Arthur S. Lefkowitz – författare

The final meeting of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr took place in in 1804. It ended with Burr mortally wounding Hamilton in a duel. Hamilton and Burr first met in 1776, during the American Revolution. Their wartime experiences would shape their lives as Colonel Hamilton and Colonel Burr recounts.

They were both young American officers at the time working to defend New York City against a British attack. Burr was a tough Revolutionary War combat veteran, having fought in the 1775 campaign to seize Canada from the British. In Canada, Burr battled alongside then Colonel Benedict Arnold and attacked the walled city of Quebec with General Richard Montgomery. Burr next accepted an invitation to join Washington’s headquarters staff. This book includes an account of Captain Burr’s brief tenure on the job that led to a lifelong animosity between him and Washington. In 1776, Hamilton was a captain and commander of a New York State artillery company. He leveled his cannons at the British at New York City, White Plains, Trenton, and Princeton before joining Washington’s headquarters staff. Both Hamilton and Burr wintered at Valley Forge and fought in the day-long Battle of Monmouth. After recounting the Revolutionary War exploits of Hamilton and Burr, this book then describes their postwar lives and political rivalry and why Washington told then President John Adams in 1798 that Hamilton was his principal aide de camp.

Colonel Hamilton and Colonel Burr is a fresh approach to the American Revolution from the standpoint of two of its most interesting participants.

In late August 1776, a badly defeated Continental Army retreated from Long Island to Manhattan. By early November, George Washington’s inexperienced army withdrew further into New Jersey and, by the end of the year, into Pennsylvania. During this dark night of the American Revolution—“the times that try men’s souls”—Washington began developing the strategy that would win the war. In this illuminating account, Arthur Lefkowitz reveals how George Washington turned defeat into victory.

During his retreat across New Jersey, Washington reconceived the war: keep the army mobile, target isolated detachments of the British Army, rely on surprise and deception, form partisan units, and avoid large-scale battles. This new strategy first bore fruit in the crossing of the Delaware on Christmas night 1776 and the attack on the British at Trenton and Princeton. From there, Washington took up winter quarters at Morristown, New Jersey, and moved into the mountains, an ideal position from which to check British movements toward Philadelphia or north up the Hudson. The British tried and failed several times to coax Washington into a decisive battle. Stymied, the British were forced to attack Philadelphia by sea, and they would not be able to seize Philadelphia in time to support the British invasion of upstate New York which ended in defeat at Saratoga.

Lefkowitz relies on a lifetime of deep research on the Revolutionary War and close knowledge of New Jersey to tell this exciting, important story whose impact rippled throughout the rest of the war.