By Ben Payne

The document I chose for my historical annotation project was the Articles of Capitulation, Yorktown. This was drafted by the aides de camp of Washington prior to the victory and subsequent surrender of the British, thus ending the Revolutionary War. The audience of the document was the commanders of the British, American, and French forces. Ironically, John Laurens, the American delegate to the surrender negotiations, died 9 months after the signing of the document, one of the last casualties of the American Revolution.

I was drawn to the document because I had read the Articles of Capitulation at Fort Necessity earlier on when reading the Genius.com annotations. It was interesting to me that the only two documents that I could find named articles of capitulation were these two. I wanted to dive into the effect being on the losing side during the French and Indian war had on Washington’s demands when accepting the surrender of the British army 27 years later. The document is important because not only does it signify the end of the war, but it is also the first document that set the path for cooperation between the two sovereign powers.

To research the document and fully understand it, I have had and will have to look at other treaties and surrenders of the time (Seven Years War, French and Indian War, War of Austrian Succession, etc) to see the customary terms of surrender. Also, there are some specific words used in the document that aren’t used today, so the Online Etymology Dictionary will prove to be useful. I will be looking into historical critiques of the surrender and the battle at Yorktown in general. I have been putting off some of the research, but look forward to using the library for all it’s worth.

Fortunately, the document sets itself up well for the annotation project. Each article is self contained and is simple enough to explain. The main challenge I have run into is that the document is 1200 words, or just over the maximum of 900 words for the project, and I’ve had to select only an excerpt of the document. Ideally, if I had time I would like to be able to annotate the entire document, even if nobody other than Dr. Wilson will be reading it. The other main challenge is one of time management. Because of my job, I have limited time to work on this project, and I need to make better use of my weekends.

By: Ozkul Ege Akin

For the historical annotation project, a part of the course of English 1102, I chose to annotate the letters which Alexander Hamilton sent to his wife, Elizabeth Hamilton, which were published by the American “National Archives” webpage. The main aspect that drew me to this document was emotion. I have graduated from the Istanbul University Conservatory of Music in piano and continued to perform and sing throughout my life. One could say that I’m an expert in feeling and conveying emotions through my art. Thus, I thought it would be very interesting and exciting to historically annotate letters between two lovers who are separated by war, and analyze historical events through these sorrowful documents. Moreover, in my choice of document I was also inspired by Alexander Hamilton. I’ve got to know this man and his deeds in class and got to respect him, therefore I wanted to study and actually scrutinize his own self through his writings instead of a musical reflection of his character.

That being said, there will be additional toughness to annotating these letters because they do not necessarily include historical events in them. My plan is to research all the important historical aspects of the period in which these letters were sent, which is 1781, and refer to these historical aspects and/or their outcomes as I am annotating the letters. Additionally, I will research the social aspects of the environment Elizabeth and Alexander Hamilton are in during that time and their effects on the writers. After that, I will cross-refer to them as I’m annotating the tone and other emotional aspects of the letters.

The challenges I’ve encountered so far is analyzing the language in the letters, due to the difference in period between the two languages of the year the letters were written and our time. My plan is to find other letters or historical documents belonging to that time period and figure out how to best analyze the literary components without the old language getting in my way.

Overall, I think the choice I made for the historical annotation project is perfectly suitable for me as I have previously mentioned. It might be more difficult than a usual annotation project but in my opinion it will make me grasp much more about Alexander Hamilton, not only historically, but also emotionally.

by Jake Smith

For my historical annotation project, I am annotating the Hamilton-Burr duel correspondence letters. These are a series of argumentative letters between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr responding to a prior letter by Dr. Charles D. Cooper that was published in the Albany Register saying, “General Hamilton and Judge Kent have declared in substance that they looked upon Mr. Burr to be a dangerous man, and one who ought not be trusted with the reins of government.” Burr took exception to this and the letters he wrote in response as well as Hamilton’s responses are the letters I am annotating. Hamilton and Burr corresponded by writing each other in New York.

I was initially drawn to these documents because I wanted to learn what exactly caused Hamilton and Burr to duel and what events led up to it. Upon reading the letters, you can sense the uneasiness and frustration the two have with each other as they go back and forth. I was also drawn to the letters because being able to read two life long rivals’ personal correspondences is fascinating- you get a glimpse into their mind and what they are actually thinking. This kind of personal writing was more interesting to me than an actual publication. The importance of these letters is to establish the events that caused Hamilton and Burr to duel. It is still not fully known what specific event led to their duel, but these letters tell part of the story.

