10 Things You Need to Know About the Hamilton-Burr Duel, According to Hamilton’s Burr

After falling asleep on a couch at his Richmond Hill estate (on the edge of modern Manhattan’s  Soho), Burr awakened early on July 11, 1804, put on a black silk coat that was said to be “impenetrable to ball” (bulletproof), and was taken to a dock on the Hudson River. To keep the duel secret, he and Hamilton left Manhattan from separate docks at 5 a.m. and were each rowed by four men to New Jersey. Burr arrived first, at 6:30.

According to the rules under which duels in the early American republic were generally fought, each duelist had a second, who was responsible for the duel’s being conducted honorably. Among other duties, they inspected the weapons (flintlock pistols in this case, Hamilton’s choice as the challenged party) and marked off the 10 paces separating the duelists. William P. Van Ness, the New York City federal  judge who acted as Burr’s second, had also been his intermediary in the negotiations in the affair of honor between Burr and Hamilton over defamatory remarks that Hamilton had allegedly made about Burr that ultimately led to the duel.

Burr was waiting at the steep Palisades (roughly across the river from modern West 42nd Street) when Hamilton arrived at 7 a.m. with his second, Nathaniel Pendleton, a Revolutionary War veteran and Georgia district court judge, along with Dr. David Hosack, a professor of medicine and botany at Columbia College (now Columbia University). Duels were illegal in both New York and New Jersey but were dealt with less harshly in New Jersey, so Burr and Hamilton had gone to Weehawken to a secluded ledge some 20 feet above the Hudson, a spot that had become a popular dueling ground.

Most often, affairs of honor that might have resulted in duels were settled through careful negotiation. The exchange of letters between Burr and Hamilton, however, escalated in enmity to a point of no return, beginning with Hamilton’s clinical response to Burr’s initial accusatory missive. The long political rivalry between the two had culminated in two earlier events. Owing to the quirks of the presidential election process in 1800, Burr tied with his running mate, Thomas Jefferson (who topped the Democratic-Republican ticket), in the electoral college vote. Burr chose to vie with Jefferson for the top office. As a result of Hamilton’s influence on his fellow Federalists, Burr lost. He became vice president but was marginalized by Jefferson. In an attempt to revitalize his political career, Burr switched parties and sought the nomination as the Federalist candidate for governor of New York in 1804. Again, Hamilton used his influence to block the ambitions of Burr, who ran as an independent and lost badly. Burr’s subsequent challenge to Hamilton was another attempt by Burr to resuscitate his career. It came in response to a letter published in a newspaper in which Dr. Charles D. Cooper had reported that in a dinner conversation Hamilton had called Burr “a dangerous man.” In Cooper’s words, Hamilton also expressed a “more despicable opinion” of Burr. It was the loaded word despicable that drew Burr’s focus. In his letter to Hamilton, he called for an explanation. When that request ballooned to a demand that Hamilton deny that he had ever spoken ill of Burr, Hamilton felt that he could not comply with the blanket request without sacrificing his own political career. The only path led to Weehawken.

By lot, Hamilton picked the side from which he would he would fire. Though he had distinguished himself in the Continental Army and was Gen. George Washington’s most-trusted aide during the war, it was unlikely that Hamilton had shot a pistol since the Revolution.

Hamilton’s 19-year-old son Philip was killed in a duel near present-day Jersey City in November 1801 that had resulted from Philip’s conflict with George Eacker, a Democratic-Republican who maligned Philip’s father in a speech. Hamilton père’s strong sense of personal honor had led him to issue several challenges earlier in his life that might have led to duels but through negotiation didn’t; however, he had come to oppose dueling on Christian principles. He advised Philip to salvage his honor without the risk of killing his opponent by “throwing away his shot,” shooting first into the air in the hope that his adversary would reconsider the consequences. Initially Philip did not raise his gun, but when he did, Eacker mortally wounded him.

The pistols used were the same ones employed in Philip’s fatal duel. Made by a well-known London gunsmith in the 1790s, they featured an additional hairspring trigger, which Burr may not have known about but which Hamilton chose not to set.

Burr too had been a Revolutionary War hero, but whether or not he had been an able shot during the war, there was evidence that he had been practicing his pistol marksmanship at Richmond Hill for some time in advance of the duel.

As he stood facing Burr, Hamilton aimed his pistol and then asked for a moment to put on spectacles. Hamilton, however, had already told confidants and made clear in valedictory letters that he intended to throw away his shot, possibly by purposefully shooting wide of Burr. The seconds offered conflicting accounts of who shot first and what happened, whether Hamilton missed on purpose or whether he shot wide as a result of involuntarily discharging his pistol after being hit by Burr. In any case, Hamilton missed; Burr didn’t.

Burr’s shot hit Hamilton in the abdomen area above the right hip, fractured a rib, tore through his diaphragm and liver, and lodged in his spine. Burr apparently began to move toward Hamilton, perhaps with a look of regret on his face, but Van Ness quickly spirited him away, obscuring his face from potential witnesses. Having already declared himself a dead man, Hamilton was conveyed back to Manhattan, surviving for roughly 31 hours, mostly in the presence of his family, before he died. Soon under the threat of prosecution for murder, Burr fled, initially to Philadelphia but ultimately into infamy, though he would never be tried for murder. He had hoped to restore his reputation and political career by dueling Hamilton; instead, he extinguished them.