[Bridgewater Township, NJ]

In February, 1778, the French officially cast their lot with the American patriots, and against their age-old enemies, the British. The entry of this then-superpower into the conflict brought about a sea change in how the forces of King George III approached the war with America.

The Redcoats, who had captured Philadelphia, left the city after 261 days and began to march back to New York. The American patriots pursued them in a string of indecisive battles.

By December, Washington decided to have his army construct a winter’s quarters at a site then known as Middlebrook or Middle-brook. His own headquarters were established at the Wallace House in neighboring Somerset, New Jersey.

Middlebrook was a strategic site adjacent to the heights of Watchung Mountain, and a solid locale at which to keep out of harm’s way while keeping the British fairly locked up on the coasts in Manhattan and Perth Amboy, New Jersey.

It was at Middlebrook that Hamilton bid farewell to John Laurens. Laurens departed for South Carolina in March of 1779, on a mission to convince the government of that state to allow blacks to fight for the American side in exchange for their freedom.

Hamilton later wrote Laurens a now slightly infamous letter about the qualities he would want in a wife. He boasts about the size of his manhood in coded form in a comment about the length of his “nose.”