wrotemyown:

so, completely unbeknownst to me before I started Chernow’s biography and completely unsurprising when i look at it in retrospect, Alexander Hamilton had really shit health and got sick (like stuck in bed for weeks sick) with some regularity.  (page numbers are from the paperback of Chernow’s biography, fwiw)

The very first mention of it (aside from the illness he suffered that also killed his mother Rachel) is almost a throw-away line about his childhood best friend (and possibly half-brother???? we just don’t know) Edward Stevens, who throughout Alexander’s life “often fretted about [his] delicate health.” (pg 27)

Then we have some information from his early days in the Continental army in 1776:

In his waning days as an artillery captain, Hamilton confirmed his reputation for persistence despite recurring health problems. He lay bedridden at a nearby farm when Washington decided to recross the Delaware on Christmas night […] Hamilton referred vaguely to his “long and severe fit” of illness, but he somehow gathered up the strength to leave his sickbed and fight. (pg 84)

If you know anything about Hamilton, you’re probably thinking that was not the only time he got out of bed way too early, and you’d be right! That seems to have been the most successful instance of it during the war, though.  He was still recovering for a while after that, but luckily for him that January (when Washington personally invited him to be an aide de camp) was a pretty quiet part of the war, letting him settle in without working himself to death.

The following year, James McHenry became an aide to Washington. […] McHenry had studied medicine [and] was able to minister to Hamilton’s various maladies, including a malarial infection that recurred every summer. (p 92)

Basically, Hams had crap health and chronic health issues even as early as the beginning of the revolution, before he’d even turned 20.  And his passion and drive during the revolution nearly killed him because of it in late 1777. (this next bit is a bit long but I’m quoting it almost in full bc this is the story that really stuck with me)

The frantic rides up and down the Hudson damaged Hamilton’s always fragile health. On November 12, he wrote to Washington from New Windsor to explain his delay in returning: “I have been detained here these two days by a fever and violent rheumatic pains throughout my body.”  Despite his illness, Hamilton continued to direct the movement of troops slated to join washington and went downriver to Peekskill to apply maximum pressure on Putnam’s brigades. There, in late November, a haggard Hamilton climbed into bed at the home of Dennis Kennedy. It seemed uncertain whether he would recover. In a letter to Governor Clinton, Captain I. Gibbs wrote that he feared that the combined fevers and chills might prove mortal. On November 25, he reported that Hamilton “seemed to have all the appearance of drawing nigh his last, being seized with a coldness in his extremities, and he remained so for a space of two hours, then survived.” On November 27, when the chill again invaded his legs from feet to knees, the attending physician thought he wouldn’t last. However, “he remained in this situation for near four hours, after which the fever abated very much and from that time he has been getting much better.”  […] On December 5, Colonel Hugh Hughes wrote to his friend General Gates, “Colones Hamilton, who has been very ill of a nervous disorder at Peekskill, is out of danger, unless it be from his own sweet temper.”

Right before Christmas, Hamilton set out to rejoin Washington, only to collapse again near Morristown. He was taken back in a hired coach for further rest in Peekskill […] Not until January 20, 1778, did Hamilton rejoin his colleagues at winter quarters in Valley Forge, near Philadelphia. (pg 104)

But will he learn? OFC NOT!  Not only did he nearly die at the end of 1777 from overworking himself, but he almost gave himself heatstroke at the Battle of Monmouth in June 1778 and had to leave the field when his horse was shot out from under him.  

(incidentally, Aaron Burr DID suffer heat stroke at Monmouth, and was so long in recovering that he was rendered unable to rejoin combat before the war ended.  Heat stroke is srs business, kids, stay safe, cool, and hydrated.)

Then, after the Battle of Yorktown in fall 1781, he went home to Albany and his beloved wife where he finally got down to physically recovering from the Revolution. “He was ill and fatigued from more than five years of fighting and spent much of the next two months recovering in bed.” (pg 165)

His health issues continued throughout his life.  By 1791, he was suffering from a recurring kidney ailment of some sort that made carriage rides agonizingly painful.  His poor health was well-known enough that when, in 1794, Congress was trying to find some evidence of Hamilton’s misconduct as Treasury Secretary, the largely-Republican committee set an exhausting schedule intended to drain what energy Alex had left after months of bullshit thanks to Jefferson and the other Republican leaders. (fuck you tjeffs gosh)

He suffered various illnesses and recurring kidney and digestive ailments for his entire life that we have clear record of, and likely spent more time recovering in bed for a week or two from time to time than just those wartime incidents.  Additionally, later in life he took breaks from work when absolutely necessary to rest so he could recover from his body’s various complaints.

So, in conclusion, Alexander Hamilton was a non-stop workaholic spoonie who seems to have rarely listened to his body’s complaints and protestations unless he absolutely had to.  He was an amazingly prolific and accomplished person, who also had to spend time in bed for days or weeks recovering from his health issues.

If Alexander Hamilton was allowed to need breaks to keep himself functional, then so are you. ALEXANDER HAMILTON DID NOT HANDLE HIS CHRONIC HEALTH PROBLEMS PARTICULARLY WELL. TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF BETTER THAN ALEXANDER HAMILTON TOOK CARE OF HIMSELF.

thank you.