Instances of this kind are not few. Let them be remembered to the honor of Gettysburg.

Of the magnitude of a battle fought so desperately during three days by armies numbering not far from two hundred thousand men no adequate conception can be formed. One or two facts may help to give a faint idea of it. Mr. Culp's meadow, below Cemetery Hill,—a lot of near twenty acres,—was so thickly strown with Rebel dead, that Mr. Culp declared he "could have walked across it without putting foot upon the ground." Upwards of three hundred Confederates were buried in that fair field in one hole. On Mr. Gwynn's farm, below Round Top, near five hundred sons of the South lie promiscuously heaped in one huge sepulchre. Of the quantities of iron, of the wagon-loads of arms, knapsacks, haversacks, and clothing, which strewed the country, no estimate can be made. Government set a guard over these, and for weeks officials were busy in gathering together all the more valuable spoils. The harvest of bullets was left for the citizens to glean. Many of the poorer people did a thriving business, picking up these missiles of death, and selling them to dealers; two of whom alone sent to Baltimore fifty tons of lead collected in this way from this battle-field.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

The greatest name in American history is that of Alexander Hamilton, if we consider the versatility of the man who bore it, the early age at which he began a great public career, the success which attended all his labors, the impression which he made on his country and its government, and the rare foresight by which he was enabled to understand that our political system would encounter that very danger through which it has just passed,—and passed not without receiving severe wounds, which have left it scarcely recognizable even by its warmest admirers. Talleyrand, who had a just appreciation of Hamilton's talents and character, said that he had divined Europe. An American need not be possessed of high powers or position to venture the assertion that Hamilton divined American history, and foresaw all that we have suffered because our predecessors would build the national edifice on sand, so that it could not stand against the political storm which it was in the breath of selfish partisans to send against it, but has, as it were, to be buttressed by mighty fleets and armies. A system, which, had it been rightly formed in the first place, would have been self-sustaining, was saved from destruction solely by the uprising of the people, who had to operate with bullets and bayonets, when it had been fondly hoped that the ballot would ever be a sufficiently formidable weapon in the hand of the American citizen, and that he never would have to become the citizen-soldier in a civil contest. Had Hamilton been allowed to shape our national polity, it would have worked as successfully for ages as that financial system which he formed has ever worked, and which has never been departed from without the result being most injurious to the country. At this day, when events have so signally justified the views of Alexander Hamilton, and are daily justifying them,[F] it may not be unprofitable to glance over the career of one whose virtues, services, and genius are constantly rising in the estimation of his countrymen and of the world, "the dead growing visible from the shades of time."

To be born at all is to be well born is the general belief in this very liberal-minded age: but even the most determined of democrats is not averse to a good descent; and Hamilton, who was a democrat in no sense, had one of the noblest ancestries in Europe, though himself of American birth. His family was of Scotland, a country which, the smallness of its population considered, has produced more able and useful men than any other. The Hamiltons of Scotland, and we may add of France, were one of the noblest of patrician houses, and they had a great part in the stormy history of their country. Walter de Hamilton, of Cambuskeith, in the County of Ayr,—Burns's county,—second son of Sir David de Hamilton, Dominus de Cadyow, was the founder of that branch of the Hamilton family to which the American statesman belonged. He flourished temp. Robert III., second of the Stuart kings, almost five hundred years ago. Many noble Scotch names are very common, because it was the custom of the families to which they belonged to extend them to all their retainers; but Alexander Hamilton obtained his name in no such way as that. His descent from the Lord of Cadyow is made up with the nicest precision. The family became of Grange in the sixteenth century. The names of the ladies married by the heads of the Hamiltons of Cambuskeith and Grange all belong to those of the ingenuous classes. The same Christian names are continued in the line, that of Alexander appearing as early as the latter part of the fifteenth century, and reappearing frequently for three hundred years. Alexander Hamilton of Grange, fourteenth in descent from Sir David de Hamilton, had three sons, the third bearing his father's name; and that son's fifth child was James Hamilton, who emigrated to the West Indies, settling in the Island of Nevis. Mr. James Hamilton married a French lady, whose maiden name was Faucette, and whose father was one of many persons of worth who were forced to leave France because of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, through the bigotry of that little man who is commonly called the Grand Monarch, and whose bigotry was made active by the promptings of Madame de Maintenon, who was descended from a fierce Huguenot, as was the monarch himself.

Alexander Hamilton was born on the 11th of January, 1757. His mother died in his early childhood, a more than usually severe loss, for she was a superior woman. He was the only one of her children who survived her. His father soon became poor, and the child was dependent upon the relatives of his mother for support and education. They resided at Santa Cruz, where he was brought up. Just before completing his thirteenth year he entered the counting-house of Mr. Cruger, a merchant of Santa Cruz. Young as he was, his employer left him in charge of his business while he made a visit to New York, and had every reason to be satisfied with the arrangement. He read all the books he could obtain, and read them understandingly. Even at that early age he was remarkable for the manliness of his mind. He wrote, too; and an account of the hurricane of 1772, which he contributed to a public journal, attracted so much attention that he was sought out, and it was determined to send him to New York to be regularly educated. He left Santa Cruz, and sailed for Boston, which port he reached in October, 1772. Proceeding to New York, he was sent to school at Elizabethtown, New Jersey; and in 1773 entered King's College, in the city of New York, where he pursued his studies with signal success. But events were happening that were to place him in a very different school from that in which he was preparing to become a physician. He was to be the physician of the State, and to that end he was thrown among men, and appointed to do the work of men of the highest intellect, at an age when most persons have not half completed the ordinary training which is to fit them to begin the common routine of common life.

