Hello, and welcome to this week’s blog!

Similar to last week’s blog, this week I will be focusing on one of Hamilton’s best friends: John Laurens. While Laurens doesn’t seem to be as commonly known as other people in Hamilton’s life, and doesn’t even have a lot of participation in the musical, he is actually considered one of the real-life Alexander Hamilton’s best friends – hence I chose to label him as the comrade. Laurens and Hamilton shared a lot of correspondence in their years of friendship, and due to the content of such letters, it was concluded that Laurens and Hamilton were very close. And actually, lot of controversy exists surrounding Laurens and Hamilton’s relationship regarding how close they were, but more on that later! To begin, let’s dive in to John Laurens’ participation in the musical.

In Act One, Hamilton and Laurens are first introduced in Aaron Burr, Sir, alongside Lafayette and another friend of theirs called Hercules Mulligan. It becomes clear that Laurens and Hamilton bond instantly, because in Hamilton’s famous solo My Shot, he actually states he likes Laurens a lot. The group of men continue to hang out and bond, and in The Story of Tonight, Laurens gets emotional and encourages them to be passionate and have faith in the Revolution. During this song, we can see Laurens’ genuine intentions, which tells us a lot about his personality. I also believe that by showing his passion for the revolution, Hamilton was able to appreciate him more as a friend. Laurens, Hamilton, and Lafayette all become the closest while stealing some british canons under George Washington’s command. At this point, it is clear that the men have developed a fraternal relationship, which is why when Hamilton gets married, Laurens is his best man. He actually teases Hamilton after he gets married, yet makes a toast to his happiness.

One day, a new general named Charles Lee publicly talked crap about George Washington, which infuriated Laurens and Hamilton, and resulted in Laurens challenging Lee to a duel. Hamilton becomes the second for the duel (if you don’t know much about duels, just know that the second is considered a very honorable position), and Laurens ends up shooting Lee. This act gets both men in trouble, which only ends up making their bond stronger. Sadly, shortly after Laurens had to leave for South Carolina to join his home state in a revolutionary cause. There, he fights passionately but is unfortunately killed in a british ambush.

The participation of John Laurens’ character ends in Act One, and in Act Two he is briefly mentioned by Hamilton during his last words in The World Was Wide Enough. As he is contemplating death in the duel against Aaron Burr, he mentions that he can see Laurens leading some soldiers in heaven. This demonstrates once more the deep connection that the two men formed.

So there you have it. That is a summary of Laurens’ participation in Alexander Hamilton’s life–simply told in a much more casual way. I am going to change this blog slightly from past weeks, because I really want to mention something really interesting that I learned while performing some research on the real-life John Laurens. If you really want to read more about John Laurens, you can read his biography here.

Now, to conclude this blog on an interesting note, recall that at the beginning I mentioned there was some controversy around Laurens’ and Hamilton’s relationship regarding how close they were. Well, the reason to that comes from the correspondence the two men shared. They began sending each other letters after Laurens had left the north for South Carolina, where he was going to continue the revolutionary cause and organize black battalions to fight against the british. Many of the letters that Hamilton wrote to Laurens seemed very affectionate, and he stated multiple times he loved Laurens. After several of the letters were analyzed, it is even suggested by some that the men could have had a love affair. On one hand, they believe it to be possible because Hamilton was a very passionate man who had a lot of lust, proved by the affair he had with Maria Reynolds while married. However, it is also unlikely because of the social etiquette at the time, in which the men knew the repercussions to their actions would be very grave so they didn’t even try to keep it a secret. But, regardless of whether or not Hamilton and Laurens were gay for each other, it was clear that their bond was one of gold. If you are interested in reading some of the letters, you can visit this website.

Thank you for reading, and stay tuned for next week!