“my Dear Laurens” “my dear boy”

-they portrayed his death incorrectly. He was knocked off his horse in battle. In the scene he was just standing.

- im like 99% sure henry laurens didnt go insane and start talking to a cameraman

- i dislike the guy they cast as john laurens tbh💔 he doesn’t look like john laurens at all and is obviously much older than 27 …

- i really like they included the fact that they showed John’s disinterest towards his wife and his child

- I like the tension they show between John and his father

- i like how they show how strongly john felt about abolition

- I LOVE how they allowed Marquis de Lafayette and Alexander Hamilton to talk to each other about how they’re worried John may go “too far”, however they could be better with actually displaying these suicidal tendencies

- John Laurens and Charles Lee duel really helped build the concept surrounding John Laurens’ quick temper

- Francis Kinloch mentioned, however they failed to mention their strong bond and possible relationship. Instead, Kinloch seemed to pose as a narrator.

- Thomas Jefferson and John Laurens’ interactions showing both of their beliefs and how both can have similar goal of freedom with opposing ideals

- they gave him a fake love interest?? who is this woman?? there is no record of this woman??? the only relationship we know he had with a woman was his wife??

- I like that they display John’s recklessness by incorporating his perseverance through illness

- OH NOW HE HAS HIS HORSE?

- He did NOT call out for martha when he dying. He did NOT care for martha.

Overall

I want all of them.

“When the colonies declared independence, John Laurens quit school and returned home to fight. His English friends could not understand his support for the cause. They echoed the famous quip from Samuel Johnson: “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?” But Laurens believed in the cause of liberty. When America was victorious, he did not plan to sweep the hypocrisy of slavery under the rug; he planned to abolish it completely. After arriving in camp, the newly minted Colonel Laurens was assigned to Washington’s staff and fell in with Hamilton and Lafayette. Hamilton’s son would later call them the Three Musketeers of the American Revolution. All three were young and eager for the battlefield glory, Laurens somehow even more than Lafayette or Hamilton—and his battlefield courage swerved dangerously towards suicidal recklessness. Though they were all close, Hamilton and Laurens developed a special bond, leading to professions of intimate affection that may or may not have been consummated. (Mike Duncan, A Hero of Two Worlds, pg 71.)

“Hamilton wrote Laurens, ‘I am disgusted with everything in this world but yourself and very few more honest fellows’.” (Duncan 108)

Lafayette and his friends were hit hard by the additional news their friend John Laurens—who had argued futilely that the people of Charleston should arm their slaves and fight to the last man—was now a prisoner of war.” (Duncan 111)

When nominations for a new diplomatic position opened up, both Lafayette and Laurens submitted Alexander Hamilton’s name for the post. (Duncan 120)

Page 120 is full of Laurens information, but this quote makes me feel a little joy (which is rare as a John Laurens fan💔)

“The early winter of 1781 marked the end of Lafayette, Hamilton, and Laurens as the three musketeers of Washington’s family. Laurens departed for Boston along with the crabby polemicist Thomas Paine, who would serve as an unofficial secretary. Laurens carried a massive satchel of letters Lafayette had written to every person in France who might make Laurens’s job easier and his stay more pleasant.”

While we don’t know how Hamilton immediately reacted, we do know that he was deeply affected by the news.

A few months after the death of Laurens, Hamilton wrote to Nathaniel Greene “I feel the deepest affliction at the news we have just received of the loss of our dear and mable friend Laurens. His career of virtue is at an end. How strangely are human affairs conducted, that so many excellent qualities could not ensure a more happy fate? The world will feel the loss of a man who has left few like him behind, and America of a citizen whose heart realized that patriotism of which others only talk. I feel the loss of a friend I truly and most tenderly loved, and one of a very small number.” He later wrote to de Marquis de Lafayette “Poor Laurens; he has fallen a sacrifice to his ardor in a trifling skirmish in South Carolina. You know how truly I loved him and will judge how much I regret him.”

After the death of Laurens, Hamilton also shut down emotionally. Hamilton is and was widely known for his expressive writing, but he never wrote much about the death of Laurens, despite how close the two were. Hamilton later did something similar after his son Philip died. He took multiple months to write back to anybody, and he wrote very little about both deaths.

