"Why, Soliders, Why?"

8 “WHY,SOLD The Alexander Hamilton–Aaron Burr duel of 1804 was one of the most tragic face-offs in the nation’s BY THOMAS FLEMING On July 11, 1804, Colonel Aaron Burr, Vice President of the United States, and General Alexander Hamilton, former Secretary of the Treasury under President George Washington, journeyed to the west bank of Othe Hudson River in the vicinity of the village of Weehawken, New Jersey to fight a duel. Colonel Burr’s first shot struck General Hamilton just above the hip, tore through his liver, and lodged in his backbone. Hamilton died in agony some thirty hours later. Why did these two men, among the four or five best-known politicians in America at the time, choose to settle their differences in this deadly way? The question has exercised historians, novelists, and playwrights for the past two hundred years. A substantial number of novelists and playwrights have portrayed Burr as a sinister murderer who cold-bloodedly forced a reluctant Hamilton to fight. INTING BY JOHN VANDERLYN. FROM GLASS LANTERN SLIDE IN THE NEW YORK STATE ARCHIVES. STATE YORK THE NEW FROM GLASS LANTERN SLIDE IN VANDERLYN. INTING BY JOHN PA Others have seen Hamilton as a crafty Aaron Burr NEW YORK archives • SUMMER 2004 9 IERS,WHY?” history. Two hundred years later, new research answers the historical question: why did it happen at all? dissembler who hoped to kill Burr by using a secret hair trigger on his pistol. Some psycho-historians have argued that the duel was a thinly disguised suicide for Hamilton, while others have explained the clash as an example of the popularity of the political duel in the first decade of American national politics. The most common explanation, stated in dozens of textbooks and histories, maintains that Hamilton vigorously opposed and criticized Burr when he ran for governor of New York in 1804. When Burr lost, he supposedly sought revenge by challenging Hamilton. Refuting History The claim that Hamilton plotted to kill Burr by using a secret hair trigger on his pistol is best refuted by the actual exchange between Hamilton and his second, Colonel Nathaniel Pendleton, as the latter handed Hamilton his pistol. “Do you want the hair spring set?” Pendleton asked. “Not this time,” Hamilton said. There was nothing secret about hair triggers. They were regularly advertised in New York newspapers as an attractive feature of some pistols. Few knowledgeable duelists used them, however, because there was a possibly fatal tradeoff in getting the first quick shot: no time to aim the gun. Backers of the covert suicide theory INTING BY JOHN TRUMBULL. FROM GLASS LANTERN SLIDE IN THE NEW YORK STATE ARCHIVES. STATE YORK THE NEW FROM GLASS LANTERN SLIDE IN TRUMBULL. INTING BY JOHN point to the indubitable fact that Hamilton’s PA Alexander Hamilton www.nysarchives.org 10 The pistols used by Hamilton and Burr in their duel were purchased by The Bank of The Manhattan Company (now J.P. Morgan Chase J.P. MORGAN CHASE & CO. MORGAN CHASE & CO. J.P. & Co.) in 1930. The latter retains custody of the weapons. falling out after they won political career as power in 1800. In the balloting leader of the Federalist at the Democratic-Republican Party (forerunner of congressional caucus that today’s Republicans) nominated Jefferson for another was in ruins. Enemies in the term early in 1804, Burr did Democratic-Republican Party not receive a single vote for led by Thomas Jefferson had two gifted men to their vice president. Instead, Jefferson forced him to publicly confess appointment in Weehawken, chose New York’s aging to an affair with a Philadelphia this is true only as far as it governor, George Clinton, as woman, Maria Reynolds. In goes—which is not very far. The his running mate—thus giving 1802, Hamilton’s oldest son, political duel was the back- his tacit approval for one of Philip, deepened his father’s ground, not the foreground, the most vicious assaults on a melancholy by dying in a of the clash between General major politician in the nation’s political duel with one of the Hamilton and Colonel Burr. history. The most common explana- The director of this smear tion—Hamilton’s supposedly campaign was Governor The political duel was the background, vigorous opposition to Burr Clinton’s nephew, DeWitt in the race for New York’s Clinton, the mayor of New not the foreground, of the clash between governorship—has a rather York City, and his conduit was large hole in it. After giving The American Citizen, New General Hamilton and Colonel Burr. one relatively bland speech, in York’s Democratic-Republican which he urged the members newspaper. In print, Burr of the New York Federalist Party was called a sadist who had general’s Jeffersonian foes— not to support Burr, Hamilton lashed militiamen for the fun a tragedy that destroyed never said another public word of it during