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By the time Alexander Hamilton joined George Washington’s staff, he had known a lot of heartbreak. Hamilton’s first heartbreak had come when he was very young, and his father had abandoned the family.¹ Though Hamilton’s mother, Rachel Faucette, was able to successfully support her two sons for a time, she died of disease a little over a year later.² The boys moved in with their cousin Peter Lytton, who commit suicide not long after.³ Hamilton changed homes several more times before finally getting the opportunity to come to America. Once in America, Hamilton had a romantic relationship with Robert Troup, his roommate at King’s College, but it ended when Troup’s career, and then the war, took them in different directions.⁴ When George Washington invited Hamilton to leave his position as the captain of a New York artillery company and join Washington’s military “Family” as an aide-de-camp in March 1777, Hamilton had no idea that his time of being alone was almost over.⁵

That same year, John Laurens returned to his home country with his own broken heart.⁶ A romance in Europe with fellow South Carolinaian Francis Kinloch had ended painfully when Kinloch chose to remain loyal to Great Britain. Convinced he could escape his heartbreak by escaping his homosexuality, Laurens had an affair with his friend Martha Manning, only to find himself with no option but to marry her in order to protect her honor after Manning discovered she was pregnant. Several months before the birth of their daughter, Laurens decided he had to return to America in order to join the fight for independence.⁷ Laurens reached South Carolina in April of 1777, and had traveled to Philadelphia by late July.⁸ Once there, tearing his mind from his inner turmoil, Laurens applied to join George Washington’s staff. Though Washington wrote back in August informing Laurens that he was not yet ready to appoint another aide-de-camp, he invited Laurens to join his Family as an “extra aide.”⁹

Laurens met the army at their encampment near Germantown, Pennsylvania, on August 9th, and this was most likely the day he met Alexander Hamilton.¹⁰ Hamilton and Laurens quickly recognized in one another the similar need to prove themselves, as well as their mutual commitment to freedom for America. Laurens was a fan of Enlightenment and Sentimentalist teachings, and had developed a fiery passion for American Independence. Laurens felt so strongly about the Revolution that he was willing to give up everything he had, and he became frustrated and angry when others were not willing to do the same.¹¹ Hamilton could easily match Laurens for passion, but Hamilton was more cynical; if he had ever expected that Americans could be trusted to make great sacrifices for liberty, two years of watching the Revolution bogged down in politics and self interest had changed his mind.¹² In John Laurens, Hamilton found the only example of how he believed every American should be.

Over the next few months, Laurens and Hamilton settled into life in Washington’s Family. Though it is easy to overlook their importance, Washington’s aides-de-camp were constantly busy, handling all of Washington’s correspondence and delivering his orders. Hamilton and Laurens worked side by side, and as a result became better acquainted with one another’s personality and beliefs. It was also during this time that they met and befriended the Marquis de Lafayette, who would become the third member of their trio. Lafayette spent  time with them whenever he was at headquarters, and became close to both. It is therefore unlikely that Lafayette was ignorant of something budding between his two friends.

In October of 1777 Washington sent Hamilton to Albany to procure reinforcements from General Horatio Gates.¹³ While there Hamilton paid a visit to General Phillip Schuyler, and met Schuyler’s daughter Eliza for the first time, though it seems there was nothing between them yet.¹⁴ Hamilton was delayed in his return first by Gates’s lack of cooperation, and then by illness, a problem Hamilton often encountered after a period of intense exertion. By January Hamilton was back with the Family, now at Valley Forge, and immediately became inseparable from Laurens again.¹⁵ Though it has never been concretely proven, some historians have claimed that when a cabin was built beside the house the Family was staying in in order to give the staff more room, it was Hamilton and Laurens who moved into it. At that time it would not have been unusual for men to share beds, and Washington’s aides frequently did. Still, their own cabin, if they did have one, may have served as a sanctuary in which they could speak freely to one another and express themselves as never before.¹⁶