Hamilton's connection with the history of his country, as one of those who were making material for it, began at the age of seventeen. The American Revolution was moving steadily onward when he arrived at New York, and by the summer of 1774 it had assumed large proportions. He first spoke at "the Great Meeting in the Fields," July 6th, and astonished those who heard him by the fervor of his eloquence and the closeness of his logic. His fame dates from that day. He sided with the people of his new home from the time that he came among them, and never had any doubt or hesitation as to the course which duty required him to adopt and pursue. As a writer he was even more successful than as a speaker. A pamphlet which he wrote in December, 1774, vindicating the Continental Congress, attracted much attention, and that and another from his pen were attributed to veteran Whigs, particularly to John Jay; but the evidence of Hamilton's authorship is perfect, or we might well agree with the Tories, and believe that works so able could not have been written by a youth of eighteen. Other writings of his subsequently appeared, and were most serviceable to the patriots. Young as he was, he was already regarded by the country as one of its foremost champions with the pen. The time was fast coming when it was to be made known that the holder of the pen could also hold the sword, and hold it to effective purpose.

He had joined a volunteer corps while in college, and was forward in all its doings. The first time he was under fire was when this corps was engaged in removing guns from the Battery. The fire of a man-of-war was opened on it, doing some injury. This was the first act of war in New York, and it is interesting to know that Hamilton had part in it. In the commotion that followed, he was zealous in his efforts to prevent the triumph of a mob, and not more zealous than successful. From the very beginning of his career, he never thought of liberty, save as the closest associate of law. Diligently devoting himself to the study of the military art, and particularly to gunnery, he asked for the command of an artillery company, and obtained it after a thorough examination, being made captain on the 14th of March, 1776, when but two months beyond his nineteenth year. He completed his company, and expended the very last money he received from his relatives in making it fit for the field. Even at that time he advocated promotion from the ranks, and succeeded in having his first sergeant made a commissioned officer: a fact worthy of mention, when it is recollected that his enemies have always represented him as an aristocrat, there being nothing less aristocratical than the placing of the sword of command in the hands of men who have carried the musket. While pursuing his military duties, he did not neglect the study of politics; and his notes show that before the Declaration of Independence he had thought out a plan of government for the nation that was so soon to come into existence. Among them is this inquiry: "Quære, would it not be advisable to let all taxes, even those imposed by the States, be collected by persons of Congressional appointment? and would it not be advisable to pay the collectors so much per cent on the sums collected?" This, as his son says, "is the intuitive idea of a general government, truly such, which he first proposed to Congress, and earnestly advocated." He was in his twentieth year when he showed himself capable of understanding the nature of the situation, and the wants of the country. Probably no other person had got so far at that time, and it required years for the people to reach the point at which Hamilton had arrived intuitively. With them it was a conclusion reached through bitter experience. The lesson has not been perfectly acquired even at this time.

Hamilton's company belonged to that army which Washington commanded, in 1776, in New England and New Jersey; and it was while the army was on the heights of Haerlem, in the autumn of 1776, that he attracted the notice of Washington. The General inspected an earthwork which the Captain was constructing, conversed with him, and invited him to his tent. This was the beginning of an acquaintance that was destined to have memorable consequences and lasting effects on the American nation. On the 1st of March, 1777, Hamilton was appointed to a place on Washington's staff, becoming one of his aides, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel,—his "principal and most confidential aide," to use Washington's language. It was not without much hesitation that Hamilton accepted this post. He had already made a name, and his promotion in the line of the army was secured; and had he remained to take that promotion, he would have won the highest distinction, supposing him to have escaped the casualties of war. His military genius was unquestioned; and what Washington required of him was service that would not secure promotion or opportunity to show that he deserved it. He required the mind and the pen of Hamilton. These he obtained; and the amount of labor performed by the youthful aide-de-camp with his pen was enormous. He was something more than an aide and a private secretary. He was the commander's trusted friend, and he proved that he deserved the trust reposed in him, not less by his high-minded conduct than by the talent which he brought to the discharge of the duties of a most difficult post,—duties which were of an arduous and highly responsible character. The limits of a sketch like the present do not admit of more than the general mention of his great services. Those who would know them in full should consult the work in which Mr. John C. Hamilton has done justice to the part which his father had, first in the Revolutionary contest, and then in the creation of the American Republic, and the settlement of its policy.[G] There was no event with which Washington was concerned for more than four years with which Hamilton was not also concerned. The range of his business and his labors was equal to his talents, and it is not possible to say more of them. He was but twenty years old when Washington thus really placed him next to himself in the work of conducting the American cause. In what estimation his services were held by the commander-in-chief may be inferred from the fact that he was selected by him, in 1780, being then in his twenty-fourth year, as a special minister to France, to induce the French Government to grant more aid to this country. Hamilton did not take the office, because it was desired by his friend, Colonel Laurens, whose father was then a prisoner in England.