 Washington could tell Hamilton, this is what I think about, and Hamilton knew how to translate that into a 1,000-page letter to the governor of New York or the governor of Pennsylvania. There was Marquis de Lafayette, 20. He was a major general at 20, led one of Washington's divisions. When he was wounded at the Battle of Brandywine, Washington sent a surgeon to find him and said to the surgeon, treat him as if he were my son.