That summer brought the infamous Battle of Monmouth, where General Lee’s indecisiveness and possible lack of faith in his own army famously led to what should have been a victory turning into a near disaster. As Washington’s aides de camp, Hamilton and Laurens’s jobs had been reconnaissance for most of the day. When Lee threw his men into retreat, Hamilton and Laurens’s characteristic determination meant that they both refused to back down, and instead found themselves unexpectedly in the center of combat. Working together, they protected artillery left undefended by the hasty retreat.¹⁷ By the end of the battle Laurens “had a slight contusion” from a musket ball “and his horse killed.” Hamilton’s horse was wounded, resulting in Hamilton falling and badly injuring his leg.¹⁸

The matter did not end there. Hamilton and Laurens were both part of Lee’s subsequent court martial, and after being found guilty of all charges Lee began telling everyone that the disaster was not his fault, but Washington’s. Laurens mentioned this to Hamilton in a letter written while they were briefly separated on assignments, informing Hamilton that someone needed to write a reply to Lee, and suggesting Hamilton do it because Laurens said “I do not think, either that I can rely upon my own knowledge of facts and style to answer him fully, or that it would be prudent to undertake it without counsel.”¹⁹ Laurens closed this letter “my dear boy.” Much has been written on the subject of Laurens’s choice of closings for different letters. Laurens’s letters were not usually very emotional, and the only person Laurens used a similar closing with was his wife, whom he always addressed “my dear girl.”²⁰ This suggests that by June of 1778, almost a year after they first met, they already had feelings for each other.

Though it is unclear why, Hamilton did not end up writing a reply to Lee, and instead Laurens challenged Lee to a duel. Laurens chose Hamilton as his second.²¹ Hamilton and Laurens arrived late to the duel, despite having chosen the location. Perhaps they were delayed saying a precautionary goodbye.²²

After all of the turmoil caused by the Battle of Monmouth, life for Washington’s Family returned to normal for a few months. By March, however, the military situation in South Carolina was beginning to become desperate, and Laurens decided it was time for him to return home. Laurens had long believed that the only way for South Carolina to make it through the war was to raise a battalion of slaves, promising them their freedom in return for service. Despite both growing up surrounded by slavery, Hamilton and Laurens had both grown to resent it, and they found in one another a rare ally. Hamilton had his doubts as always, but he did what he could to insure Laurens’s mission was a success. Hamilton wrote Laurens an introductory letter to John Jay, informing Jay that he believed freed slaves “will make very excellent soldiers, with proper management; and I will venture to pronounce, that they cannot be put in better hands than those of Mr. Laurens.”²³ Hamilton repeatedly wrote to Laurens telling him that Laurens’s plan was the best thing South Carolina could do, though he despaired that South Carolinians could ever be convinced to do it.²⁴ Once again Hamilton took an almost pessimistically realistic view of humanity, while Laurens remained determined he could convince them to do the right thing. Once again, Hamilton was proud of him for it.

Laurens left the Family for South Carolina that same month²⁵, and had barely arrived in his home state when Hamilton sent him a letter confessing that he had fallen in love with him.²⁶ In this letter Hamilton explains that “’till you bade us Adieu, I hardly knew the value you had taught my heart to set upon you.” Hamilton goes on to reprimand Laurens for stealing his heart, telling him “You know the opinion I entertain of mankind, and how much it is my desire to preserve myself free from particular attachments, and to keep my happiness independent on the caprice of others.” After all of the loss Hamilton had experienced, he was nervous about allowing Laurens to take over so much of his heart. He goes on to tell Laurens that he will forgive him, as long as Laurens promises to continue to “merit” Hamilton’s love. Though Hamilton is teasing, Hamilton casually reminds Laurens to continue to deserve his love several times throughout the rest of their correspondence, suggesting that beneath his light tone Hamilton really did worry that Laurens would let him down, making him regret this rare instance of opening his heart.

