The Burr–Hamilton duel took place in Weehawken, New Jersey, between then-U.S. vice president Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, the first and former secretary of the treasury, at dawn on July 11, 1804. The duel was the culmination of a bitter rivalry that had developed over years between both men, who were high-profile politicians in the newly-established United States, founded following the victorious American Revolution and its associated Revolutionary War. It is one of the most famous duels in American history.
In the duel, Burr shot Hamilton in the abdomen. Hamilton's shot hit a tree branch above and behind Burr's head. Hamilton was transported across the Hudson River for treatment in present-day Greenwich Village in New York City, where he died the following day, on July 12.
Hamilton's death permanently weakened the Federalist Party, which he had founded in 1789 and was one of the nation's two major parties at the time. It also ended Burr's political career, as he was vilified for shooting Hamilton. Alexander Hamilton was shot close to the spot where his son Philip Hamilton had been fatally wounded in a duel with George I. Eacker three years prior.
Background
Political animosity
The Burr–Hamilton duel was the final skirmish of a long conflict between Democratic-Republicans and Federalists. The conflict began in 1791 when Aaron Burr won a United States Senate seat from Philip Schuyler, Alexander Hamilton's father-in-law, who would have supported Federalist policies. Hamilton was the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury at the time. The Electoral College then deadlocked in the 1800 presidential election, during which Hamilton's maneuvering in the U.S. House of Representatives played a factor in Thomas Jefferson's winning the presidency over Burr. At the time, the candidate who received the most votes was elected president while the candidate with the second most votes became vice president. There were only proto-political parties at the time, and joint tickets had not yet become a feature of elections as they are currently.
Hamilton's animosity toward Burr was severe and well-documented in personal letters to his friend and compatriot James McHenry. In a January 4, 1801, letter to McHenry, Hamilton wrote:
Nothing has given me so much chagrin as the Intelligence that the Federal party were thinking seriously of supporting Mr. Burr for president. I should consider the execution of the plan as devoting the country and signing their own death warrant. Mr. Burr will probably make stipulations, but he will laugh in his sleeve while he makes them and will break them the first moment it may serve his purpose.
Hamilton details the many charges that he has against Burr in a more extensive letter written shortly afterward, calling Burr a "profligate, a voluptuary in the extreme," accusing him of corruptly serving the interests of the Holland Land Company while a member of the legislature, criticizing his military commission, accusing him of resigning it under false pretenses and other serious accusations.
As it became clear that Jefferson would drop Burr from his ticket in the 1804 presidential election, Burr chose to run for the governorship of New York instead. He was backed by members of the Federalist Party and was under patronage of Tammany Hall in the New York gubernatorial election. Hamilton campaigned vigorously against Burr, causing him to lose the election to Morgan Lewis, a Clintonian Democratic-Republican whom Hamilton had endorsed.
Prior duels
Both men had been involved in duels in the past. Hamilton had been involved in more than a dozen affairs of honor prior to his fatal encounter with Burr, including disputes with William Gordon (1779), Aedanus Burke (1790), John Francis Mercer (1792–1793), James Nicholson (1795), James Monroe (1797), Ebenezer Purdy and George Clinton (1804). He also served as a second to John Laurens in a 1779 duel with General Charles Lee, and to legal client John Auldjo in a 1787 duel with William Pierce. Hamilton also claimed that he had one previous honor dispute with Burr, while Burr stated that there were two.
Additionally, Hamilton's son Philip was killed in a November 23, 1801, duel with George I. Eacker, which was initiated after Philip and his friend Stephen Price engaged in hooliganish behavior in Eacker's box at the Park Theatre in Manhattan. This was in response to a speech that Eacker had made on July 3, 1801, which was critical of Hamilton. Philip and his friend both challenged Eacker to duels when he called them "damned rascals". Price's duel, also in Weehawken, New Jersey, resulted in nothing more than four missed shots, and Hamilton advised his son to delope – missing intentionally. However, both Philip and Eacker stood shotless for a minute after the command "present", then Philip leveled his pistol, causing Eacker to fire, mortally wounding Philip and sending his shot awry. The later duel between Burr and Hamilton took place near to the spot of the duel between Philip and Eacker.
Election of 1800
Burr and Hamilton first came into public opposition during the 1800 presidential election. Burr and Jefferson ran for president on the Democratic-Republican Party ticket against incumbent President John Adams and his vice-presidential running mate, Charles C. Pinckney, of the Federalist Party. Electoral College rules at the time gave each elector two votes for president, and the candidate who received the second most votes became vice president.
The Democratic-Republican Party planned to have 72 of their 73 electors vote for Jefferson and Burr, with the remaining elector voting only for Jefferson. The electors failed to execute this plan, and Burr and Jefferson were tied with 73 votes each. The United States Constitution stipulated that if two candidates with an Electoral College majority were tied, the election would be moved to the House of Representatives—which at this time was controlled by the Federalists, many of whom were loath to vote for Jefferson. Although Hamilton had a long-standing rivalry with Jefferson stemming from their tenure as members of George Washington's cabinet, he regarded Burr as far more dangerous and used all his influence to ensure Jefferson's election. On the 36th ballot, the House of Representatives gave Jefferson the presidency, with Burr becoming vice president.