Hamilton never created another relationship with the a similar sense of closeness and bond that he had with Laurens. He was emotionally closed off.

Alexander Hamilton had joined aide-de-camp under George Washington in March of 1776. Later, John Laurens had arrived at aide-de camp in August of 1777, also serving under General Washington.

In aide-de-camp, most soldiers were rather close, quickly forming bonds with one another. Alexander, being rather social, most likely interacted with John first, since John had never been good at making connections himself.

Washington had a strong liking to the two of these men as well, referring to them (along as other soldiers) as his "military family”. Washington never had children of his own, yet he was seen as a sort to father figure to many of the soldiers in the Continental Army. This could be a contributing factor to the close bonds Hamilton and Laurens gained.

Short answer: pretty gay

Long Answer:

When John was younger, his father, Henry, speculated that John was gay. John had never particularly shown interest in women. Since this was the mid 1700s, it was widely seen as a sin. Henry, being a father in the 1760s, was eager to hid or even try to change this sin.

The first relationship we know about with John that had any chance of being romantic or sexual was with a man—Francis Kinloch.

Francis Kinloch and John Laurens were both South Carolinians, and they most likely knew each other before John had gone to Europe for school. Their relationship however most likely started in Geneva, Switzerland, where the both of them attended school in 1772. This relationship is widely speculated to have been romantic. Though, the two had differences that most likely led to their “break up”. For instance, Laurens was a string patriot, Kinloch a loyalist.

Later, in 1777, Laurens had met Alexander Hamilton. These two men, similarly as before, became very close. They were saying phrases to each other not typical (pretty gay) even for the time period. Hamilton had even invited Laurens to be apart of the final consummation of him and Eliza. In other words, Hamilton invited Laurens to a threesome on Hamilton’s wedding night. Laurens was unable to attend.

The only relationship John had with a woman was with his wife, whom he was not very fond of. John had met and accidentally impregnated Martha Manning, a woman he wasn’t dating beforehand. He married Martha, and he wrote to his uncle he only married her out of pity, and to preserve both of their honors. For the time period, if Martha had given birth, or even had been visibly pregnant without being married, she and John would have been violently shamed. John never displayed any sort of passion or romantic desire towards Martha, especially compared to the way he was with Hamilton and Kinloch.

John Laurens was born October 28th, 1754. He was born in South Carolina to former President of the Continental Congress Henry Laurens and his wife Eleanor Ball. He was the 4th born child of this couple, but due to his older siblings all dying before the age of 4, he is considered the eldest child.

John Laurens had a highly privileged life as a child. He grew up on 4 slave plantations, with his father owning 6-8 in total. This caused him and his family to be wealthy.

In 1770, when John was 16, his mother died after giving birth to Mary Eleanor Laurens. Afterwards, in 1771, Henry Laurens decides to take John, along with his two brothers James (Jemmy) and Henry Jr (Harry), to London to for education. His sisters were left with an uncle in South Carolina.

In London, John Laurens attended Richard Clarke’s school. Later, in 1772, at 18, John moved to Geneva, Switzerland for further education at a French-speaking school.

In Geneva, John meets a man named Francis Kinloch. It is widely speculated that they had some sort of romantic or sexual relationship. The two were very close, but eventually had a breakup and post-breakup interactions.

In 1774, John moved back to London. He studied law at the Middle Temple. Studying law was not a choice of John’s particularly, it was a path chosen by his father.

In 1775, when John was 21, his younger brother, Jemmy, was under John’s care when he unfortunately died in September, shy of turning 10.

Around this time, John meets Martha Manning, a woman whom in which he accidentally impregnates. He then married Martha in London, 1776. John had written in a letter to his uncle that he had married Martha out of pity, and to protect both their legacies, knowing if he hadn’t married her, her reputation would be ruined as an unmarried pregnant woman.

In January of 1777, John Laurens’ daughter was born when he was 22. His daughters name was Frances Eleanor Laurens, after Francis Kinloch and his mother. John never met his child, as he left for the Revolutionary War in December of 1776.

Pictures:

Laurens’ South Carolinian Home

The Middle Temple, 1774

Martha Manning Laurens