FIRST APPEARANCE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON—HIS EARLY DAYS—GENERAL HUGH
MERCER IN COMMAND OF THE FLYING CAMP—DECLARATION OF
INDEPENDENCE—ANNOUNCED TO THE ARMY—DOWNFALL OF THE KING’S STATUE.
About this time, we have the first appearance in the military ranks of
the Revolution, of one destined to take an active and distinguished part
in public affairs; and to leave the impress of his genius on the
institutions of the country.
As General Greene one day, on his way to Washington’s head-quarters, was
passing through a field,—then on the outskirts of the city, now in the
heart of its busiest quarter, and known as “the Park,”—he paused to
notice a provincial company of artillery, and was struck with its able
performances, and with the tact and talent of its commander. He was a
mere youth, apparently about twenty years of age; small in person and
stature, but remarkable for his alert and manly bearing. It was
Alexander Hamilton.
Greene was an able tactician, and quick to appreciate any display of
military science; a little conversation sufficed to convince him that
the youth before him had a mind of no ordinary grasp and quickness. He
invited him to his quarters, and from that time, cultivated his
friendship.
Hamilton was a native of the island of Nevis, in the West Indies, and at
a very early age had been put in a counting-house at Santa Cruz. His
nature, however, was aspiring. “I contemn the grovelling condition of a
clerk to which my fortune condemns me,” writes he to a youthful friend,
“and would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my
station. * * * I mean to prepare the way for futurity. I am no
philosopher, and may be justly said to build castles in the air; yet we
have seen such schemes succeed, when the projector is constant. I shall
conclude by saying, I wish there was a war.”
Still he applied himself with zeal and fidelity to the duties of his
station, and such were the precocity of his judgment, and his aptness at
accounts, that, before he was fourteen years of age, he was left for a
brief interval, during the absence of the principal, at the head of the
establishment. While his situation in the house gave him a practical
knowledge of business, and experience in finance, his leisure hours were
devoted to self-cultivation. He made himself acquainted with mathematics
and chemistry, and indulged a strong propensity to literature. Some
early achievements of his pen attracted attention, and showed such proof
of talent, that it was determined to give him the advantage of a regular
education. He was accordingly sent to Elizabethtown, in the Jerseys, in
the autumn of 1772, to prepare, by a course of studies, for admission
into King’s (now Columbia) College, at New York. He entered the college
as a private student, in the latter part of 1773, and endeavored, by
diligent application, to fit himself for the medical profession.
The contentions of the colonies with the mother country gave a different
direction and impulse to his ardent and aspiring mind. He soon
signalized himself by the exercise of his pen, sometimes in a grave,
sometimes in a satirical manner. On the 6th of July, 1774, there was a
general meeting of the citizens in the “Fields,” to express their
abhorrence of the Boston Port Bill. Hamilton was present, and, prompted
by his excited feelings and the instigation of youthful companions,
ventured to address the multitude. The vigor and maturity of his
intellect, contrasted with his youthful appearance, won the admiration
of his auditors; even his diminutive size gave additional effect to his
eloquence.
The war, for which in his boyish days he had sighed, was approaching. He
now devoted himself to military studies, especially pyrotechnics and
gunnery, and formed an amateur corps out of a number of his fellow
students, and the young gentlemen of the city. In the month of March,
1776, he became captain of artillery, in a provincial corps, newly
raised, and soon, by able drilling, rendered it conspicuous for
discipline.
It was while exercising his artillery company that he attracted, as we
have mentioned, the attention of General Greene. Further acquaintance
heightened the general’s opinion of his extraordinary merits, and he
took an early occasion to introduce him to the commander-in-chief, by
whom we shall soon find him properly appreciated.
A valuable accession to the army, at this anxious time, was Washington’s
neighbor, and former companion in arms, Hugh Mercer, the veteran of
Culloden and Fort Duquesne. His military spirit was alert as ever; the
talent he had shown in organizing the Virginia militia, and his zeal and
efficiency as a member of the committee of safety, had been properly
appreciated by Congress, and on the 5th of June he had received the
commission of brigadier-general. He was greeted by Washington with the
right hand of fellowship. The flying camp was about forming. The
committee of safety of Pennsylvania were forwarding some of the militia
of that province to the Jerseys, to perform the service of the camp
until the militia levies, specified by Congress, should arrive.
Washington had the nomination of some continental officer to the
command. He gave it to Mercer, of whose merits he felt sure, and sent
him over to Paulus Hook, in the Jerseys, to make arrangements for the
Pennsylvania militia as they should come in; recommending him to
Brigadier-general William Livingston, as an officer on whose experience
and judgment great confidence might be reposed.
