(b. January 11, ca. 1755; d. July 11, 1804) Key aide to General Washington during Revolutionary War; first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.

As a penniless boy in the British West Indies, Alexander Hamilton dreamed of war and winning fame as a general. Older men saw promise in Hamilton, who had a genius for business facts and figures, and sent him to Britain's North American colonies for an education. He became one of General George Washington's key aides in the American Revolution and played an even more prominent role in the new nation.

Arriving in 1772, Hamilton enrolled in King's College (now Columbia University) in New York. By 1774 his wished-for war loomed on the horizon. The thirteen colonies on the Atlantic seaboard were quarreling with the British parliament about taxation and the right to self-government by their local legislatures. Hamilton sided with the Americans, writing rebellious essays and giving defiant...