Hamilton also mentions in this letter that he is forwarding a letter from Laurens’s wife. It has often been suggested that it was by reading this letter from Martha Manning that Hamilton discovered Laurens had a family. Hamilton does seem unsure how to talk about Laurens’s wife, and his reference to Frances Laurens as “a daughter of yours” would seem to suggest that Hamilton did not know at least that Laurens had a daughter. That Laurens did not talk about his family reinforces the idea that Laurens did not really love Manning, and that he did not tell Hamilton about them is especially telling, as it implies that Laurens may have thought he had a better chance of a relationship with Hamilton if Hamilton did not know Laurens had a family. Hamilton makes a jab at this later in the letter, saying of his own dream spouse “I am an enthusiast in my notions of fidelity and fondness.”

Though not all of their letters were as passionately romantic as that one, in the background of all of their letters afterwards is the hum of mutually understood love. Hamilton constantly reassures Laurens of his continuing affection, and in return Laurens shares more with Hamilton than he did with almost anyone else. When Laurens was asked in December to go to France to assist ambassador Benjamin Franklin, Laurens declined and suggested Hamilton instead. Laurens wrote to Hamilton about this, telling him that he had to consider if he “had acted consonantly to the χαλου χαι αγαθου,” in the matter.²⁷ Xαλου χαι αγαθου essentially means “the virtues of a good citizen.” That translation makes sense in this context, as Laurens is wondering if by leaving Congress with no one to fill the position he is being negligent in his civic duty. The phrase may have had a double meaning for Laurens and Hamilton however: χαλου χαι αγαθου is thought to have been gay slang at the time for love between men.²⁸ Thus in suggesting Hamilton for the position Laurens acted in accordance both with the virtues of a good citizen, and in accordance with his love for Hamilton.

By January, Hamilton had asked Washington for permission to join Laurens in South Carolina.²⁹ Unable to lose two of his most valuable aides, Washington told him no. Stuck at headquarters that winter, Hamilton began to wake up to an unpleasant reality: after the war, he would have nothing. By now he had spent all of the money he had been sent to America with, and he had devoted the past five years to service for a country that was not always able to pay him. Hamilton likely could not move back in with the families that had taken him in when he had first arrived in the country. As soon as the war ended Hamilton would be penniless and adrift, just as he had been before leaving Nevis. Hamilton apparently decided the best solution was marriage. That winter, as parties were being thrown for the soldiers, rumors began to swirl about Hamilton and a number of wealthy and well-connected young women.³⁰ By the beginning of February, Hamilton began spending time with Elizabeth Schuyler.³¹ Hamilton did not tell Laurens he was courting Schuyler, or that he was considering becoming engaged to her. When Hamilton and Schuyler became engaged sometime that April³², Hamilton still had not mentioned her to Laurens.

On May 12th, Charleston was surrendered to the British.³³ Laurens’s plan for a black battalion had been rejected, and just as Laurens and Hamilton had predicted, the result was a steady British takeover of South Carolina. Well aware of how brutal the British could be to their American prisoners, Hamilton must have been panic-stricken when he learned in late May that  Laurens had been captured.³⁴ Hamilton began working tirelessly to get Laurens exchanged, and it was not until late June that Hamilton finally wrote to Laurens. When he did write to him, it was to tell him that his efforts had met only with frustration. Hamilton reveals to Laurens “I have talked to the General about your exchange; but the rigid rules of impartiality oppose our wishes. I am the only one in the family who think you can be exchanged with any propriety, on the score of your relation to the Commander in Chief.”³⁵ Hamilton was dumbfounded by the fact that the rest of the Family seemed (to Hamilton) less desperate than he was to get Laurens back.

Despite all of the love in this letter, it is also the letter where Hamilton first told Laurens he was going to be married. Hamilton does not come across as overly enthusiastic, telling Laurens “Next fall completes my doom.” Still, his casual mention of his impending marriage, as well as his complimentary (if not overly romantic) description of his fiancee does not make it seem as though he expected Laurens to be extremely angry or even extremely surprised at the news. Interestingly, however, many of the letters Hamilton and Laurens apparently wrote to one another over the next few months are missing, likely destroyed by a family member, suggesting that they did frankly discuss the future of their relationship.³⁶

