Yes, I think people naturally need well-defined figures to look up to, to praise, and to try to emulate. It's a lot more powerful to say "George Washington" won the US Revolutionary War than to talk about all his subordinates, even when those subordinates made many independent wartime decisions that were essential to winning the war. And yet I can't even name one of those people offhand.
Alexander Hamilton is the next easiest to mind, due directly to the musical. One of Hamilton's complaints in real life and emphasized in the musical was that he wanted as much, if not more, to be as brave/glorious as the generals and soldiers of the War, but was "stuck" in such an inglorious position of being Washington's aide-de-camp and helping Washington run the war.
ETA: The explicit irony being that most of Hamilton's work during the war is of course attributed to Gen. Washington, and in the current zeitgeist the only reason people remember his involvement today being the popularity of a musical of a biography of his.
