French, sealed the fate of Yorktown and the British-Hessian-Loyalist army. Lord Charles Cornwallis had no choice but to surrender his entire army: a turning point not only in American history, but also in world history. As he did so often in the past, Alexander Hamilton had played a vital role in Washington’s (and the French allies’) decisive victory at Yorktown, guaranteeing a bright beginning and promising future for an infant people’s republic, the United States of America.