Their correspondence becomes coherent again around September. In his letters in September Hamilton does what he can to comfort Laurens from afar as Laurens enters month four of being restricted to Pennsylvania. Hamilton also mentions that Laurens’s letters have become more and more infrequent, and that Laurens’s excuse has been that under the terms of his parole he was not allowed to talk about military business, and “can speak only of [his] private affairs.”³⁷ Laurens frequently forgot to write to friends and loved ones, intensely focused on whatever task was at hand. For much of the previous three years, however, Hamilton had been an exception. Hamilton suspected that he knew the cause of this unexpected silence, and in one letter he reassures Laurens “In spite of Schuylers black eyes, I have still a part for the public and another for you; so your impatience to have me married is misplaced; a strange cure by the way, as if after matrimony I was to be less devoted than I am now.” Aside from Hamilton’s hint that he is marrying Schuyler only for appearances sake, what is noteworthy about this passage is that Hamilton references that (in one of the missing letters) Laurens commented that he thinks marriage will “cure” Hamilton. Laurens believed that if Hamilton, who was bisexual, married a woman, he would be freed from his desire for men and would be able to escape the hardships of life as a queer man in their society. Laurens slowed their correspondence in hopes that he could help Hamilton leave their relationship.

This was not the reaction Hamilton had expected or hoped for. Hamilton’s casual mentions of Schuyler imply that he expected Laurens to be accepting of his marriage. Laurens’s response, however, seems to have been far more approval than Hamilton anticipated or wanted from Laurens. Laurens believed Hamilton could move on; Hamilton did not want to move on. Hamilton ends the letter by assuring Laurens that he will still love him, and tells him of his hope that their relationship can continue despite his marriage.

Laurens was finally exchanged in November of 1780, but was kept in Philadelphia when Congress once again began discussing him for the position of envoy to France.³⁸  While Laurens was in Philadelphia, Hamilton left headquarters for Albany, and married Elizabeth Schuyler there on December 14th. By January 11th, 1781, both men had returned to headquarters.³⁹ Their reunion may have been tinged with awkwardness from everything that had passed between them in their letters of the past several months, and from Hamilton’s marriage. Still, they had been apart for almost two years*, during which time they both feared they would never meet again; though likely conflicting, their reunion was no doubt joyful.

Laurens had returned to headquarters seeking instructions for his new position as envoy, and he left headquarters again around the fifteenth. It is possible that during his few days at headquarters Laurens met Schuyler, as she arrived at headquarters somewhere within a window that includes the last few days Laurens may have been there. If the two did meet, there is no record of it.⁴⁰

Laurens did not return to America until August, seven months after his departure.⁴¹ By this time, Hamilton and Schuyler were expecting their first child. There is no record of when Laurens learned of this; the first time Laurens mentions Hamilton’s son is a vague reference in a letter written months after Phillip Hamilton’s birth.

Hamilton had resigned from Washington’s Family following a dispute with the General in March.⁴² After leaving Hamilton lobbied incessantly for a field command, and was finally given one in July.⁴³ Hamilton would likely have been there when Laurens met the army at Williamsburg, Virginia in September.⁴⁴ After over two year’s worth of separations, interrupted only by those few days in January of 1781, Laurens and Hamilton were finally together again.** Over the next month, they prepared for the upcoming battle at Yorktown. The first step would be capturing redoubts nine and ten; Hamilton and his men were assigned to take redoubt number ten, while Laurens and his men would wait to cut off the British retreat.⁴⁵ As their jobs were both parts of the same step in the plan, Hamilton and Laurens found themselves working side by side again, just as they had before Laurens had first left the staff. On the night of October 14th, Hamilton took redoubt ten with surprisingly few casualties on either side, and Laurens made a British retreat completely impossible. Their stunning success led to victory at Yorktown and the surrender of General Cornwallis. Though the war would continue for two more years, this victory made a complete British triumph impossible, and left only the question of whether Britain would keep the territory it had managed to win.

