In the company which gathered about Washington, two men, mere youths at the time, have a world-wide fame.

The young Alexander Hamilton, barely twenty-one years of age, and widely known already for his political writings, had the rank of lieutenant colonel gained for his services in the fighting about New York.

He was now Washington's confidential secretary, a position in which he soon grew restless.

His ambition was to be one of the great military leaders of the Revolution.

Before the end of the war he had gone back to fighting and he distinguished himself in the last battle of the war at Yorktown.