Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton arrived in the North American colonies as a young man from Nevis, already writing as if a country were a problem that could be solved on paper. The war gave him a different kind of page. He raised a New York artillery company in 1776, stood at Trenton and Princeton, and then spent years at Washington's elbow — drafting, arguing, and keeping a headquarters that had more decisions than sleep.

He wanted a field command. At Yorktown, in October 1781, he got one. He led the night assault on Redoubt 10. The work was short, ugly, and finished. The British line on the York River began to close.

After the war he built credit, a Treasury, and enemies. This page is not the duel. It is the immigrant officer who learned American war from a gun park and a writing desk, and who spent his credit on a republic that still argues in his voice.

He died in New York on July 12, 1804, of a wound received at Weehawken. The birth year on Nevis is not settled in the documents. The service is.