Historically, this song is out of place in the timeline given by the show. It jumps back almost three years from Hamilton’s wedding (1780) to the Continental Army’s winter at Valley Forge (1777-78), the Battle of Monmouth (1778), and the Lee-Laurens duel (1779).

However, narratively, “Stay Alive” helps turn the story back to the high-stakes severity of the war, while also giving Hamilton more personal high stakes in Eliza. Creative license, man. It’ll getcha where you need to go.

Here, we see that Hamilton is eager to prove his worth to Washington and seeks his own command. But at this point in both the show and in history, the war isn’t going so well for them. Chernow writes:

Plagued by foul weather and abysmal morale and with the British tailing his movements, George Washington led the bedraggled Continental Army across New Jersey. The losses he had sustained in New York strengthened his sense that he had to dodge large-scale confrontations that played to the enemy’s strength. […] Instead, he would opt for small-scale, improvisational skirmishes, the very sort of mobile, risk-averse war of attrition that Hamilton had expounded in his undergraduate article. […] “By hanging upon their rear and seizing every opportunity of skirmishing,” the situation of the British could “be rendered insupportably uneasy,” [Hamilton] wrote. The rugged terrain and dense forests of America would make it difficult for the British to wage conventional warfare.

By changing tactics, Washington was able to turn things around and achieve a stalemate. However, despite Hamilton’s successful advice, Washington decides to put Charles Lee in command. Charles “I’m a general, whee!” Lee’s performance at the Battle of Monmouth is disastrous, and he is later court-martialed. Hamilton provides testimony.

After Lee publicly insults Washington in a series of articles in order to defend his actions, Laurens challenges Lee to a duel to defend Washington’s honor.