In order to fully understand the letters, I need to look at what was going on at the time they were written, more specifically the Dr. Cooper letter. I plan to use as many primary sources like the letter by Dr. Cooper in my research as they provide the best information. I have been approaching this by using the national archives website which has many letters by Hamilton and Burr and reading secondary sources explaining the tension between the two at the time. The main challenges I’ve faced so far is finding sources that reference the correspondence letters because there are not many. I plan to work around this by piecing together the events before and after these letters to get a greater understanding of the whole situation.

By: Emily Moseley

For my historical annotation project, I chose to delve deeper into the exchange of letters between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr during the Summer of 1804.  My goal by the end of this project is to be able to break down each argument/statement that Hamilton and Burr present to see why they’re feeling that way, what would have brought up that topic, and the nature of the country at that point in time. Even though these letters are few and quick, you can see the quick escalation of feelings and rash decisions being made within this short series of communication.

The reason I chose this series of documents, is because they were a more private matter: not something where Hamilton had to be showy or convincing to the public. This is probably the most raw form of communication that we will see from Hamilton since he took writing more seriously than anyone else at the time. It has his way of communicating his thoughts and bringing people together. This was his way of making a change and forming the United States; however, in his letters we get to see a different side of him: a more direct and almost snarky Hamilton comes out in these letters to Burr. I thought this would make for a more interesting annotation because I can try to look into the minds of two of this nation’s most influential founders.

The research that comes along with letters like this is difficult, because they’re not published pieces of writing like the Federalist Papers or the Reynolds Pamphlet. The letters exchanged between Hamilton and Burr are, at the time, a private matter unknown to the public. Therefore, we lack the reaction of the general population to give us an idea of the impact of these letters at the time. Since language has since evolved from 1804, I cannot experience the full impact of Hamilton’s and Burr’s words since I do not know the meaning in which they were intended to have. This takes even more research to simply understand what they are trying to reference or even what tone they are using when talking about something.

My biggest challenge right now is really just learning how to google. I know it sounds simple, but “googling” is a true skill and a good one to have when doing research like this. I’m learning to string together key words to find documents that tie Hamilton or Burr to different events in history. This lets me look at just their connection rather than an overview or document that is referencing the historical event as a whole. By getting better at this, I can cut my research time significantly and work smarter, not harder.

By: Zac Frederick

For my historical analysis project, I have chosen to analyze Washington’s Farewell Address given following his departure as America’s first president. The piece was written and published in 1796 by George Washington, and from my preliminary research he was also assisted by Alexander Hamilton in the creation of the piece. Though the nature of the content is an address to the American people, it was not given as a speech, but rather it was published in the newspapers as publication.

One thing that drew me to the document is the nature of the piece as a political strategy recommendation. Though it is somewhat lengthy at a glance, the ideas Washington describes are very well summarized. I’m sure many of these recommendations could be discussed by a man of Washington’s intellect for literal days, however I was intrigued to see that this address offers a “short and sweet” version of what Washington believes will be very relevant advice over the coming decades of American history.

Within the document Washington offers about four main warnings to the American people, and a good understanding of each warming requires individual research regarding both the context and the rationale of each. This will involve a simultaneous approach to each facet, and each component will come together in the actual annotations. The first steps of research (including figuring out what the four warnings actually are) are in process, and once a general idea of the document is obtained I will be able to dig deeper in the more of the specifics.

One challenge I have found so far is being able to identify credible and varying sources. Whereas a simple Google search is often the first step to research, this does not give you every source you will end up using for your project. While it might yield a good bit of knowledge, a good majority of these sources have questionable credibility! Of course, the first step is realizing all of this, and now that I know this I am more willing to dig deeper – all in the name of Hamilton!

by Noah Hammond

I chose the letters of correspondence between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr before their duel. Specifically I chose Hamilton’s first response to Burr’s initial letter since I was interested in the events leading up to their duel. They started out seeing each other as a sort of respected rival, but gradually went in different directions in their political careers. Hearing that Hamilton died in a duel with Burr piqued my interest. To me it felt like a story line from a movie, so the fact that it actually happened to Alexander Hamilton drew me to their letters.

This letter is important because it shows what was going through Hamilton’s head right before his death. It gives a unique look at history that you wouldn’t get normally through a secondary source. Without documents like this we would have only a one dimensional knowledge of history.

To research deeper into Hamilton’s letter, I’ve been reading up on historical documents from 1800-1804 and attaching them to what Hamilton talks about or references in  his letter. Since I already have the letter itself, and therefore Hamilton’s insight, pairing that with articles and other documents from that time period will give me a idea of the history behind Hamilton’s eventual death.

