He was aide-de-camp to General
Putnam, and already had a vivid record behind him. It was during
Washington's occupancy of Richmond Hill that Burr grew to love the
place which was later to be his own home.
I confess to a very definite weakness for Aaron Burr. Few hopeless
romanticists escape it. Dramatically speaking, he is one of the most
striking figures in American history, and I imagine that I have not
been the first dreamer of dreams and writer of books who has haunted
the scenes of his flesh-and-blood activity in the secret,
half-shamefaced hope of one day happening upon his ghost!
From the day of his graduation from college at sixteen, he somehow
contrived to win the attention of everyone whom he came near. He still
wins it. We love to read of his frantic rush to the colours, guardian
or no guardian; of the steel in him which lifted him from a bed of
fever to join the Canadian expedition; of his daring exploits of
espionage disguised as a French Catholic priest; of a hundred and one
similar incidents in a life history which, as we read it, is far too
strange not to be true.
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