How did Laurens die?

In the musical: Hamilton learns of Laurens's death from a letter, in a scene known as "The Laurens Interlude" (staged, but not on the cast album).

The real story: Laurens was killed on 27 August 1782 in a minor skirmish at the Combahee River in South Carolina, after the major fighting of the war had ended. He was 27. He had long argued for enlisting enslaved men in exchange for their freedom; Congress endorsed the idea in 1779, but South Carolina and Georgia refused to carry it out, so the plan had already failed before his death.

What the musical leaves out: in October 1776, while studying law in London, Laurens married Martha Manning, the daughter of a London merchant; she was pregnant. Within weeks he sailed home to join the war. Their daughter, Frances Eleanor, was born in early 1777, and he never met her. Martha died in France in 1781, and Laurens was killed the following year. Hamilton lost his closest friend at Combahee River; a little girl in Europe had lost both parents.

Fact-check verdict: true, with one correction: his plan did not die with him; it had already been blocked. And the musical leaves out the wife and daughter he left behind.