In late September, Hamilton and his light infantry reached Williamsburg, the staging area for the Yorktown siege, where he enjoyed an exuberant reunion with a trio of old friends: Lafayette, then convalescing from malaria; John Laurens, just back from Paris with arms, ammunition, and a large French subsidy negotiated by Benjamin Franklin; and Lieutenant Colonel Francis Barber, his teacher from Elizabethtown days, who had been wounded at Monmouth and had fought valiantly throughout the war.
