It is February 24th. Welcome to Episode 55 of History in a Year. Today, the political becomes fatal. Vice President Aaron Burr, frozen out of power by Thomas Jefferson, attempts a political comeback in New York. Alexander Hamilton, seeing Burr as a threat to the Republic, relentlessly campaigns to destroy him. When a newspaper publishes Hamilton’s “despicable” opinion of Burr, the Vice President demands an apology. We explore the psychological trap of the 18th-century code of honor, Hamilton’s heartbreaking final letters to his wife Eliza, and the agonizing choice he made on a rocky ledge in Weehawken, New Jersey, on July 11, 1804.
STEPHEN:
Welcome to History in a Year: America’s First 250 Years.
LEAH:
Join us every single day as we journey from the Revolution of 1776 to the 250th anniversary of the United States.
STEPHEN:
You can find every episode and join the discussion at PointedWords.com. I’m Stephen.
LEAH:
And I’m Leah.
STEPHEN:
It is February 24th. Welcome to Episode 55. For the last few episodes, we have been watching the bloodless political wars of the early 1800s.
LEAH:
We saw Thomas Jefferson take the presidency in the Revolution of 1800, and we saw John Adams quietly leave town. The system worked.
STEPHEN:
But the peaceful transfer of power didn’t mean the hatred disappeared. The venom was still there. And for two of the Founding Fathers, that political venom was about to turn deadly.
LEAH:
We are fast-forwarding slightly to the year 1804. And we need to check in on Vice President Aaron Burr.
STEPHEN:
To put it mildly, Aaron Burr’s life is falling apart.
LEAH:
Remember the Election of 1800? When there was a tie in the Electoral College, Burr refused to step aside for Thomas Jefferson. He tried to steal the presidency with the help of the Federalists.
STEPHEN:
Jefferson never forgave him for that. When Jefferson finally became President, he completely froze Burr out. He gave him no power, no patronage, and no influence. And as the Election of 1804 approached, Jefferson made it perfectly clear: Aaron Burr was going to be dropped from the ticket.
LEAH:
Burr realizes he has no future in Washington. So, he decides to pivot. He decides to run for Governor of New York.
STEPHEN:
And this is where Burr makes a very dangerous alliance. A group of hardcore, radical Federalists in New England—known as the Essex Junto—are plotting to secede from the United States. They want to form a breakaway Northern Confederacy, and they need New York to do it.
LEAH:
They approach Aaron Burr. They tell him, “If you run for Governor of New York as an independent, we will back you. And if you win, you bring New York into our new country.”
STEPHEN:
Burr, who was always looking for the main chance, flirts with the idea. He runs for Governor.
LEAH:
But someone is watching him. Someone who has spent his entire adult life building the United States of America, and who will not sit by and watch Aaron Burr tear it apart.
STEPHEN:
Alexander Hamilton.
LEAH:
Hamilton has basically retired from public life, but he still controls a massive political network in New York. And when he hears that Burr might win the governorship and potentially break up the Union, Hamilton goes on the attack.
STEPHEN:
Hamilton campaigns relentlessly against Burr. He writes letters, he gives speeches at private dinners, he pulls every string he has. He calls Burr an “embryo Caesar.”
LEAH:
And it works. Burr is crushed in the gubernatorial election in a landslide. His political career is effectively dead.
STEPHEN:
Burr is humiliated, broke, and furious. And he blames one man for all of his failures: Alexander Hamilton.
LEAH:
A few weeks after the election, a letter is published in an Albany newspaper. It was written by a Dr. Charles Cooper, who had attended a dinner party with Hamilton.
STEPHEN:
In the letter, Dr. Cooper writes that Hamilton called Burr “a dangerous man, and one who ought not to be trusted with the reins of government.”
LEAH:
Now, that’s bad. But political insults were common. However, it was the next sentence in the newspaper that sealed their fate.
STEPHEN:
Dr. Cooper added: “I could detail to you a still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr.”
LEAH:
The word despicable. In 1804, that was a trigger word. It was a direct attack on a gentleman’s honor. It implied something personal, something shameful. Burr read the newspaper, cut out the article, and sent it to Hamilton with a letter delivered by a friend.
STEPHEN:
And this is where the strict, insane rules of the 18th-century Code Duello—the code of dueling—take over.
LEAH:
Burr’s letter was a blanket demand. He didn’t ask Hamilton about a specific insult. He basically demanded that Hamilton apologize for anything bad he had ever said about Burr over their entire 15-year rivalry.
STEPHEN:
Hamilton’s pride wouldn’t let him agree to that. He was a brilliant, pedantic lawyer. So instead of just saying “I apologize,” Hamilton wrote a long, condescending essay dissecting the grammar of the word “despicable” and explaining why he couldn’t answer such a vague demand.
LEAH:
Burr was not in the mood for a grammar lesson. He wrote back demanding a “prompt and unqualified acknowledgment or denial.”
STEPHEN:
Hamilton refused to back down. The correspondence went back and forth for weeks, getting colder and more formal each time. Finally, Burr challenged him to an “interview.”
LEAH:
Which was the polite, 18th-century euphemism for a duel to the death.