Hamilton wrote to his now six months pregnant wife on October 18th to tell her of the victory and inform her that he would begin his journey home in about two days.⁴⁶ While Schuyler did not take precedent in Hamilton’s life, the baby was a different story. Doing what he could to survive as an orphan in Nevis, Hamilton likely never thought he would have a family. Hamilton’s reactions to becoming a father, as they have survived in letters, show a man utterly in awe. Knowing that his child would soon be arriving was incentive enough for Hamilton to hurry away from the scene of his military glory, and to hurry away even from Laurens. By around October 20th of 1781, Hamilton said goodbye to Laurens for what neither knew would be the last time.⁴⁷

Phillip Hamilton was born January 22nd, 1782, and Hamilton settled into civilian life, beginning his legal career and finding himself elected to Congress. Laurens meanwhile returned to the south, where fighting continued as Britain sought to hold on to the areas it had seized. Laurens was aware that Phillip had become the center of Hamilton’s life, and he betrayed jealousy in a letter he wrote to Hamilton that July. In a previous letter Hamilton had apparently mentioned that he considered not going to Congress because he needed to spend time with his family. Laurens scoffs at this, telling Hamilton “Your private affairs cannot require such immediate and close attention; you speak like a pater familias surrounded with a numerous progeny.”⁴⁸ It was at this point that Laurens had apparently written “family” but crossed it out and referred to Hamilton’s “progeny” instead, prefering to discuss Hamilton’s son than Hamilton’s wife.⁴⁹ Despite all of this, Laurens ends the letter with what is perhaps the most emotive closing Laurens ever used: “You know the unalterable sentiments of your affectionate Laurens.” Even with all that separated them, Laurens’s feelings remained.

So did Hamilton’s. In his last letter to Laurens, Hamilton paints a picture of how he saw them moving forward. Hamilton was ready to begin the fight for his vision of the new nation, and he wanted Laurens by his side. “Quit your sword my friend,” Hamilton beseeched Laurens, “put on the toga, come to Congress. We know each others sentiments, our views are the same: we have fought side by side to make America free, let us hand in hand struggle to make her happy.”⁵⁰

It is unclear how and when Hamilton learned of Laurens’s death. No letters survive in which Hamilton is notified of Laurens having fallen in a skirmish at Combahee River. However he found out, Hamilton knew by October, when he told their mutual friend General Nathaniel Greene in a letter dated the 12th.⁵¹ Hamilton also told the other member of their trio, the Marquis de Lafayette. In his letter to Lafayette Hamilton tells him “You know how truly I loved him and will judge how much I regret him.”⁵² Hamilton reveals a bit more of his feelings for Laurens here than he revealed when he wrote to Greene, and this may be another hint that Lafayette understood what was between his two friends.

After the letter in which he informed Lafayette of Laurens’s death, Hamilton’s only written mention of Laurens appears to have been a letter to Laurens’s father, written three years later, informing him that a captured runaway slave had insisted that he had been freed years earlier by John Laurens.⁵³ It is not known if Hamilton ever spoke of Laurens. It has often been remarked that for such a vocal man simply to cease to talk about a subject so important to him is revealing, and it is. Though Hamilton was no doubt glad he had opened his heart to Laurens, he had done so cautiously because of the many previous loses he had experienced. After losing Laurens, Hamilton found it hard to ever again open is heart so fully, except perhaps to his children. Hamilton was profoundly affected by knowing Laurens. Laurens’s views on class, economics, and slavery were to surface from time to time in Hamilton’s own work for the rest of his life. Hamilton became more cynical, but he also became more determined than ever to see the United States last. Laurens seems to have left a mark on the Hamilton family as well: Hamilton’s son John C. Hamilton (apparently named after John Church, though it is interesting to note that Hamilton gave the name John to his first son after Laurens’s death) named his son Laurens. This may have been as a result of Hamilton talking about Laurens in front of his children, but John C. Hamilton was also the one who went through all of Hamilton’s papers in the years after his death. It is possible that John understood that he had stumbled upon a romance, as sweet as it may have been difficult, that changed two men forever.