the American the sanity of Hamilton’s oldest on the subject. The reason was Revolution, and a “cowardly daughter, Angelica. But simple: almost every Federalist bastard” for failing to challenge Hamilton had five other in New York State dismissed Hamilton after the Citizen children who badly needed Hamilton’s advice as envy, and published a critical letter his fathering and care. backed Burr with money and Hamilton had written about Though he was discouraged votes. Hamilton had virtually him in 1801. Burr was also by President Jefferson’s nothing to do with Burr’s defeat. accused of embezzling his popularity, he had by no clients’ estates (he was a Ordeal by Slander means abandoned his hope lawyer), denounced as an The man who destroyed the of achieving power. atheist, and pilloried as a man vice president’s run for governor As for arguing that the who seduced innocent virgins of the Empire State was spread of the political duel and ruined the reputations President Thomas Jefferson. He was a sort of psychological of married women. Worst of and Burr had had a calamitous “disease” that lured these all, according to the Citizen, NEW YORK archives • SUMMER 2004 11 New York City Mayor DeWitt Clinton directed a smear campaign against Aaron Burr. “Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Made Modern America” August 28, 2004 – February 28, 2005 To celebrate the 200th had undergone a decade of anniversary of its revolutionary chaos. Napoleon’s founding, the New-York career was followed in Historical Society has obsessive detail by American announced a new newspapers. Both Hamilton exhibition, an education and Burr publicly expressed curriculum, and a public their admiration for this “man program series focusing of destiny,” as his French on Alexander Hamilton. followers liked to call him. Among the significant And both men were privy to materials on view at the information that made them Society’s headquarters think a similar chaotic situation will be the pistols used might develop in post-revolu- by Hamilton and Burr in NEW YORK STATE LIBRARY/MANUSCRIPTS AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY/MANUSCRIPTS STATE YORK NEW tionary America. their duel, original copies he consorted with Negroes to another route to power— In 1803, President Jefferson of the U.S. Constitution get their vote. military glory—and that had purchased the Louisiana and Declaration of Few researchers who have General Hamilton was his Territory from Napoleon, Independence, and rare portrayed Burr as evil have read chief competitor. which had doubled the size manuscripts of Hamilton this ordeal by slander, or are Few historians have noted of the American continental and his contemporaries. aware that the vice president how obsessively Hamilton domain. The Federalists of New refused to respond in kind. clung to the title he won England angrily denounced New-York Historical Society The terrific abuse, climaxed when George Washington this acquisition as unconstitu- Two West 77th Street by a crushing defeat at the appointed him commander of tional and unnecessary, New York, NY 10024 polls, left Burr a bitter, deeply the American army in 1798 claiming that the United (212) 873-3400 depressed man. After a month during the “quasi-war” with States already had more open www.nyhistory.org of lonely brooding, he came Revolutionary France. He land than its population could across a letter in a newspaper was listed in the New York utilize. More to the point, that described some caustic City directory as “General the Yankees found intolerable remarks Hamilton had made Hamilton.” Burr was equally a future in which the South about him at an Albany fond of his Revolutionary would be the dominant force dinner party a few days after War title of colonel. One of in the emerging nation. Led Hamilton’s speech to the his close friends said he had by Senator Timothy Pickering Federalists. This letter became a lifelong “ardent love of of Massachusetts, who had the ostensible reason for military glory.” been secretary of state under Burr’s challenge to Hamilton. Reinforcing Burr’s perception President John Adams, the New was the presence of Napoleon Englanders began discussing Old Soldiers Bonaparte on the world scene, secession. Their spokesmen Beneath the surface was a far a soldier whose military in Washington asked Vice more potent reason. Colonel prowess had restored order to President Burr what he Burr knew that there was France, another nation that thought of the idea. He gave www.nysarchives.org 12 NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY PUBLIC LIBRARY YORK NEW that if Napoleon succeeded, he would dismiss the Louisiana Purchase as a scrap of paper and find reasons to start a war with the United States to restore France’s colonial empire in North America.

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