Charles Cooper's letter
On April 24, 1804, the Albany Register newspaper published a letter opposing Burr's gubernatorial candidacy which was originally sent from Charles D. Cooper to Hamilton's father-in-law, former senator Philip Schuyler. It made reference to a previous statement by Cooper: "General Hamilton and Judge Kent have declared in substance that they looked upon Mr. Burr to be a dangerous man, and one who ought not be trusted with the reins of government." Cooper went on to emphasize that he could describe in detail "a still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr" at a political dinner.
Burr responded in a letter delivered by William Peter Van Ness which pointed particularly to the phrase "more despicable" and demanded "a prompt and unqualified acknowledgment or denial of the use of any expression which would warrant the assertion of Dr. Cooper." Hamilton's verbose reply on June 20 indicated that he could not be held responsible for Cooper's interpretation of his words (yet he did not fault that interpretation), concluding that he would "abide the consequences" should Burr remain unsatisfied. A recurring theme in their correspondence is that Burr seeks avowal or disavowal of anything that could justify Cooper's characterization, while Hamilton protests that there are no specifics.
Burr replied on June 21, also delivered by Van Ness, stating that "political opposition can never absolve gentlemen from the necessity of a rigid adherence to the laws of honor and the rules of decorum". Hamilton replied that he had "no other answer to give than that which has already been given". This letter was delivered to Nathaniel Pendleton on June 22 but did not reach Burr until June 25. The delay was due to negotiation between Pendleton and Van Ness in which Pendleton submitted the following paper:
General Hamilton says he cannot imagine what Dr. Cooper may have alluded, unless it were to a conversation at Mr. Taylor's, in Albany, last winter (at which he and General Hamilton were present). General Hamilton cannot recollect distinctly the particulars of that conversation, so as to undertake to repeat them, without running the risk of varying or omitting what might be deemed important circumstances. The expressions are entirely forgotten, and the specific ideas imperfectly remembered; but to the best of his recollection it consisted of comments on the political principles and views of Colonel Burr, and the results that might be expected from them in the event of his election as Governor, without reference to any particular instance of past conduct or private character.
Eventually, Burr issued a formal challenge and Hamilton accepted. Many historians have considered the causes of the duel to be flimsy and have thus characterized Hamilton as "suicidal", Burr as "malicious and murderous", or both. Thomas Fleming offers the theory that Burr may have been attempting to recover his honor by challenging Hamilton, whom he considered to be the only gentleman among his detractors, in response to the slanderous attacks against his character published during the 1804 gubernatorial campaign.
Hamilton's reasons for not engaging in a duel included his roles as father and husband, putting his creditors at risk and placing his family's welfare in jeopardy, but he felt that it would be impossible to avoid a duel because he had made attacks on Burr that he was unable to recant, and because of Burr's behavior prior to the duel. He attempted to reconcile his moral and religious reasons and the codes of honor and politics. Joanne Freeman speculates that Hamilton intended to accept the duel and purposefully miss his shot in order to satisfy his moral and political principles.
Duel
In the early morning of July 11, 1804, Burr and Hamilton departed from Manhattan by separate boats and rowed across the Hudson River to a spot known as the Heights of Weehawken, New Jersey, a popular dueling ground below the towering cliffs of the Palisades. Dueling had been prohibited in both New Jersey and New York, but Hamilton and Burr agreed to go to Weehawken because New Jersey was not as aggressive as New York in prosecuting dueling participants. The same site was used for eighteen known duels between 1700 and 1845, and it was not far from the site of the 1801 duel that resulted in the death of Hamilton's eldest son Philip. Burr and Hamilton also took steps to give all witnesses plausible deniability in an attempt to shield themselves from prosecution. For example, the pistols were transported to the island in a portmanteau, enabling the rowers to say under oath that they had not seen any pistols. They also stood with their backs to the duelists.
Burr, Van Ness (his second), Matthew L. Davis, another man often identified as John Swarthout and the rowers all reached the site at 6:30 a.m., whereupon Swarthout and Van Ness started to clear the underbrush from the dueling ground. Hamilton, Judge Nathaniel Pendleton (his second) and Dr. David Hosack arrived a few minutes before seven. Lots were cast for the choice of position and which second should start the duel. Both were won by Hamilton's second, who chose the upper edge of the ledge for Hamilton, facing the city. However, Joseph Ellis claims that Hamilton had been challenged and therefore had the choice of both weapon and position. Under this account, Hamilton himself chose the upstream or north side position.
Some first-hand accounts of the duel agree that two shots were fired, but some say only Burr fired, and the seconds disagreed on the intervening time between them. It was common for both principals in a duel to deliberately miss or fire their shot into the ground to exemplify courage (a practice known as deloping). The duel could then come to an end. Hamilton apparently fired a shot above Burr's head. Burr returned fire and hit Hamilton in the lower abdomen above the right hip. The large-caliber lead ball ricocheted off Hamilton's third or second false rib, fracturing it and causing considerable damage to his internal organs, particularly his liver and diaphragm, before lodging in his first or second lumbar vertebra. According to Pendleton's account, Hamilton collapsed almost immediately, dropping the pistol involuntarily, and Burr moved toward him in a speechless manner (which Pendleton deemed to be indicative of regret) before being hustled away behind an umbrella by Van Ness because Hosack and the rowers were already approaching.
It is entirely uncertain which principal fired first, as both seconds' backs were to the duel in accordance with the pre-arranged regulations so that they could testify that they "saw no fire". After much research to determine the actual events of the duel, historian Joseph Ellis thinks,