#hamquotes

But the individual who held the first place in Hamilton’s affections was Laurens, with whom he now parted, not again to meet.

As Steuben was preparing to leave York, Henry Laurens had suggested to him that he seek out his son, Lt. Col. John Laurens. […] John Laurens fell in love with the Baron on sight. So, too, did Laurens’s best friend and fellow aide, Lt. Col. Alexander Hamilton. And the Prussian was equally smitten with them. Here were two impressionable young men who understood his speech and who hung on his every word as he regaled them with tales of bloody battles decided by massive cavalry charges and the point of the bayonet, of warrior-kings and glittering courts. He could converse with them on topics ranging from infantry tactics to the works of Seneca, Cervantes, and Voltaire. He represented a touch of Enlightenment sophistication—something for which the young Laurens and Hamilton were starved—in the rough-hewn society of the camp, and they in turn helped him forget his homesickness. Steuben could relax in their presence. He regarded the two aides as his intellectual and social equals, and felt completely at home joking informally with them and being on the receiving end of their good-natured barbs. The bonds forged between Steuben, Laurens, and Hamilton would last to the end of their days—though for Laurens, sadly, that day was not far off

At the siege of Savannah, [John Laurens] gave a singular instance of his high-wrought feelings. After the defeat, he stood lost in abstraction, with his arms wide extended, in the midst of a heavy fire, and replied to a remonstrance on his rashness, “My honour does not permit me to survive the disgrace of this day" and was only recalled to his duty, by a peremptory order to cover the retreat.

Laurens was a warm and vehement man and the French ministry little accustomed to similar earnestness knew not how to answer it. ' You have so lately left headquarters,' said Vergennes to Laurens, in the presence of Dr. Franklin and [William] Jackson [...], ' that you forget you are not now delivering General Washington's orders.' Laurens felt with proper indignation, a compliment which every American who has travelled has felt the severity of. ' Good Dr. Franklin knows the favors which America has received from the King.' 'Favors ! Mons. Le Comte,' replies Laurens impatiently, 'the respect I owe to my country will not admit the application of such a term.' Laurens however succeeded...

[The Vicomte de Chastellux] describes the first dinner [at Wasjington's Headquarters at Morristown] and says: "I adapt myself very well to the English *toast*; one has very small glasses—one pours for oneself the quantity of wine desired without being urged to take more, and the toast is but a kind of refrain to the conversation"; and again: "I observed that at dinner the toasts were more ceremonious: some were for etiquette, others were suggested by the General and named by whichever aide-de-camp was doing the honors; for every day one of them sits at the end of the table beside the General in order to help all the dishes and dole out the bottles; now, that night the toasts were called by Colonel Hamilton and he gave them just as they occurred to him, haphazard and informally. "At the end of supper the guests are always asked to give a sentiment, that is, any woman to whom they may be attached by some *sentiment*, either love, friendship, or simple prefer- ence. This supper or conversation lasts from nine to eleven at night, always easy and agreeable."

Shortly before her death a friend wrote as follows: "The widow of Alexander Hamilton has reached the great age of ninety-five and retains in an astonishing degree her faculties and converses with much of that ease and brilliancy which lent so peculiar a charm to her younger days. And then, after passing the compliments and congratulations of the day, insists upon her visitors taking a merry glass from General Washington's punch bowl, which, with other portions of his table set, remains in her possession." At this time she showed a great deal of physical vigor, walking from her own house in H Street to visit her old friend, Judge Cranch, three miles away, on Capitol Hill, in the city of Washington. Her last illness was a comparatively short one, and until a few days before her death her mind was perfectly clear.

On Discretion