In 1993, when I published my Jefferson biography, the American Revolution Round Table summoned me to a dinner meeting at Fraunces Tavern in New York City to present my interpretation and lay out any new evidence I had uncovered about the third president. Once before I had addressed this audience of experts on America’s founding era so I knew to brace for a good after-dinner grilling. To my relief, only one question came that night, but what a question: Who was right about America, Jefferson or Hamilton? The hour was late, my answer brief: Jefferson for the eighteenth century, Hamilton for more modern times.
But that one sally from a darkened corner of the tavern where British commanders had dined during the Revolution, where George Washington bade farewell to Hamilton and his fellow officers, set me off on another five-year quest. This book is that night’s answer, revised and more complete, and many people, in large ways and small, have helped me to research it.
As always, Thomas V. Fleming patiently answered my questions, despite his own tireless research and writing schedule. Donald Wickman, my own former graduate student, shared his research on Samuel Barber, Hamilton’s tutor in the classics and, later, comrade-in-arms. Alan Stracke, my colleague at Champlain College, helped with his knowledge of the Caribbean. Nick Westbrook, director of the Fort Ticonderoga Museum, where many of the Schuyler family papers are housed, gave me an invaluable hint about the Hamilton-Schuyler menage. J. Robert Maguire allowed me to study his as-yet-unpublished work on painter-spymaster John André and his connections with the Schuyler sisters.
At the New York Public Library, I was able to work with more than one hundred manuscripts from the Schuyler Papers. Earlier research on Henry Knox in the Morgan Library helped to flesh out the portrait of Hamilton as aide-de-camp and fellow cabinet member. At a symposium on the 1781 Virginia campaign that included workshops on new online archival research services and techniques, I learned from Michael Plunkett, director of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia, of the recently acquired Angelica Schuyler Church Papers and, back in my Vermont office, was able to peruse them. Diane Depew, coordinator of Colonial National Park and the organizer of that first Revolutionary War symposium at Yorktown, brought together some one hundred serious scholars of military history, several of whom shared their knowledge and insights with me. Colonel William Blair, director of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Victory Center at Yorktown, led me on an extensive and detailed battlefield tour. Among fellow conferees who added to my understanding of Hamilton’s military ambitions were Professor Harry Dickinson of the University of Edinburgh, Thad W. Tate, professor emeritus of history at the College of William and Mary, and Lloyd Kramer, Lafayette scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who cast new light on the character of Hamilton’s French connections.
The staffs of many research institutions and libraries deserve special thanks. Over the years, I have been given generous access to the collections of Princeton University Library, the Henry E. Huntington Library, the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the American Philosophical Society Library, the New-York Historical Society, the New York Public Library, the Vermont Historical Society, the Georgetown University Library, the Alderman Library of the University of Virginia, and the Library of Congress. I am grateful to the University of Vermont’s Bailey-Howe Library staff for Research Associate privileges, to Lori Colburn at my hometown Fletcher Free Library, and to Tammy Miller at the Miller Information Commons of Champlain College. All have stretched the meaning of the word overdue.
Thanks are also due to the Belvidere Trust, the guardians of Angelica Schuyler Church’s Long Island home, to the staff of the Schuyler mansion in Albany, of Valley Forge State Park and Morristown National Historic Park. Arnold A. Rogow, an earlier writer on the Burr-Hamilton duel, kindly rushed me Angelica’s photo. For a dozen years now, Diann Varricchione has selflessly given up evenings, weekends, and holidays to prepare my book manuscripts. Regina McNeeley, outstanding photo researcher for several historical magazines, including MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, helped me to meet a virtually impossible production deadline. Friend and colleague Stephen Zeoli designed and produced the maps that help trace Hamilton’s restless life. I thank my editor at HarperCollins, Carolyn Marino, for her careful and constructive criticism and editing. Jennifer Civiletto, her assistant, has consistently and competently aided in the effort.
Researching and writing any biography sooner or later depends on the kindness of friends. Ray Lincoln has been my dear friend and literary agent for nearly three decades now. Roger Perry, president of Champlain College, has encouraged and helped to support my research. But only my wife and best editor, Nancy Nahra, knows how much it takes to bring to life a biography and how carefully it must be nurtured.