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When Alexander Hamilton accepted his appointment as aide-de-camp to Washington, it was the beginning of a long and productive, yet at times tense, collaboration between the two soldier-statesmen. Many myths have been created about their partnership. Hamiltonian historians have tried to prove that Hamilton was essentially the great Washington's brain, thinking for him, and later running his administration. Detractors have criticized Hamilton on those same grounds, maintaining that he ingratiated himself to Washington, and insinuated his own opinions on the General while routinely treating his chief badly. There are those who say also that Hamilton was favorite and surrogate son to the childless General, and that Hamilton in turn saw Washington as the father he never had.
The relationship between Washington and Hamilton was much too complex to lend itself easily to one or another of those scenarios. Although Washington wanted aides who could "think for me," he rarely allowed autonomy among the members of his staff unless he was indisposed for some reason, and it was no different for Hamilton. When dictating official correspondence, Washington conveyed the general idea of what he wanted said, and the aide articulated his thoughts into an official communication. Washington carefully read all official correspondence before it left headquarters, and revised whenever necessary. He never allowed someone else's opinions to pass for his own.
Although Hamilton was not above trying to maneuver him, Washington knew when he was being used, and was much too savvy to squander his reputation for political purposes. If he felt Hamilton was stepping out of bounds as he did in the Newburgh incident, Washington never spared a subtle rebuke. During his presidential administration, Washington did not blindly accept Hamilton's advice, but often required his Secretary of the Treasury to justify his policies exhaustively when they came under question, as he did the report on the national bank. In matters of diplomacy, he routinely, and appropriately, accepted Jefferson's recommendations, not Hamilton's, as he did during Hamilton's early advocacy of an Anglo-American alliance, and during the Genet affair.
Never having had a reliable father himself, Hamilton had little use for fatherly guidance or acceptance. He deliberately maintained a formal distance from his chief, and Washington accepted that distance, which was to remain throughout their professional association. However, Hamilton had unbounded respect for Washington's power, and he knew that his position as aide-de-camp would afford him useful connections and a high-visibility position in which to prove his abilities. Fiercely self-reliant, Hamilton loathed situations where he felt unduly dependent on anyone else; yet he knew that his circumstances rendered it necessary to affiliate himself with someone of Washington's stature if he wanted to advance himself. This disparity between impulse and hard reality was constantly operating, and it was a contradiction Hamilton often found painful to live with.
Washington admired Hamilton's energy and intellect, and must have seen a bit of a mirror image in the young officer. Washington himself had started out as a cocky military officer who was known for the occasional run-in with his superiors. Any interpersonal friction was more than made up for by Hamilton's exceptional abilities. Washington's confidence in Hamilton was unwavering; he continued to seek Hamilton's advice throughout his career, even after Hamilton had left his position as Secretary of the Treasury.
No doubt Washington sympathized with Hamilton's desire for a command, but the General was quite frankly up to his ears in qualified field commanders. Hamilton was the most useful to him, and to the war effort, at headquarters. In Hamilton, Washington found an extension of himself he was unable to find in any other; and Washington was just as determined to hang on to Hamilton as Hamilton was determined to leave Washington. However, Hamilton was, at all times during his tenure as aide-de-camp, personable, loyal, and supportive of his commander. He was the perfect subordinate.
The break between Hamilton and Washington in February 1781 was the inevitable culmination of years of mounting stress. Perhaps Washington was thinking about his quarrel with Hamilton three years later when writing to Thomas Jefferson in March of 1784:
"Men who are always together get tired of each others Company. They throw of[f] the proper restraint. They say and do things which are personally disgusting."
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