Livingston was a man inexperienced in arms, but of education, talent,
sagacity and ready wit. He was of the New York family of the same name,
but had resided for some time in the Jerseys, having a spacious mansion
in Elizabethtown, which he had named Liberty Hall. Mercer and he were to
consult together, and concert plans to repel invasions; the New Jersey
militia, however, were distinct from the flying camp, and only called
out for local defence. New Jersey’s greatest danger of invasion was from
Staten Island, where the British were throwing up works, and whence they
might attempt to cross to Amboy. The flying camp was therefore to be
stationed in the neighborhood of that place.
“The known disaffection of the people of Amboy,” writes Washington, “and
the treachery of those on Staten Island, who, after the fairest
professions, have shown themselves our most inveterate enemies, have
induced me to give directions that all persons of known enmity and
doubtful character, should be removed from those places.”
According to General Livingston’s humorous account, his own village of
Elizabethtown was not much more reliable, being peopled in those
agitated times by “unknown, unrecommended strangers, guilty-looking
tories, and very knavish whigs.”
While danger was gathering round New York, and its inhabitants were in
mute suspense and fearful anticipations, the General Congress at
Philadelphia was discussing, with closed doors, what John Adams
pronounced—“The greatest question ever debated in America, and as great
as ever was or will be debated among men.” The result was, a resolution
passed unanimously, on the 2d of July, “that these United Colonies are,
and of right ought to be, free and independent States.”
“The 2d of July,” adds the same patriotic statesman, “will be the most
memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it
will be celebrated by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary
festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by
solemn acts of devotion to Almighty God. It ought to be solemnized with
pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and
illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this
time forth for evermore.”
The glorious event has, indeed, given rise to an annual jubilee, but not
on the day designated by Adams. The fourth of July is the day of
national rejoicing, for on that day, the “Declaration of Independence,”
that solemn and sublime document, was adopted. Tradition gives a
dramatic effect to its announcement. It was known to be under
discussion, but the closed doors of Congress excluded the populace. They
awaited, in throngs, an appointed signal. In the steeple of the
state-house was a bell, imported twenty-three years previously from
London by the Provincial Assembly of Pennsylvania. It bore the
portentous text from scripture: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the
land, unto all the inhabitants thereof.” A joyous peal from that bell
gave notice that the bill had been passed. It was the knell of British
domination.
No one felt the importance of the event more deeply than John Adams, for
no one had been more active in producing it. We quote his words written
at the moment. “When I look back to the year 1761, and recollect the
argument concerning writs of assistance in the superior court, which I
have hitherto considered as the commencement of the controversy between
Great Britain and America, and run through the whole period from that
time to this, and recollect the series of political events, the chain of
causes and effects; I am surprised at the suddenness, as well as the
greatness of this Revolution; Great Britain has been filled with folly,
America with wisdom.”
His only regret was, that the declaration of independence had not been
made sooner. “Had it been made seven months ago,” said he, “we should
have mastered Quebec, and been in possession of Canada, and might before
this hour have formed alliances with foreign states. Many gentlemen in
high stations, and of great influence, have been duped by the
ministerial bubble of commissioners to treat, and have been slow and
languid in promoting measures for the reduction of that province.”
Washington hailed the declaration with joy. It is true, it was but a
formal recognition of a state of things which had long existed, but it
put an end to all those temporizing hopes of reconciliation which had
clogged the military action of the country.
On the 9th of July, he caused it to be read at six o’clock in the
evening, at the head of each brigade of the army. “The general hopes,”
said he in his orders, “that this important event will serve as a fresh
incentive to every officer and soldier, to act with fidelity and
courage, as knowing that now the peace and safety of his country depend,
under God, solely on the success of our arms; and that he is now in the
service of a state, possessed of sufficient power to reward his merit,
and advance him to the highest honors of a free country.”
The excitable populace of New York were not content with the ringing of
bells to proclaim their joy. There was a leaden statue of George III. in
the Bowling Green, in front of the fort. Since kingly rule is at an end,
why retain its effigy? On the same evening, therefore, the statue was
pulled down amid the shouts of the multitude, and broken up to be run
into bullets “to be used in the cause of independence.”
Some of the soldiery having been implicated in this popular
effervescence, Washington censured it in general orders, as having much
the appearance of a riot and a want of discipline, and the army was
forbidden to indulge in any irregularities of the kind. It was his
constant effort to inspire his countrymen in arms with his own elevated
idea of the cause in which they were engaged, and to make them feel that
it was no ordinary warfare, admitting of vulgar passions and
perturbations. “The general hopes and trusts,” said he, “that every
officer and man will endeavor so to live and act as becomes a Christian
soldier, defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country.”[77]