The biggest challenge so far with my research is finding documents that were extremely close to the dates on the letter. I’ve been able to find documents around the turn of the century, but I can’t find them with specific enough dates. My plan for getting over this challenge is to ask questions to the Librarian comes to talk on Thursday. With the resources that Georgia Tech provides, I should be able to find more relevant documents.

By: Ian Byers

For the historical document that I am going to annotate, I chose George Washington’s Farewell Address, which was initially published in a newspaper in 1796. This was only about 10 weeks before the 1796 election, so many people who expected Washington to run again were surprised. This document went through multiple phases of writing, as Washington had originally intended to retire at the end of his first term in 1792. The 1792 draft was written by George Washington and James Madison, but Alexander Hamilton also help to write the final version.

I have read this document before this class, and I chose it for this assignment because I have always found Washington’s advice and predictions to be uncannily accurate. I am only annotating the first section of the document, but later sections go into detail about the danger of alliances and advocates for isolationism from European countries, which was a common American policy all the way until World War Two. Additionally, Washington set the informal precedent of a President serving for a maximum of two terms, which would last for a similar period of time. Although not all of Washington’s warnings were heeded, we can see that he was largely correct about the trouble these things would cause. For one, he warned against political parties, or factions. While parties have played a huge role in American politics since then, Washington was right in assessing that parties would lead to a large divide in the American populace.

The largest volume of research that I will need to do for this document is about the policies of the Washington administration, as well as other writings about politics by Washington. As he was involved in military service for a large part of his life, and often expressed dislike for serving as president, these may be hard to find.

So far, most of the major events of Washington’s presidency are well documented. However, it has been somewhat difficult to find some of Washington’s personal opinions on why he chose these policies. Often it seems that he simply chose the policies of his cabinet, which makes it hard to decipher Washington’s own intentions.

By Grace Griggs

The document I chose to annotate is an excerpt from “Circular Letter to the States” which was written by George Washington in June of 1783. It was written as he was stepping down as a military leader. The letter was sent to the executives of each state and was also published in newspapers throughout the country so that the populace could read it as well.

Washington’s Circular to the States as published in newspapers all across the states.

I was initially drawn to this document because it so closely parallels Washington’s farewell address. Just like Washington gave his advice for the success of the nation as he stepped down from the presidency, he also wrote out his advice to the nation as he stepped down from command of the Continental Army. I thought it would be interesting to see how his advice was followed or not followed during the next few years.

The most important research for this document is figuring out in what ways Washington’s suggestions were implemented throughout his presidency and, in some cases, his reasons behind those choices. I’ve been approaching this by searching “George Washington” and whatever general issue each of his points pertains to. For instance, his first advice is on the importance of uniting the states under a federal head. So I started my search by looking into Washington’s relation to federalism and the federalists.

My main challenge thus far has been trying to interpret Washington’s language. While it’s not impossible to understand, it does take some time to work out the exact meaning of what he is saying. Similarly, it is not always obvious which parts warrant an annotation. Some sentences are essentially nice-sounding filler with no clear reference that needs to be explained or expanded on. And additional problem I’ve been having is finding peer-reviewed sources. Hopefully the visit from a GT librarian will help me figure that out.

By: Clarisa Colton

For my historical annotation project, I have chosen an excerpt from “The Reynold’s Pamphlet”. It was written by Hamilton himself for the press and published to the public. He wrote the document to clear himself of a false charge of “improper pecuniary speculation”(Hamilton). This charge came from a Mr. James Reynolds after he had been imprisoned and the man he had been imprisoned with, Jacob Clingman, told his lawyer that Reynolds and Hamilton had been involved together in some illegal dealings having to do with government funds. When Hamilton was confronted with these claims, he came clean, but not about anything to do with government funds, just that he had had an affair with Mr. James Reynolds wife, Maria Reynolds. This all went down in 1792, however it wasn’t until 5 years later in 1797 that Hamilton wrote and published “The Reynold’s Pamphlet”, which explained all that had happened in great detail in order to clear himself of these charges.   What initially drew me to the document, I admit, was the fact that this is considered one of the first sex scandal’s in United States history, but as I’ve spent time reading it and researching it I have realized there is much more to it than that.

As far as research I’ve done so far, I have basically been looking through the library databases and google to try and find what will be useful to me. It has been pretty overwhelming and difficult for me though because there is SO much information out there and it’s hard for me to tell what is relevant and useful. I feel like something that happens to me a lot in assignments like this is a feeling of being stuck/blocked, but once I actually start writing things down and getting the hang of it, I feel like this project will go much more smoothly. I am going to try and go through the document I am annotating and make notes indicating what information I think would be helpful, which will hopefully help me narrow down sources to actual use in my annotations.