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Hamilton was happily married to a woman of aristocratic family; rich, educated, intellectual, gentle, and worthy of him at his best. They had a family of eight children. Hamilton was a favorite of women everywhere and was mixed up in various scandalous intrigues. He was an easy mark for a designing woman. In one instance, the affair was seized upon by his political foes, and made capital of to his sore disadvantage. Hamilton met the issue by writing a pamphlet, laying bare the entire shameless affair, to the horror of his family and friends. Copies of this pamphlet may be seen in the rooms of the American Historical Society at New York. Burr had been Attorney-General of New York State and also United States Senator. Each man had served on Washington’s staff; each had a brilliant military record; each had acted as second in a duel; each recognized the honor of the code.

Stern political differences arose, not so much through matters of opinion and conscience, as through ambitious rivalry. Neither was willing the other should rise, yet both thirsted for place and power. Burr ran for the Presidency, and was sternly, strongly, bitterly opposed as “a dangerous man” by Hamilton.

At the election one more electoral vote would have given the highest office of the people to Aaron Burr; as it was he tied with Jefferson. The matter was thrown into the House of Representatives, and Jefferson was given the office, with Burr as Vice-President. Burr considered, and perhaps rightly, that were it not for Hamilton’s assertive influence he would have been President of the United States.

While still Vice-President, Burr sought to become Governor of New York, thinking this the surest road to receiving the nomination for the Presidency at the next election.

Hamilton openly and bitterly opposed him, and the office went to another.

Burr considered, and rightly, that were it not for Hamilton’s influence he would have been Governor of New York.

Burr, smarting under the sting of this continual opposition by a man who himself was shelved politically through his own too fiery ambition, sent a note by his friend Van Ness to Hamilton, asking whether the language he had used concerning him (“a dangerous man”) referred to him politically or personally.

Hamilton replied evasively, saying he could not recall all that he might have said during fifteen years of public life. “Especially,” he said in his letter, “it can not be reasonably expected that I shall enter into any explanation upon a basis so vague as you have adopted. I trust on more reflection you will see the matter in the same light. If not, however, I only regret the circumstances, and must abide the consequences.”

When fighting men use fighting language they invite a challenge. Hamilton’s excessively polite regret that “he must abide the consequences” simply meant fight, as his language had for a space of five years.

A challenge was sent by the hand of Pendleton. Hamilton accepted. Being the challenged man (for duelists are always polite), he was given the choice of weapons. He chose pistols at ten paces.

At seven o’clock on the morning of July Eleventh, Eighteen Hundred Four, the participants met on the heights of Weehawken, overlooking New York Bay. On a toss Hamilton won the choice of position and his second also won the right of giving the word to fire.

Each man removed his coat and cravat; the pistols were loaded in their presence. As Pendleton handed his pistol to Hamilton he asked, “Shall I set the hair-trigger?”

“Not this time,” replied Hamilton. With pistols primed and cocked, the men were stationed facing each other, thirty feet apart.

Both were pale, but free from any visible nervousness or excitement. Neither had partaken of stimulants. Each was asked if he had anything to say, or if he knew of any way by which the affair could be terminated there and then.

Each answered quietly in the negative. Pendleton, standing fifteen feet to the right of his principal, said: “One–two–three–present!” and as the last final sounding of the letter “t” escaped his teeth, Burr fired, followed almost instantly by the other.

Hamilton arose convulsively on his toes, reeled, and Burr, dropping his smoking pistol, sprang towards him to support him, a look of regret on his face.

Van Ness raised an umbrella over the fallen man, and motioned Burr to be gone.

The ball passed through Hamilton’s body, breaking a rib, and lodging in the second lumbar vertebra.

The bullet from Hamilton’s pistol cut a twig four feet above Burr’s head.

While he was lying on the ground Hamilton saw his pistol near and said, “Look out for that pistol, it is loaded–Pendleton knows I did not intend to fire at him!”

Hamilton died the following day, first declaring that he bore Colonel Burr no ill-will.

Colonel Burr said he very much regretted the whole affair, but the language and attitude of Hamilton forced him to send a challenge or remain quiet and be branded as a coward. He fully realized before the meeting that if he killed Hamilton it would be political death for him, too.

At the time of the deed Burr had no family; Hamilton had a wife and seven children, his oldest son having fallen in a duel fought three years before on the identical spot where he, too, fell.

Burr fled the country.

Three years afterwards, he was arrested for treason in trying to found an independent State within the borders of the United States. He was tried and found not guilty.

After some years spent abroad he returned and took up the practise of law in New York. He was fairly successful, lived a modest, quiet life, and died September Fourteenth, Eighteen Hundred Thirty-six, aged eighty years.

Hamilton’s widow survived him just one-half a century, dying in her ninety-eighth year.

So passeth away the glory of the world.