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*When I originally published this article, I mistakenly stated that Hamilton and Laurens had been apart for “for almost a year.” I was thinking Laurens had left in March, and this was January. But Laurens had left in March of 1779, and this was January of 1781. (corrected 7/14/23)

**Here I was still confused about my timeline, and I accidentally said “over a year’s worth of separations,” when it should have been two years. (corrected 7/14/23)

1. Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow, 21
2. Ibid., 26
3. Ibid.
4. See my previous post, “The Sexuality of Alexander Hamilton”.
5. https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/alexander-hamilton/ “Alexander Hamilton”, Kieran J. O’Keefe, and “General Orders for March 1, 1777”
6. John Laurens and the American Revolution, George D. Massey, 112
7. For information on Laurens’s relationship with Francis Kinloch, as well as Laurens’s marriage and daughter, see my previous post “The Sexuality of John Laurens”.
8. George D. Massey, 114
9. George Washington to John Laurens, 5 August 1777
10. https://moland.org/thirteen-days-in-august-1777/
11. George D. Massey, 184
12. Alexander Hamilton to Nathaniel Greene, 12 October 1782
13. George Washington to Horatio Gates, 30 October 1777
14. Chernow, 103, and Alexander Hamilton to Catherine Livingston and Elizabeth Schuyler, January-February 1780
15. Chernow, 106
16. https://thelittlelionofvalleyforge.tumblr.com/post/182794338506/did-washington-let-hamilton-and-laurens-share-a
17. Massey, 160, and Chernow, 115
18. Alexander Hamilton to Elias Boudinot, 5 July 1778
19. John Laurens to Alexander Hamilton, 5 December 1778
20. See my post “The Sexuality of John Laurens”.
21. “Account of a Duel between Major General Charles Lee and Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens”, Alexander Hamilton and Evan Edwards
22. Memoirs of a Life, Chiefly Passed in Pennsylvania Within the Last Sixty Years, Alexander Graydon, as quoted in: https://john-laurens.tumblr.com/post/181356319723/sorry-this-is-kind-of-vague-poor-memory-retention
23. Alexander Hamilton to John Jay, 14 March 1779
24. Alexander Hamilton to John Laurens, 11 September 1779
25. George Washington to John Rutledge, 15 March 1779
26. Alexander Hamilton to John Laurens, April 1779
27. John Laurens to Alexander Hamilton, 18 December 1779
28. Origins and Roles of Same-Sex Relations in Human Civilization, James Neill, 416
29. Alexander Hamilton to John Laurens, 8 January 1780
30. Chernow, 129
31. Alexander Hamilton to Catherine Livingston and Elizabeth Schuyler, January-February 1780
32. https://historythings.com/elizabeth-schuyler-hamilton-the-beloved-wife-of-hamilton/
33. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/americans-suffer-worst-defeat-of-revolution-at-charleston “Americans Suffer Worst Defeat of Revolution at Charleston”
34. Alexander Hamilton to Marquis de Barbé-Marbois, 31 May 1780
35. From Alexander Hamilton to John Laurens, 30 June 1780
36. Annotations on several letters mention that a letter Hamilton or Laurens mentions having received cannot be found.
37. From Alexander Hamilton to John Laurens, 16 September 1780
38. https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Laurens
39. Massey, 241
40. https://john-laurens.tumblr.com/post/159916121468/did-john-ever-actually-meet-eliza
41. Massey, 265
42. https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/alexander-hamilton/ “Alexander Hamilton”, Kieran J. O’Keefe
43. Chernow, 160
44. Massey, 265
45. Chernow, 162
46. Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, 18 October 1781
47. Chernow, 165
48. John Laurens to Alexander Hamilton, July 1782                                                             This letter is in two parts: the first part contains all but the ending, and the second part, which bares the same date, is a printed extract believed to be the last paragraph of the letter.
49. https://john-laurens.tumblr.com/post/160878012808/you-speak-like-a-pater-familias-surrounded-with-a
50. Alexander Hamilton to John Laurens, 15 August 1782
51. Alexander Hamilton to Nathanael Greene, 12 October 1782
52. Alexander Hamilton to Marquis de Lafayette, 3 November 1782
53. Henry Laurens to Alexander Hamilton, 19 April 1785
    
    

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