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Washington employed five to six aides-de-camp (ADC) at any given time. ADCs were essentially staff secretaries who oversaw the voluminous administrative paper flow, freeing up the general for other, less routine matters of war. They were generally not allowed to carry arms, but oftentimes rode beside their general into battle, as Hamilton did at Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth.
ADCs were divided into two groups: "riding" who did their job on horseback, carrying out verbal orders, and delivering messages from place to place; and "writing" who remained at headquarters as drafters of official correspondence and copyists. It seems that Hamilton was a combination of the two. Although he spent the majority of his time in the office writing the bulk of Washington's official correspondence, he was also called upon by the General to carry out riding orders when the situation was especially sensitive, and led many pre-battle scouting missions.
As was the military custom of the time, Washington called headquarters staff his "family." Indeed, the close quarters and high-stress atmosphere required a familial disposition just to maintain civility. Hamilton and his fellow aides referred to headquarters as "home"--their home was where Washington was. There was a deep and generous sense of camaraderie among Washington's tightly-knit corps of aides, and most remained friends and colleagues after the war. Hamilton's closest friendships were forged at headquarters, most notably James McHenry, the Marquis de Lafayette, and John Laurens, whose promising political career was cut short when he was tragically killed in a skirmish with the British in South Carolina late in the war.
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