STEPHEN:
Hamilton accepted. But before he walked onto that dueling ground, Hamilton had a profound, agonizing choice to make.
LEAH:
Hamilton actually hated dueling. He had moral objections to it, and he had religious objections to it. He was a devout Christian in his later years.
STEPHEN:
But more tragically, just three years earlier, in 1801, Hamilton’s eldest son, Philip, had been killed in a duel. He was shot and bled to death defending his father’s honor.
LEAH:
And where did Philip die? At a rocky ledge in Weehawken, New Jersey. The exact same dueling ground Hamilton and Burr were headed to.
STEPHEN:
Hamilton knew the agony this would cause his wife, Eliza. He knew it was a sin. He knew it was illegal.
LEAH:
So why did he do it? Why didn’t he just apologize?
STEPHEN:
Hamilton wrote a secret document before the duel, outlining his reasoning. It’s essentially his final political testament. He wrote that the country was facing massive crises, and he believed he would be called upon in the future to save the Republic.
LEAH:
He genuinely believed that if he backed down from a duel, he would be labeled a coward. His honor would be ruined, and the public would never trust him to lead them again.
STEPHEN:
He made a fatalistic political calculus. He had to show up to protect his future usefulness to America. But he made a second, incredibly brave choice.
LEAH:
He wrote, “I have resolved, if our interview is conducted in the usual manner, and it pleases God to give me the opportunity, to reserve and throw away my first fire, and I have thoughts even of reserving my second fire—and thus giving a double opportunity to Col Burr to pause and to reflect.”
STEPHEN:
Hamilton chose to stand in front of a loaded gun and deliberately miss. He was going to sacrifice his life to preserve his honor, without staining his soul with murder.
LEAH:
On the morning of July 11, 1804, Hamilton and Burr rowed in separate boats across the Hudson River from New York to the dueling grounds in Weehawken, New Jersey.
STEPHEN:
They arrived around 7:00 AM. They cleared away the brush. Hamilton’s second, Nathaniel Pendleton, handed Hamilton a massive, heavy Wogdon dueling pistol.
LEAH:
These pistols had a secret hair-trigger mechanism that Hamilton actually knew about, but there is no evidence he engaged it.
STEPHEN:
The men stood ten paces apart. Pendleton asked if they were ready. Both men said yes. Pendleton yelled, “Present!”
LEAH:
What happened next took less than three seconds, and historians still debate it.
STEPHEN:
According to Hamilton’s second, Hamilton raised his pistol and fired a shot high into the trees, completely missing Burr on purpose. Burr then took careful aim and fired.
LEAH:
According to Burr’s second, Hamilton aimed at Burr, fired, and missed. And Burr, reacting to being shot at, returned fire.
STEPHEN:
Whatever the truth, the result was the same. Burr’s 54-caliber lead ball hit Hamilton in the lower abdomen. It fractured his rib, ripped through his liver and diaphragm, and lodged in his lower spine.
LEAH:
Hamilton instantly collapsed on his face. He knew immediately it was a mortal wound. He looked up at Dr. David Hosack and said, “This is a mortal wound, doctor.”
STEPHEN:
Aaron Burr started to walk toward Hamilton, perhaps to apologize or express regret, but Burr’s second threw an umbrella over him and rushed him away to the boats so he wouldn’t be recognized by witnesses.
LEAH:
They rowed Hamilton back across the river. He was in agonizing pain. They carried him to the home of a friend in Manhattan.
STEPHEN:
His wife, Eliza, and their seven remaining children rushed to his bedside. The scene was heartbreaking. Hamilton tried to comfort Eliza, telling her, “Remember, my Eliza, you are a Christian.”
LEAH:
After 31 hours of unimaginable suffering, Alexander Hamilton died at 2:00 PM on July 12, 1804. He was 47 years old.
STEPHEN:
The city of New York went into shock. They gave him a massive, unprecedented funeral. His death effectively destroyed the Federalist Party for good. They had lost their brains, their engine, and their undisputed leader.
LEAH:
And what happened to Aaron Burr? The man who won the duel lost everything else.
STEPHEN:
He was the sitting Vice President of the United States, but he was suddenly a wanted man. He was indicted for murder in New York and New Jersey. He had to flee to the South just to avoid arrest. His political career was permanently destroyed. He would spend the rest of his life in disgrace, eventually trying to start a treasonous empire out West.
LEAH:
The Hamilton-Burr duel is the ultimate tragedy of the Founding Era. Two brilliant men, trapped by their own pride and a toxic political culture, throwing away their lives on a rocky cliff in New Jersey.
STEPHEN:
With Hamilton dead and the Federalists in ruins, Thomas Jefferson had complete control of the country. And he was about to use that power to make the greatest real estate deal in human history.
LEAH:
Join us tomorrow for Episode 56. We step back to 1803 to witness a diplomatic miracle. Napoleon Bonaparte needs cash, and Thomas Jefferson wants a river. We watch as the United States accidentally buys half a continent and completely changes the destiny of the world.
STEPHEN:
I’m Stephen.
LEAH:
And I’m Leah.
STEPHEN:
You can find every episode at PointedWords.com. And this… is our story.